La Garma in Cantabria, wins the € 80,000 with which the award is endowed
The National Archaeological Museum (MAN) has been the setting for the event attended by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, along with prominent personalities from the world ofarcheology, paleontology and the culture of our country.
The National Archaeological Museum (MAN) has been the scene of the award ceremony of the II National Award of Archeology and Paleontology Fundación Palarq, accompanied by the president of Fundación Palarq, Antonio Gallardo Ballart, the vice president and counselor of Universities, Equality, Culture and Sports of the government of Cantabria, Pablo Zuloaga and the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, who chaired the event. Doctors Pablo Arias Cabal and Roberto Ontañón Peredo of the International Institute for Prehistoric Research of Cantabria (IIIPC), have received the award, endowed with 80,000 euros, for the project: ‘The Mountain of time. Exploration of a Paleolithic camp in La Garma‘.
The president of the Palarq Foundation, Antonio Gallardo, reiterated during his speech the exceptional nature of the winning project, in which the values of excellence and originality that the Prize promotes converge ‘in a field of fundamental science for the generation of knowledge that it needs of our support to continue fulfilling its role with society. ‘ In this sense, Gallardo added that “we are in a field in which the economic part is not enough and from the Foundation we contribute so that the support for these disciplines reaches where the state or the autonomies do not.”
The Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, has valued collaboration, commitment and help to researchers: ‘It is true that knowing our past probably allows us to better interpret the present and prepare for the future, but, even if it was not Even if it was only a strict knowledge of our origins, it would be worth the effort. ‘ For this reason he wanted to congratulate the Palarq Foundation, the winners and all those who are dedicated to the recovery and conservation of heritage.
On behalf of the research team, Dr. Pablo Arias, has shown his satisfaction for the recognition of the work carried out in this site, the only one in the world that they define as‘ a Pompeii of Prehistory in which we can obtain information that does not you can get it nowhere else in the world. ‘
For his part, Dr. Roberto Ontañón, has assured that ‘our responsibility is to conserve the site, to research with non-invasive methods to preserve that legacy: not only because it is a first-class heritage asset, as recognized by UNESCO, with its inclusion in the World Heritage list, but because in 50 or 100 years archaeological research will be different. ‘
The vice-president and counselor of Universities, Equality, Culture and Sports of the Government of Cantabria, Pablo Zuloaga, wanted to recognize the effort and work of the awarded researchers and highlight ‘the financing work that the Government of Cantabria has been developing for generations ‘and recalled that La Garma is only one of the ten patrimonies of humanity’ that we treasure in Cantabria ‘.
The Mountain of time. Exploring a Paleolithic camp at La Garma
La Garma is a unique site in the world that constitutes a true time capsule, where it stopped 16,500 years ago, thanks to a landslide at the original entrance that transformed the cave into a bubble, which has preserved the vestiges of a Paleolithic settlement. It is a hill on which 13 archaeological sites have been identified that document the human presence in Cantabria over 400,000 years.
