Palaeolithic

The origins of the lorquian prehistory are remounted to the Palaeolithic inferior, from the 1.800.000 to 95.000 years B.C. The first inhabitants of the Lorca territory were nomadic and they moved in searching for foods that were obtained through the chase and the harvesting. They lived outdoors in the borders of the rivers and in small groups.

The more ancient remains dated from about 120.000 to 95.000 years B.C. We find tools of stone such as ‘bifaz’ or scraper, found in the terraces of the Turrilla river. For the creation of these tools they used the silex, a hard and resistant stone that when striking appeared cutting edges. They served for cutting into pieces the animals, for cutting skins or for perforating wood. They used also other materials such as wood, bones, vegetable fibres and animals, but they have not been kept until our days.

In the Palaeolithic Medium, from the 95.000 to the 32.000 years B.C., the inhabitants also lived in cracks and shelters. They used the fire and manufactured instruments, as spearheads and scrapers. The excavation of Cueva Perneras in Ramonete has permitted to document that the fishing and the shell fishing were the complement of the alimentary diet. We can also mention other shelters like el Barranco de la Hoz in Zarzadilla de Totana and the Cerro Negro de Jofré in Zarcilla de Ramos.

In the Palaeolithic superior, from the 32.000 to the 9.000 B.C., people perfected the technique of manufacture of the tools. And so, they carried out the first artistic manifestations, dealing with magic-religious functions, as the cave painting in caves and shelters, as well as the engravings in bone or stone and the sculptures. In Lorca some cave paintings have been found in the shelters of the saw of ‘El Gigante and ‘La Culebrina’, we find the so called ‘el Mojao’, although it was wasted in 1990, and the Gavilanes or Los Paradores.

The UNESCO deposed, on 2nd December 1998, the rupestrian art of the Mediterranean fringe as world patrimony, since it constitutes the major nucleus of rupestrian art of Europe. It also offers an exceptional portrait of the life of the human being in a main period of the cultural human evolution.