Around 19,000 years ago, a woman ̶ possibly a woman of some special status ̶ from a group of hunter-gatherers died and was buried in El Mirón Cave in northern Spain. In 1996, archaeologists started exploring the cave, finding abundant evidence of prehistoric people. In 2010 Lawrence Straus, Emeritus Leslie Spier Distinguished Professor at The University of New Mexico, and a Spanish student found the woman’s remains, including her jaw, after Straus had what he described as “a hunch” to dig in an area behind an engraved block at the back of the cave’s huge vestibule.
The Red Lady s jaw
The excavation was directed by Straus and Manuel Gonzalez Morales of the Universidad de Cantabria in Santander between 1996-2013 with the participation of many students from UNM, Cantabria and universities around the world. They found El Mirón has a cultural sequence ranging from the late Middle Paleolithic to the Bronze Age.