Pla de l'Estany is one of the regions with the richest archaeological heritage in Catalonia. The Neolithic site of village of La DragaDating back some 7,000 years, this site is one of the most important on the Iberian Peninsula and is very close to the Serinyà burial caves and the Roman settlement of Vilauba, both of great interest. In recent times, exceptional remains, often remarkably well-preserved, have been discovered at all these locations, having remained hidden beneath the pond's waters for centuries. Now, all these finds will be exhibited in the renovated Banyoles Regional Archaeological Museum (MACB), which, after nearly 16 years of museographic redesign and renovations, is reopening its doors to help visitors understand 45 million years of history. The new space, spread across the upper floors of several heritage buildings in the town center, features more than 1,600 original pieces, many of which are being shown to the public for the first time. The previous museum displayed numerous replicas for security and conservation reasons. Bones of fauna dating back 40 million years, such as crocodiles and marine sirenians, or exceptional Neolithic objects containing organic material like wood or cord, fill the display cases of the renovated Banyoles museum.

It was known that men and women used marine horns to communicate until the mid-20th century. And they were still used, until seven or eight decades ago, by itinerant fishmongers when they wanted to sell their wares in the Ripollès region and the Pyrenees, or by the Ebro riverboatmen to announce the arrival and departure of vessels, or to warn of fog. "They are highly effective long-distance communication tools and, in addition, could have served as musical instruments, because they can produce a very loud sound and allow for very effective control of their intensity," says Miquel López-Garcia, archaeologist and researcher at the University of Barcelona. To demonstrate his hypothesis, López-Garcia, who is also a professional trumpet player, took Neolithic marine horns preserved in various Catalan museums, such as the Vinseum, the Barcelona History Museum, and the Gavà Museum, and played them to study their sound qualities. The results have been published in the magazine Antiquity from the University of Cambridge. "We knew that several shells had been discovered of Charonia lampas "In a relatively small area of Catalonia, specifically in the lower reaches of the Llobregat River and in the Penedès Pre-coastal Depression, east of Barcelona," explains Margarita Díaz-Andreu, co-author of the research and professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) at the University of Barcelona. This has led researchers to suggest that they could have functioned as musical instruments. Researchers believe this could indicate that different communities used them to communicate. "The use of shells as musical instruments and as powerful communication tools transforms how we understand sound, space, and social cohesion in early prehistoric societies," concludes Díaz-Andreu.

Was cannibalism an act of love for family or neighbors, connecting the material world with the afterlife? An act of survival, of desperation in the face of hunger? The final episode after a violent confrontation? A research team led by the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) has documented a new episode of cannibalism among livestock groups from the late Neolithic, 5,700 years ago, in the El Mirador cave (Atapuerca). "We have increasingly sophisticated techniques that allow us to understand why cannibalism was practiced during prehistory," says Palmira Saladié, the IPHES-BÚSQUEDA researcher who led the study. In this latest excavation, at least eleven individuals (children, adolescents, and adults) were found, ripped, fleshed, disarticulated, fractured, cooked, and consumed in a very short time. "Strontium isotopic analysis indicates that all the individuals consumed were of local origin and were devoured in just ten days. The fact that they were consumed in such a short time rules out a funerary ritual, and there is no evidence of extreme hunger," says Saladié. At that time, in the province of Burgos, there were forests and grasslands. Livestock-raising communities had access to wildlife such as deer, foxes, and rabbits, but also domestic animals such as sheep, goats, and cattle.