On 21 September, CISPAC will host the research seminar Archaeological excavations at Cova Eirós and Gruta dos Bloques: two sites, two realities, which will present the results of the campaign carried out in August 2026 at these two sites on the slopes of Monte Penedo, in Cancelo (Triacastela).
The caves in this area provide key information for understanding the development of the human groups that inhabited the mountain ranges of eastern Galicia during Prehistory. Cova Eirós is Galicia’s longest-running Palaeolithic excavation project and has one of the region’s richest archaeological records. Its occupational sequence spans the Middle Palaeolithic, approximately 50,000 to 39,000 years ago, and the Upper Palaeolithic, 36,000 to 14,000 years ago, through to more recent periods such as the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic and the Middle Ages.
Gruta dos Bloques, meanwhile, is a rock shelter with an archaeological deposit of considerable potential, where evidence of occupation dating back to the Bronze Age has been identified. The joint study of the materials recovered from both sites provides insights into different aspects of the lives of the communities that occupied this territory over time.
The seminar will feature Hugo Bal García, Tania Mosquera Castro, Álvaro Ibáñez Encinas and Ramón Fábregas Valcarce, from the University of Santiago de Compostela and researchers at CISPAC; Mikel Díaz Rodríguez, from the University of Vigo and a researcher at CISPAC; Xosé Pedro Rodríguez Álvarez, from Rovira i Virgili University and IPHES; Iria López Vieitez, from the University of Santiago de Compostela; and Arturo de Lombera Hermida, from the University of Oviedo.