Analysis of the red ochre of the El Mirón burial (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria, Spain)

Abstract This article analyzes the ochre associated with the human burial of Magdalenian age in El Miron Cave that, with its unique features (deep red color, brightness and particle size distribution), is clearly differentiated from ochres in other strata of the site. The most common techniques in archaeological pigment characterization studies were used: binocular microscope inspection, thin sections, granulometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Raman spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results obtained permit the characterization of special ochre in burial layer (hematite with idiomorphic crystallinity). Its origin is completely different from the samples from outcrops inside El Miron Cave or obtained by prospecting in Carranza Valley. This type of hematite has been identified on the coast, in Santona, about 26 km from the burial. Given its uniqueness, can be associated with some kind of ritual of the time whose roots lay in the Middle Palaeolithic and continued throughout the rest of Prehistory.