(Zaragoza/Huesca, Wednesday, May 14, 2025). The Rock Art Center of Colungo (Huesca) will host the lecture “The Exceptional Archaeological Record of the Vero”on Saturday, May 17, at 1:30 PM, delivered by María Lourdes Montes Ramírez, Associate Professor of Prehistory at the University of Zaragoza and researcher with the Early Settlers and Archaeological Heritage of the Ebro Valley (P3A) group of the IUCA.
The lecture will provide an overview of the intensive archaeological research carried out in the Río Vero basin since the 1960s. The speaker will focus on the region’s most significant archaeological sites—such as the Fuente del Trucho and Drólica caves, the Huerto Raso rock shelter, and the many rock art sites—which together constitute one of the most important prehistoric heritage complexes in the Iberian Peninsula.
This session is part of the Stories of the Earth lecture series, a science outreach initiative led by the University Institute for Environmental Sciences of Aragon (IUCA). The series travels through the three provinces of Aragon during the 2024/2025 academic year, with the aim of sharing geological, paleontological, and archaeological history with a broad audience.
About the Speaker
María Lourdes Montes Ramírez has been an Associate Professor of Prehistory at the University of Zaragoza since 1996, following a decade of teaching at the University of the Basque Country. She is a researcher at IUCA and the P3A Group of the Government of Aragon and has developed a distinguished career focused on the prehistory of the Ebro Basin.
She has participated in more than twenty publicly funded research projects and is currently leading the “Gaps and Dates” project on prehistoric cultural dynamics (PID2020-116598GB-I00), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Her fieldwork includes key excavations related to Neanderthal populations and Paleolithic transitions at sites such as Peña Miel, Gabasa, Espantalobos, and Legunova, among others. She is also actively involved in cross-border research on Pyrenean prehistory.
Upcoming Talks
📅 06/18/2025 – De-extinction and Biodiversity, by Pere Bover Arbós, ARAID researcher and head of the IUCA Paleogenomics Laboratory – University of Zaragoza | 7:00 PM, Espacio Ibercaja