Cova dels Galls Carboners

The cavity appears to have been discovered by the former owners of the mas d'en Marc, which is below the TV-7041 road from Mont-ral to Capafonts, and they themselves excavated it, taking from it many human bones and other prehistoric material; it was also known to the AAEMI de Valls, who found more archaeological material, which appears to have been lost. The colleagues from Valls knew it as Cova del Grèvol (after the tree at its mouth). Many years later, the descendants of the owners of the mas got in contact with the IPHES de Tarragona, which proceeded to carry out an archaeological excavation there and to study the material. The group (GIEM, Montblanc) was unaware of the existence of this cavity and was informed of it during the course of the interview that we conducted with J.M.Capellades de Valls for the preparation of the book. A week later they had already located it (April 2012), making three trips to prepare its record sheet. From the archaeological point of view it has been considered a burial cave with funerary rites of the Middle Bronze Age. Among the finds, one of 20 individuals stands out, along with many necklace pieces made up of small white beads probably manufactured from fragments of shell. The cave had been excavated in the 70s of the last century by Ferran Companys, owner of the estate where it is located, with the recovery of human remains, very well preserved. His descendants ceded them to the Àrea de Prehistòria de la Rovira i Virgili, the information having been provided by the colleague Josep Maria Vergés, researcher at the IPHES (Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social), who was the director of the excavation and whose main objective was to document the archaeological context of the collective sepulchre based on the elements that were preserved “in situ”, making a complete description of it in the work published in the Butlletí Arqueològic de Tarragona no. 38-39 (2016-2017). The researchers indicate that most of the materials would come from the Middle Bronze Age, about 3,500 years B.P., and besides the human remains, samples of sediments have been able to be extracted for residue analyses, in addition to the fact that a level with palaeontological remains was located below the burial deposit.

Coleoptera

• Duvalius berthae (Jeannel, 1910) (Joan Pallisé; 2012-2013)
• Troglocharinus orcinus (Jeannel, 1910) (Joan Pallisé; 2012-2013)