The excavation campaign at Camp dels Ninots in Caldes de Malavella (Selva) has been “very fruitful” according to the coordinator of the site, Bruno Gómez. The researcher assures that they have found an aquatic bird that measures between a meter and a meter and a half from 3.1 million years ago.
Gómez has detailed that “60%” of this great bird is preserved and they have also found skeletons of ducks, crows and microvertebrates. The coordinator of the site has assured that it is not usual to find so many remains at the level where they have excavated this year, since they are usually below. Now, the council wants to buy the land of the deposit, currently in private hands, to make a permanent exhibition.
This 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of contained excavation campaigns at the Camp dels Ninots site in Caldes de Malavella. It is an area where there was a lake on a volcano where remains of animals and flora from the last three million years have been found. Now, taking advantage of this twentieth anniversary, Gómez has explained that they have concentrated on a new sector where they have found many remains.
This year’s campaign has focused on level 10 of the excavation, where there was a lot of land. Gómez explained that they were aware that there were some remains at this level, but not so many were expected. The usual thing is to find remains at lower levels, where there are layers of clay. On the ground, whatever remains there may be are “materials that are dragged from outside,” according to Gómez.
The most important finding of this campaign has been a large bird that would have weighed between 4 and 8 kilos. Bruno Gómez has detailed that they still do not know “the genus or the species” of this bird that they have found. The researcher has advanced that it could be a flamingo or a stork.
In the case of this aquatic bird, it is the first time that an entire skeleton has been found with all the bones connected, since until now only isolated remains had been found. This information will allow researchers to study the paleoenvironmental setting of Camp dels Ninots.
Now, all this material is being transferred to the laboratory of the research team in the Aquae space in Caldes de Malavella. In these facilities there are six restorers who are in charge of making a first care of the remains and then they are sent to Tarragona where they are studied and preserved.
The coordinator of the deposit has detailed that in the face of the next campaigns they will concentrate on the new sector that they have opened and finish the current level and move on to lower layers. Gómez recalled that in the clayey areas of the rest of the sectors is where they had found the largest remains of tapirs, bovids and rhinos.
The first deputy mayor in office in Caldes de Melavella, Sergi Mir, has detailed that the will of the council is to “buy the land” where the Camp dels Ninots site is located. Mir recalled that the remains are in a private field and that is why they want to buy the space from the owner. Once it passes into municipal hands, the acting deputy mayor has announced that they will project a “medium-term investment” to provide the area with services that “provide facilities for researchers.”
It is a question of bringing a connection of light and water to the area of ​​the site and also a building that allows archaeologists to store the tools and material for the duration of the excavation campaign. In addition, the council also wants the space to be “visitable” the rest of the year and to be able to make “a small exhibition” with part of the remains that have been extracted over the 20 years. Today, since the land is not municipal, they have to install prefabricated modules and sails to store the material and have a work space.
