Digging in a Mediterranean island is just amazing. All archaeologists working in the island share the same dilemma and dream about finding out how and when humans first arrived to Menorca. To answer these questions is a difficult challenge which can only be explained by Archaeology. Some traces of human occupation inside caves help us to understand how the first inhabitants could have survived in this island, since they would have been surrounded by inhospitable environment conditions with extreme and dangerous situations.
  
The first inhabitants found shelter in Mother Nature itself, thanks to the ravines full of caves and rock shelters, where they could stay away from adversities. Their diet was based on the recollection of wild fruits and seafood, as well as fishing and hunting of small species.
 
Archaeologists believe that man arrived for the first time to the Balearic Islands between  5000 and 2200 B.C., from the eastern coast of mainland Spain, by means of rafts made of rush. In a later period, known as the Bronze Age, the island was populated at a slow pace by small farming communities. With the passing of time, those communities would start developing the art of metallurgy.
 
The archaeological research planned by the Cape of Cavalleria Ecomuseum aims at gathering information which can give us an insight into the lives of the first inhabitants of Menorca, through the excavation of a recently discovered cave named “Cueva de la Costa Norte” (“Northern coast cave”). The first layers of clay which cover the archaeological deposits have changed throughout time due to the role of several natural agents, such as changes in watercourses because of the rain and wind. Also, the activity carried out by small animals have revealed several human remains, some of them burnt, hand-made pottery, fragments of necklaces and small objects made of glass paste, all of them dating from the Bronze Age.
The “Cueva de la Costa Norte” is a collective burial site which dates between 2000 B.C. and 1350 B.C. Thanks to the bibliography available to us, we know that in some caves located nearby, several skulls have been found which show trepanation holes, corresponding to one of the main practices carried out in Menorca during Prehistoric times.

During the Bronze Age, the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands developed complex funerary rituals and practices. They buried their dead inside caves, located not far away from their settlements. The corpses were placed without a certain organization or orientation, with disarticulated bones and teeth scattered all around. They were buried with personal belongings and grave goods.

According to some experts on the topic of the ritual practices, it is thought that the corpses were deprived of their skins before they were buried. Moreover, some of their bones, such as the skull and the long bones, were placed in different areas of the cave in order to perform some sort of religious ceremony. As a general rule, in this type of caves there are no evidence of children remains, and this could mean that only those who had passed from puberty to adulthood could be buried inside caves.
 
Children mortality must have been high, since only two out of three children reached adolescence. All women and men, regardless their ages, had the right to be buried. Life expectancy for men was roughly 34 years, while women’s life expectancy was slightly lower.