Updated 27th September 2012; 24th November 2013; 19th January, 2nd, 5th February 2014; 23rd May 2015; 3rd December 2016; 8th January 2020

   The grid reference is an estimate.
   The passage lowers from hands-and-knees height to a crawl. After 12m the floor had to be dug out for access to a final 3m section on the left.
   A few human bones were found when the site was discovered in 2009. In 2012 it was seen that animals had dug out more bones and permission was obtained from the Cantabrian authorities to collect these and other human remains in the cave in 2013. In January 2014, when the final length of passage was entered, a left femur was found on the surface in a small chamber at the end.
   The anthropological study by the Aranzadi Science Society (San Sebastián) has identified a minimum number of five adult individuals and one child. Other remains found in the cave include a few flints and small potsherds.
(Peter Smith)
   The definitive article about the finds in the cave was published near the end of 2016 in MUNIBE Antropologia-Arkeologia no. 67.
La cueva sepulcral calcolítica del Cubío del Escalón (Matienzo, Cantabria) y el modelo de las pequeñas cuevas sepulcrales en Cantabria by Peter Smith, Jesús Ruiz Cobo, Anabel Sanz, Lourdes Herrasti, Ignacio Castanedo Tapia and Juan Corrin. The full article can be downloaded.
    Reference Smith P et al, 2015 has a summary of the archaeological work carried out within 2004 - 2016 and a table of radio-carbon dates.

Reference: anon., 2009a (Easter logbook); anon., 2012d (summer logbook); Corrin Juan, 2013a; anon., 2013e (autumn logbook); anon., 2015b (Easter logbook); Smith P et al, 2015; Smith Peter et al, 2016
Entrance pictures: yes
Underground pictures : bones found 2009 : more bones discovered 2012 : excavations November 2013 : femurs, January 2014
Video : Excavations November 2013 (YouTube) : excavations January 2014 (YouTube)
Detailed Survey : February 2014, pdf
Line Survey :
On area survey :
Survex file :