Date of birth : 03/05/2024

Sex : Female

Colour : Black silver blotched with white

EMS : NFO ns 22 09

Celtic name that means “who comes from the mountains.”

Elba was a Galician shepherdess from 9,300 years ago who tamed aurochs (the established idea is that 9,000 years ago there was no domestication of livestock) and she became the first Mesolithic woman found in Spain.

Elba was around 1.50 m tall, was lactose intolerant and accidentally fell into a ditch when she was crossing the snowy mountain range of O Courel. She was probably between 30 and 40 years old and was with the aurochs at the time the ground sink under her feet.

The woman was crossing the mountain along an ancestral route in use for millennia, its final route being a paved road, probably at the end of winter or beginning of spring, still with snow, which is why she did not see the chasm that had opened and in which they rushed.

The remains of the three large bovids buried with her in the chasm of Chan do Lindeiro (Pedrafita do Cebreiro) are the only ones found in Galicia.

The mountains were an inhospitable place and the aurochs were more typical of lower areas, not of Os Ancares, but of granite terrain. It was not its usual habitat.

The aurochs came from different locations and the specimens were a huge male with horns measuring two meters in total length and two other younger ones not related to him.

A hyper-realistic, life-size reproduction of the woman is exhibited in the archaeological museum of Quiroga, Lugo.

Elba Donalbai*PT

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