El Cierro perforated plaque

Source term: espatula-bramadera (museum label)

bramadera: Spanish bullroarer; espatula: spatula, the museum's paired term for this flat form.

A flat, worked plaque from Cueva del Cierro, rounded at one end and pierced near it, hangs in the Asturias museum under a label that names two functions at once: espátula-bramadera, spatula-bullroarer. Older reports from a Lower Magdalenian layer in the same cave describe a polished, perforated rib and a separate perforated shaft among the site's ornaments, either of which could be this very piece.

Particulars

Object

A flat, elongated worked plaque, rounded and single-perforated near its upper end and tapering slightly toward the other, shown in the museum's accession photograph against a centimetre scale bar; no publication confirms what material it is worked from.

Function

Not recorded.