Journal of Archaeological Science (2002) 29, 953–958 doi:10.1006/jasc.2001.0794, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on Middle Palaeolithic Refugium, or Archaeological Misconception? A New U-series and Radiocarbon Chronology of Abric Agut (Capellades, Spain) Manuel Vaquero*, Montse Esteban, Ethel Allue ´, Josep Vallverdu ´ and Eudald Carbonell Area de Prehisto `ria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Pl. Imperial Tarraco, 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain James L. Bischoff U.S. Geological Survey ms/470, 345 Middlefield Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, U.S.A. (Received 23 September 2001, revised manuscript accepted 6 November 2001) New U-Series and C14 (AMS) dates are provided for the Abric Agut (Capellades, Barcelona, Spain). This site was previously considered to be of Middle Palaeolithic age according to the characteristics of the lithic assemblage. In addition, human teeth were uncovered and attributed to neandertals. However, radiometric dating clearly indicates a Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene age.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: RADIOMETRIC DATING, MESOLITHIC, MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC. Introduction T he Abric Agut (Agut rockshelter), located 50 km west of Barcelona, is one of a group of rockshelters of the Cinglera del Capello ´, a travertine cliff formed along the east face of the plateau where the Rio Anoia carved a gorge along a fault separating the plateau from paleozoic slates (Muro et al., 1987). The cliff borders the Capellades plateau (elevation 200–300 m above sea level), a 4 km 2 surface capped by the town of Capellades and underlain by Miocene lacustrine carbonate rocks. Among the Prehistoric sites in this complex, the best known is the Abric Romanı ´, where a 17 m thick, well-dated sedimentary deposit with many Middle Palaeolithic levels spanning 40–70 kyrs has been documented (Bischoff, Julia ` & Mora, 1988; Carbonell et al., 1994, 1996). Carbonate-rich karstic-discharge waters of the Capellades springs have flowed across the plateau and over the cliff throughout at least the past 100 ka and continue to do so at present. The course and volume of these waters has varied through time depending on climatic and erosional variations and tectonic move- ments, resulting in an alternation of wet and dry environments for any given rock shelter. The waters are highly charged in CO 2 and, where they cascade over the cliff face, they precipitate CaCO 3 -tufas that drape the overhang and episodically line the floors of the rock shelters. Precipitation of the tufas is caused by CO 2 -extraction by plants and mosses which grow in the humid microhabitats provided by the water flow, and the fossil tufas preserve plant imprints and even the fine filiform microstructure of the mosses. The tufas at this site are exceptionally well-suited for U-Series dating. Charcoal-bearing archaeological lev- els are interbedded with the tufas in clearly defined stratigraphic successions. Previous Investigations The excavation histories of Abric Romanı ´ and Abric Agut have been linked. The two sites were discovered and initially excavated by Amador Romanı ´ at the beginning of the 20th century. Because of a similarity in their sedimentary and archaeological characteristics, they have been considered as correlative in time, rep- resenting the same Middle Palaeolithic cultural and temporal horizon. We report here on new radiometric dates of 8–13 kyrs that places the Abric Agut sequence clearly in a late Upper Palaeolithic-Mesolithic time frame, in complete contrast to the Romanı ´ section. The first excavations at the Abric Agut, carried out by Amador Romanı ´ between 1910 and 1914 (Vidal, *E-mail: mavr@iea.urv.es 953 0305–4403/02/$-see front matter  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.