In situ micro‐Raman spectroscopy (μ‐RS) of rock art paintings in open‐air rock shelters entails several difficulties: sunlight, wind, dust and crusts that mask Raman signals from the pigments and any other component of the paint recipe. These problems have been considered in the present work. Special attention has been devoted to the presence of crusts. Five rock art sites in the eastern Iberian Peninsula with outstanding difficulties to be analysed by this technique have been the object of this study. In situ energy dispersive X‐ray fluorescence and diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy using portable instruments have provided important help. Moreover, microstratigraphic studies by μ‐RS and scanning electronic microscopy combined with energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy of micro‐specimens from the painting panels have revealed the distribution of the different components. Dolomite and calcite are dominant minerals in the rock substrata. Whewellite, gypsum, calcite, clay, dolomite, α‐quartz, anatase and haematite have been found on the surface of the painting panels or forming stratified layers in the crusts. Haematite and amorphous carbon have been detected in red and black pictographs, respectively. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

La fauna paleoherpetológica del Pleistoceno de México se compone de 37 géneros y 58 especies registradas para 27 localidades diferentes; en el caso de los reptiles las tortugas son el grupo más abundante en cuanto a registros se refiere. En este trabajo se reportan y describen los restos óseos de Gopherus y Kinosternon aff. K. hirtipes/K. integrum procedentes del municipio de Santiago Chazumba, Oaxaca. El hallazgo de estas especies para el Pleistoceno de Oaxaca permite proponer un ambiente de matorral xerófilo como el existente actualmente en el Valle de Tehuacán-Cuicatlán, pero con una precipitación menor y una temperatura mayor, condiciones similares a las predominantes en el norte del país..

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At Cova Eirós, we discovered 13 panels with paintings and engravings that stylistically point to the final moments of the Upper Paleolithic. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy were used to identify charcoal as black pigment. Although contamination from medieval fires inside the cave complicates the dating of these pictographs, analyses of unpainted rock backgrounds allowed calculation corrections for contaminated samples. We used plasma oxidation and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to directly radiocarbon (14C) date two charcoal paintings—confirming that the images are more than 9000 yr old. As these paintings superimpose engravings, these 14C dates also provide a minimum age for an engraving at Cova Eirós that is stylistically Final Magdalenian/Epipaleolithic. This is the first known evidence of Paleolithic cave art in Galicia of NW Iberia.