A fine mist accompanies the clan as the sun rises and they begin their journey. There are 12 people in total, some of them adults, some children, and others so small that they have to travel on the backs of the women.

This is one of the human groups that frequented the Pyrenean Mountains during the period known as the Last Glacial Maximum, or Ice Age. These Homo sapiens – nomadic hunter-gatherers who populated Western Europe between 11,000 and 35,000 years ago – carry with them a leather rucksack containing objects of value: mostly flint cores and flakes that they will use on the journey as hunting tools, or as ornaments. These are pieces of their homeland.

By mid-morning, the group arrives at their destination for the next few days: the wide Pyrenean valley of Cerdanya, one of the enclaves that, generation after generation, has served as both a refuge and meeting place.

Today this place is known as Montlleó: an open-air Magdalenian archaeological site located high in the Catalan Pyrenees. At around 1,144 metres above sea level, in the Coll de Saig, it is one of the most favourable mountain passes for crossing the Pyrenees. Even during the Ice Age, when glaciers covered much of the landscape, Cerdanya was still passable.

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They will spend a few days there, perhaps hunt a horse or a goat and meet neighbouring........

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