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The destroyed site(s) of Koskobilo (Olazti, Navarre, Northern Iberian Peninsula) have yielded unique archaeo-paleontological evidence in the Western Pyrenees region. The quarry uncovered a karstic site with faunal remains in 1940, and fossils were recovered both in situ and from the quarry dump. Ten years later, while the quarry was still working, a new visit to the dump yielded a large lithic assemblage and additional fossil remains with a different taphonomic pattern, which has been interpreted as the remains coming from a different site or zone within the same karst system. Here we re-study the paleontological evidence and provide new dating on a speleothem covering a Stephanorhinus hemitoechus tooth, which has yielded a minimum date of c. 220 ka for part of the assemblage. In total, the fossil assemblage comprises 38 mammal and six avian taxa and three fish remains. The faunal evidence indicates that in 1940 a mix of taxa from both the Middle and Upper Pleistocene were recovered, and it is difficult to assign most of them to a concrete period. However, based on biochronological criteria some of the identified taxa (e.g., Ursus thibetanus, Ursus cf. deningeri, Cuon cf. priscus, Macaca sylvanus, cf. Megaceroides) could be roughly contemporaneous with the dated rhino tooth, which would provide a new window to the Middle Pleistocene of the region, with deposits from MIS 7d and/or older. Despite the difficulties in studying this collection, recovered without stratigraphic context and in a salvage operation, Koskobilo has yielded an important paleontological assemblage which helps to understand the paleoecology of the Middle Pleistocene human occupations in the Western Pyrenees., This work was supported by the Research Group IT1418-19 (Eusko Jaurlaritza-Gobierno Vasco) and the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (projects PGC2018-093925-B-C31 and PGC2018-093925-B-C33; MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE) and benefitted from a Synthesys grant (AT-TAF-3663). A.G.-O. is funded by a Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2017-22558). A. R.-H. is funded by a Juan de la Cierva-I. fellowship (IJC-037447-I). M. Fernández-García is beneficiary of a PEJ grant (PEJ2018-005222-P) funded by the Spanish National System of Garantía Juvenil and the European Social Fund. M. Villalba de Alvarado is funded by a FPU fellowship (Fpu 15/06882; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades).

The cave of Hornos de la Peña contained one of the most relevant stratigraphic sequences for the study of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in the Cantabrian Region, northern Iberia, as well as an important group of Paleolithic rock art. The site was discovered in 1903 and excavated during 1909-1910. Those excavations did not take place in the main hall of the cave because it was already emptied for modern phosphate extraction. At that time, in the preserved deposits, the archeological excavations revealed an interesting sequence with Mousterian, Early Upper Paleolithic, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultural remains. Since then, the site has received little attention owing to the difficulties of interpreting the sequence and the biased nature of the preserved collections. In 2016 and 2017 a limited area of the preserved section was excavated to document its archeological sequence, obtain samples for dating and achieve some insights about the cultural attribution of the identified units and their correlation with Obermaier's sequence. The results show that there is a coarse correlation between both sequences. More interestingly, this work has revealed the good preservation and interest of the Mousterian occupation, the presence of Early Upper Paleolithic, the indefinite nature of the Solutrean and the existence of a Middle Magdalenian occupation. These results provide new insights about the human presence at the site and allow to incorporate it into the new debates about the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in the Cantabrian Region. The authors wish to thank the Consejeria de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte of the Cantabria Government for funding the multidisciplinary study project “Estudio del arte parietal paleolitico de la Cueva de Hornos de la Pena” directed by Dr. Olivia Rivero. The present study has been carried out within the framework of this project. The results presented here have been partially funded by the research projects of the Spanish Science Ministry HAR2017-87739-P and HAR2017-84997-P led by Olivia Rivero and Ana B. Marin-Arroyo, respectively. Additionally, funds from CENIEH, UNED, USAL and the ERC-CoG project (SUBSILIENCE Ref 818299) also led by Ana B. Marin-Arroyo were used for radiocarbon dating, logistics expenses, making inventories and material analyses. Inaki Libano, Juan Vizcaino and Ana Maria Mateo took part in the excavation. Virginia Martinez-Pillado also helped with the speleothem sampling.