The Stone Age prehistory of northern Spain is one of the richest and most significant in the world, extending at least 100,000 years into the past. With adjacent regions in France, this mountainous region has one of the most complete records in Europe for hominid occupation, including spectacular cave art sanctuaries like Altamira and El Castillo.

Iberia before the Iberians is the first book since 1924 (in any language) to present a complete synthesis of Cantabrian prehistory. Written from an ecological and functional perspective, the book traces the evolution of human responses to widely varying physical and demographic environments. It provides up-to-date information on sites, chronology, art, and artifacts, from the Lower Paleolithic through the Neolithic, along with standardized tables and site maps for each period.