This essay offers an analysis John Witte, Jr.’s contribution to the study of the relationship between Christianity and law as an autonomous branch within the broad field of law and religion. The author discusses Witte as a Christian jurist educated in Reformed Protestantism and influenced by Abraham Kuyper and Harold J. Berman, among others, and describes and evaluates the interdisciplinary, interdenominational, and international project on Christianity and law headed by Witte, to which more than five hundred scholars (jurists, theologians, philosophers, historians, and sociologists) are contributing. Witte analyzes the interaction between Christianity and law from a relational, biographical, and jurisprudential perspective, and underlying his project is the idea that the relationship between Christianity and law is not merely accidental, but has a metahistorical significance and an enduring value for the development of humanity. Although the project has already borne much fruit, there is room for further maturity and methodological purity as it is still in its early stages.

The history and influence of the School of Salamanca is attracting the attention of researchers from very different branches of knowledge and from a very wide variety of countries around the world. Broaching this subject invites one to reflect on both the unity of knowledge and the important role that theology plays in a secularized world. In this short essay, I discuss four recently published works that show the global scope of interest in Spanish Scholasticism in general and the School of Salamanca in particular. The first, The School of Salamanca: A Case of Global Knowledge, was edited by Thomas Duve, Jose Luis Egío, and Christiane Birr in coordination of the Max Planck Institute (2021). The second work, ¿Qué es la Escuela de Salamanca?, was edited by Simona Langella and Rafael Ramis-Barceló (2021). The third work is a recent thematic compendium on Spanish Scholasticism edited by Harald E. Braun, Erik De Bom, and Paolo Astorri (2022). Finally, I discuss David Lantigua’s monograph, Infidels and Empires in a New World Order: Early Modern Spanish Contributions to International Legal Thought (2020).

The Roca San Miguel (RSM) archaeological site was occupied during Mousterian times. Here we present a geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the site. Five stratigraphic units (A to E) formed by different archaeological levels are identified. Three optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages show that Unit A dates to between 169.6 ± 9.1 and 151.9 ± 11.1 ka, during the penultimate glacial period (PGP), and contains numerous signs of recurring hearths. Unit B is unexcavated. Unit C dates to between 118.9 ± 11.5 and 103.4 ± 6.9 ka (late Eemian–marine isotope stage (MIS) 5d) and shows an abundance of lithic remains as well as some faunal elements. Unit C is covered by Unit D, which incorporates materials moved downslope, and is dated at 81.2 ± 4.7 ka. These OSL ages concur with U/Th ages (129.3 ± 1.5 and 123.6 ± 0.6 ka) derived from a flowstone covered by both -C and D- post-flowstone units. Finally, Unit E covers the archaeological site, which was partially eroded during MIS2. The robust and well-constrained chronology of the RSM site and surroundings enables the establishment of its evolutionary model from the PGP to the last glacial cycle. The RSM site is the oldest Neanderthal occupation accurately dated in the Pre-Pyrenean region.