The River Miera occupies a limestone valley in the centre of Cantabria, northern Spain. Its archaeological record, which was poorly known previously, was studied in depth during two seasons of archaeological surveying whose results are published in this volume. The information obtained allows the reconstruction, albeit with certain gaps, of the evolution, over more than 100ka, in the way human societies adapted to the varied landscape, from the rich coastal platform to the poor inland limestone mountains. The existence of similar studies in neighbouring valleys, the Asón and the Saja, enables the determination of small differences in each archaeological period.