Archaeologists have identified hundreds of Paleolithic rock carvings, dating back around 26,000 years, in Cova de la Font Major, a tourist cave complex in Catalonia, northeastern Spain. The discovery challenges the long-held view that the region contained little Paleolithic art.1 The findings were published in antiquity on November 5.
The inscriptions at the Cova de la Font Major cave complex in northeastern Spain’s Catalonia region are causing researchers to rethink prehistoric human populations and cultural trends. Credit: Verges Bosch, J.M., Salas-Altès, M./antiquity
Josep Maria Bergès Bosch, an archaeologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) in Tarragona, Spain, discovered some of the prehistoric carvings during excavations planned for 2019. They were found among more recent graffiti in Cova de la Font Major.
Bergès Bosch and archaeologist Miriam Salas Artes, also of IPHES-CERCA, examined 280 Paleolithic art motifs from the cave, including 55 animal depictions. “The sheer amount of art found at Cova de la Font Major is extraordinary,” Salas Artes says.
Art hidden in a well-known cave
The cave system contains more than 3.5 kilometres of underground passages and has been occupied repeatedly throughout human history. It has been open to the public for about 70 years and was converted into a museum in the 1990s.
The carvings were easy to miss. “It’s very difficult to see the sculpture if you shine direct light on it. To see the depressions, you have to shine light from different directions,” Salas Artes says.
Researcher Miriam Salas Artes has documented carvings cut into the tunnels of the cave system. Credit: Josep Maria Verges/IPHES-CERCA
The etchings depict animals including horses, bears and aurochs, the ancestors of domestic cattle, as well as numerous swirling lines. Some of the carvings show how the artists incorporated “the natural lines and cracks in the wall,” Salas Artes says. In one example, “1 is used to represent the ground under the horse.”
Source: www.nature.com