Archaeologists have identified 280 Paleolithic art motifs, including 55 animal figures, in Cova de la Font Major, a tourist cave complex in Catalonia, northeastern Spain. The carvings date to around 26,000 years ago and challenge the longstanding view that the region contained little Paleolithic art.1 The research was published in ancient on November 5.
The inscriptions at the Cova de la Font Major cave complex in Catalonia are prompting a reassessment of prehistoric human populations and cultural trends. Credit: Verges Bosch, JM, Salas-Altès, M./ancient
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. The engravings were found among more recent graffiti in the cave.
Bergès and archaeologist Miriam Salas Artes, also of IPHES-CERCA, examined 280 Paleolithic motifs. The collection includes 55 depictions of animals. “The sheer amount of art found at Cova de la Font Major is extraordinary,” Salas Artes says.
Art hidden in plain sight
The cave system contains more than 3.5 kilometers 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 documented carvings etched into the cave system’s tunnels. Credit: Josep Maria Verges/IPHES-CERCA
The etchings depict animals including horses, bears and aurochs, the ancestors of domestic cattle, along with countless swirling lines. Some of the sculptures incorporate “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
