A study carried out by members of the National Museum and Research Center of Altamira and the Complutense University of Madrid has documented 66 figures and engravings of Paleolithic rock art in the Altamira cave, some of them new.
In total there are 33 graphic units (representations of animals, such as deer or a “possible” horse) and 33 marks in red and black, which are found on a 28-meter wall located in sector 5 of the Cantabrian cavity.
It has also been discovered in this space a sheet of flint and a charcoal.
The research work is part of the project The first art of Humanity, the Altamira cavewhose results have been published in number XXIX of the magazine of the Institute of Prehistory and Archeology Sautuoladirected by Eusebio Dohijo.
The study, which is co-directed by the head of the Altamira Museum, Pilar Fatás, in coordination with the team of Marcos García Díez, from the Complutense University of Madrid, has made it possible to “review the formal understanding that was had of some graphic manifestations already known and expand the device with new figures, showing that it is necessary to review spaces in the cave that have been previously studied with other methodologies.”
The analysis of the graphic process has confirmed “the planning of the Paleolithic artists when it came to select surfaces of the rock motifs” and “the search for tracing elements linked to the realism of the figures”.
It has also highlighted “the existence of corrections during the recording process, references to a specific and figurative space that is generally poorly defined graphically and the possibility of red marks may have graphic purposes”.
Actions “reiterated” and “delayed” over time
The study of a small wall surface in the cave exemplifies, according to the publication, “the possibility that numerically reduced figurative graphic sets may be the result of repeated graphic actions in time carried out by different cultural traditions of the Upper Paleolithic and with a relatively long temporal distance”.
This possibility highlights, the study adds, “the important role that the Altamira cave played as symbolic environment in the mentality and idiosyncrasy of human groupsand the need for oral communication systems that would maintain the symbolism of the spaces over time.”
“The progressive monographic study of different sectors and surfaces of the Altamira cave will allow further progress in a global understanding of its Paleolithic art, progressively bringing us closer to an understanding most reliable graphical processess, the value of graphics for Paleolithic societies and the interpretation of Paleolithic art,” the publication adds.
The oldest ones point to the Gravettian
The reflections of the study, “with greater or lesser chronological certainty”, point to considering that these graphic manifestations began in the second half of the Gravettian (second half), approximately between 32,500 and 24,500 yearswith “a very specific graphic activity, focused on engraving and figures with very simple lines.”
Another phase belonging to the lower Cantabrian Magdalenian is distinguished, approximately between 19,500 and 17,000 years agos, “an intense graphic activity was developed”, since “very possibly most of the engravings must refer to this moment, as well as, at least, a part of the non-figurative engraved representations of a linear and geometric type.”
As far as the representations of animals are concerned, “they progressively incorporate a tendency towards anatomical proportion and develop the treatment of animal corporeality through rigid interior fillings”.
In the third phase “it is not possible to certify with certainty” a temporal space, but some reflections made leave open the possibility “of the existence of a phase or several, of low graphic intensity, that would occur between the middle Magdalenian and the final moments of the super-Paleolithic”, approximately between 16,500 and 12,500 years ago.
The Altamira cave, declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1985, was discovered in 1880 by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola.
The magazine Sautuolafounded in 1962, is published annually and is informative in nature.
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