Cave Art in the Iberian Peninsula

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Introduction to Cave Art in the Iberian Peninsula

by César. González Sainz
Prof. of the University of Cantabria

1. Introduction.

During the last stages of the Würm glaciation, the groups of hunters living in Europe developed the first artistic cycle, which still surprises us today with the great esthetic value of many of the paintings, or their careful execution with techniques that are, nonetheless, very simple. We are equally struck by the unity of style over vast geographical areas, and its continuity during such a long period of time. Between approximately 35,000 and 11,000 years before the present, the continent saw the growth of this first example of figurative graphic expression, with its two variants: cave or rock art, on fixed surfaces (cave walls, floors and roofs, or open-air rock outcrops such as those recently located in the Iberian Peninsula), and a mobiliary art on portable objects (perforated staffs, harpoons, pendants ... and also on stone or bone plaques, statuettes etc).

Between these two variants, small differences can be detected in the distribution of the motifs represented, the techniques used, and in the composition of the figures and their thematic associations. These are due to the different conditions, such as size or hardness, of the surfaces to be decorated, and to the presumably different functions of the art. Their geographical distribution is partly different too. Whereas decorated objects are found in almost all of Europe, cave art is located essentially in the southwest of the continent. This means it is limited, apart from isolated exceptions, to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula, central and southern France, and to a lesser extent, Italy.

The Europe where this first art appeared and developed was very different to present day Europe; colder and inhospitable, wild and empty. Large glaciers had formed in mountainous areas, while a great ice sheet covered the north of Europe. Thus the northern limits of the inhabitable continent were in the center of what is now Great Britain and the north of Germany. At the same time, the water locked in this great mass of ice resulted in sea level dropping as much as 120m below the present level in the coldest period, which was from about 20,000 to 18,000 BP. This caused a regression in the coastline, of varying amount depending on the location, and the consequent enlargement in the territory available to the human groups and the herds of wild animals. Where the present day underwater continental platform is wide and flat, there was a greater increase in the territory (so Great Britain was joined to the continent). On the other hand, the regression was much smaller where there is no platform, such as in the Straits of Gibraltar, between the European and African continents.

The ecosystems known in Upper Pleistocene Europe varied greatly, but they were always colder and more severe than nowadays. The differences among them depended, as today, on their continentality or proximity to the sea, the latitude, or altitude and soil types, and other factors. In southwestern Europe, where art developed, the differences among the most characteristic regions (Dordogne and the French Pyrenees, the Cantabrian Region, the Duero Valley, and in the extreme south, the coast and hills of Andalucia) were equally important. Despite this, everywhere the landscape was more open and barer of vegetation than we have known in historical times. There were fewer trees, and a much larger proportion of grasslands. The forests began to spread when the climate improved (first about 13,500 BP, and then irreversibly from 10,200 BP onwards). In those open spaces a great variety of wild animals roamed, again with significant differences between the colder periods and places, and warmer moments or more southern and temperate zones. In the former, the more characteristic faunal type, although not the only one, consisted of the great herds of gregarious ungulates (reindeer, horse, bison... and saiga antelope in drier periods), together with mammoths, and carnivores such as the polar fox or wolf. In the opposite conditions, smaller groups of ungulates better adapted to a more forested vegetation (red deer, chamois, and roe deer or wild boar in temperate moments), aurochs on flatland, and ibex on steep, rocky slopes. We can appreciate this environmental gradient from North to South in the animals represented in the Paleolithic cave art of the Iberian Peninsula, as significant differences exist between the faunal compositions in the Cantabrian Region, the central mesetas, and Andalucia.

Paleolithic art is therefore due to groups of hunters who lived in territories generally more open and colder than exist nowadays, where they exploited natural food resources by hunting, fishing, and gathering plants and fruit. As the variety, quantity and location of these resources changed with each season, and as they became slowly exhausted in any one place, it was necessary for the population to move relatively frequently, taking with them a few objects, as well as their ideas and knowledge. This enabled long-range interaction, which fixed tastes and a graphic style with many elements in common all across Europe, in a time when no stable paths or roads existed, only the migratory routes of the herds of ungulates. And the only way of transmitting images was on pendants and other light objects which were no burden for the journey, and, of course, in the artist's retina and mind.

The appearance of figurative art in Europe coincides with that of Homo sapiens sapiens, that is, with our direct ancestors. These substituted Neanderthal man, who had occupied western Europe alone from at least 150,000 to 40/30,000 BP. The processes of anthropological replacement must have been quite complex and varied, and given the limitations of archaeological method, are still difficult to precise (which has caused a fecund literary sub-genre). But the development of figurative art is not only the consequence of the greater intellectual capacity of our species, but also of more complex and flexible forms of organization, which required systems of social cohesion, and of collection and exchange of information, which were rather more sophisticated than what had existed until then. Cave art, and the ceremonies to which its production may have been linked, probably formed part of that baggage of tools of intragroupal cohesion, or of the fixation and transmission of information. This does not exclude, among other things, its role as a formula of artistic expression and of personal or collective affirmation. Precisely because it was not reduced to a tool of cohesion or transmission of information, the geographical distribution of cave art, which spread like a film of oil across southwest Europe, affected areas with very different environmental conditions, and was not limited to those with cold, open conditions. The study of the cave art in the Iberian Peninsula shows this clearly, as will be seen.

It should also be taken into account that when we speak of Paleolithic art, we are referring to the part that can be documented archaeologically, and not to all that could have existed. We know nothing of other forms of expression such as tattoos or body paint, dancing, singing, or graphic art on short-lived organic surfaces, such as animal skins or wood. In any case, there must have been representations presumably linked to activities such as human burials, documented already among the Neanderthals. If we could know more about these other forms of artistic expression, and their similarities and differences with rock and mobiliary art, it would make it easier to understand the role played by art in Paleolithic societies.

Figurative art appears and develops, then, within a group of novelties protagonized by human groups in the Upper Paleolithic. These novelties are especially clear in the field of technology (new and more carefully selected raw materials and ways of working, new technical supports, more diverse tool assemblages, and development of tools on bone and antler), but they also affected the subsistence economy, and important processes of intensification are observed in many regions. The changes, without doubt, also implied more versatile and complex social structures, which would have shown regional differences, but which at the same time extended over larger areas of territory. In this context of novelties and accelerated cultural change (at least compared with the static situation of the long age of the Neanderthals), appears this new ability to create and use graphic symbols, specific to our species and, perhaps, one of its defining characteristics.

This first great artistic cycle rapidly melted away in the last moments of the glaciation, as the milder environmental conditions allowed new territories to be colonized in the north of the continent, or in higher altitudes within the classic regions. At the same time as the flora and fauna was transformed in many areas, including the spread of the forests and the extinction of the typically Pleistocene mammals, like mammoth, reindeer, saiga or bison, the human groups tended to develop cultural systems that were more specific to each region, better adapted to highly variable local conditions. These systems were more intensive economically, directed more at the exploitation of less mobile and more predictable resources, increasing the gathering of vegetables, fruits and molluscs, and developing true fishing techniques in rivers and estuaries, and then in the open sea, as well as hunting birds and smaller mammals. This allowed the population to rise significantly in many regions, and each human group now tended to settle in a territory. Marriage systems and networks of interaction between groups were generally more closed geographically, and decorative styles were less unified than in the Upper Paleolithic, and frequently of a very different kind, with a greater proportion of abstract representations. In the Cantabrian region, occupying the northern rim of the Iberian Peninsula, only mobiliary art is found after 11,500 BP, and this is much less common than in the Magdalenian period, and reduced to abstract compositions usually of dots and lines. These non-figurative motifs from the Azilian period (c. 11,500 to 9,000 BP), engraved on spatulas and pendants or painted on stone cobbles, do however have extraregional connections, until the expansion of the forests and regionalization were noticeably accelerated after about 10,000 BP.


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Recent Research on Paleolithic Cave Art

by César. González Sainz
Prof. of the University of Cantabria

Paleolithic cave art research.

The Paleolithic art that we know today was always there. But it did not become the object of analysis until the scientific community, and soon afterwards society itself, were ready, as a result of the development and acceptance of the theory of evolution and the appearance of the very concept of Human Prehistory. Cave art research had its beginnings in Cueva de Altamira, in the center of the Cantabrian region. Here, M. Sanz de Sautuola proposed in 1880, for the first time (in a published article and after a logical and coherent discussion), that the astonishingly beautiful images of wild animals in the cave were of Paleolithic age. The bison on the incredible ceiling in Altamira remain the most spectacular example of cave art in the entire Cantabrian region, even today. After a long controversy, the artistic capacity of the Upper Paleolithic people slowly came to be accepted, and their graphic depictions, in caves and on artifacts, thus became the object of intense and exhilarating research throughout the century which has just come to an end.

This length of time can be divided into three main periods. The first one, led by Henri Breuil until the mid-1950s, was focused on the exploration of hundreds of sites, and the publication of this amazing art. This occasioned the first chronological and interpretive synthesis (generally based on the comparison of Paleolithic societies with present day or historical primitive peoples and the principles of magic or totemism). Later, until 1980, research was dominated by A. Leroi-Gourhan and a structuralist perspective, explicit in his important book Prehistoire de l'art occidental, published in 1965. This study, a synthesis of his fieldwork during the previous decade, attempted to uncover the order existing in decorated caves, the graphic expression of ancestral myths, and to establish the chronology and rhythm of change during the Upper Paleolithic. In the last two decades, Paleolithic art research has come out of its European limits, and groups of cave art of the same age are now known in other parts of the world, like South Africa or Australia. At the same time, researchers of different intellectual traditions are taking greater part in the study of Paleolithic art in the southwest of Europe. Together with much more eclectic perspectives regarding interpretation, the main developments lie in the effects of the technological revolution. New systems of lighting, photography, surveying, computerized databases, digitalization and computer aided treatment of images, absolute dating and analysis of the pigments..., all these are changing each phase in the research process. Furthermore, the clear increase in the impact of human action on the land during the last few decades, as in public works such as reservoirs, highways, and the plowing up of land, is making the extensive documentation of sites and the development of conservation policies even more necessary.


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Main characteristics of Paleolithic cave art in SW Europe

by César. González Sainz
Prof. of the University of Cantabria

Before entering in the Iberian Peninsula, with its own different regions and peculiarities, a brief account should be made of the basic characteristics of this first artistic cycle in all southwest Europe.

As mentioned above, this art displays great unity over wide geographical areas, above all in its mobiliary or portable version, but also in rock art. This unity is not seen again in the continent until the expansion of the Roman Empire, with very different economic, social and cultural bases. Furthermore, the same artistic tradition survives during a long lapse of time, covering all the Upper Paleolithic (c. 37,000-11,000 BP). Logically, regional peculiarities exist and styles change in time, yet these enrich, rather than detract from, this background unity. This is easily seen if figures of European Paleolithic art are compared with those of other prehistoric artistic cycles. It is, however, very difficult to define in a simple way. As will be shown, Paleolithic art does not have practically any aspects (referring to position, themes or contents, techniques or composition) which can be defined quickly and without needing to give exceptions.

1. Cave art is distributed in different parts of the caves, from right at the entrance - therefore coinciding with the living area - to the end of the cave. Together with panels in comfortably-sized passages, the figures can be found in small chambers only reached with difficulty. Hence, some figures are visible to only one person at a time, and from the same position in which they were produced. These dark, withdrawn places, far from noise and light, in the depths of a cave are possibly the most typical locations, but by no means the only ones. A good number of art assemblages in daylight have been known for many years. The fact that they show a limited range of techniques (deep engravings and bas-relief) is mainly due to the greater problems for the conservation of paint. But recently, many more sites with Paleolithic art on open-air rock outcrops have been discovered, both in Spain (the assemblages of Domingo Garc’a and Siega Verde) and in Portugal (Mazouco, and a number of sites in the C™a Valley), and occasionally in the south of France (Fornols Haut). It has even be noticed that some of the sites along the River C™a have large images of animals on the rock outcrops, which must have been visible at a considerable distance from the site itself.

In caves, artists produced their drawings and compositions on walls, floors and roofs. They used all types of accessible surfaces, and altered their techniques to suit the varying degrees of hardness, humidity or color of the rock surface. Sometimes they decorated smooth flat walls, or walls crossed by cracks and other irregularities which they used and frequently incorporated into their depictions. It is easy to see these same tendencies in the open-air panels of engravings, which are sometimes on horizontal beds of rock, as at Siega Verde, and other times on vertical or inclined walls. The use made of relief and discontinuities in the rock surface is the same as in caves.

2. In these areas they painted or engraved depictions of animals, usually mammals, but sometimes fish, birds or serpents; a few humans, generally caricatures; more or less conventionalized abstract "signs" (a good number of these "signs" are repeated in different caves); and other less striking manifestations, such as stains of color with random forms, and series of non-figurative engraved lines or paintings. That is to say, not all the known tangible realities were represented, but a selection of them. There are no evident depictions of plants, or habitational structures; nor are there any landscapes or weapons, although some animals have spears stuck in their bodies. And sometimes we can find figures of imaginary beings, mixtures of men and/or different animals.

Among the animals, the basis of Paleolithic art, bovines - bison and wild aurochs -, horses, deer and reindeer, goats and chamois are the principal figures. In other words, the animals which were most commonly hunted and consumed (although the proportions between the species depicted and consumed are not always the same, especially if these are evaluated at any particular site, rather than in the total number of sites in the region, or of any given period). But occasionally we find mammoths, rhinoceros, bears, carnivores, as well as fish, serpents and even insects.

The animals are usually depicted in a more natural style than are human figures, whose faces are conventionally omitted or deformed. Many of the abstract signs are specific to each region, as will be seen later.

3. The techniques used are very simple, but are applied in diverse and versatile ways, adapting them to the characteristics of each rock surface. Nearly all the figures were either engraved (with various objects, ranging from flint tools to finger-tips on soft clay surfaces) or painted (in black or in the palette of red colors - going from violet to yellow-, but neither white nor blue was used). In order to paint, they used charcoal or natural dyes (manganese, ocher or limonite), dissolved and applied with pieces of animal skins, brushes or sprayed, or as dry colors applied directly by hand. Besides these, many assemblages with bas-relief sculptures are known in the French Dordogne, or with clay models inside some caves in the Pyrenees. Furthermore many figures were made by chipping off small pieces of rock in order to produce the outline of the animal. This technique was used in some of the older French rockshelters, and was especially common in the open-air assemblages in the Duero Valley, in Portugal and Spain.

4. Regarding compositions of the figures on cave walls or at open-air sites, there are no fixed rules, but rather an extreme variety. Apart from very few exceptions, there are no narrative scenes, or at least, only a vivid imagination could interpret the compositions as such. But compositions of inter-related figures do exist, in which a sense of unity is perceived. These may go from pairs of animals facing each other to large compositions such as the central panel in La Lluera, the roof of Altamira, or the chamber in Santimami–e, all in the Cantabrian region. And, of course, there are also panels with one, totally isolated figure, and even caves containing a single animal, such as the caves of San Antonio, Otero, Patatal and Sotarriza.

From another point of view we can find synchronic sites, generally with a small number of stylistically and technically homogeneous figures; and also great accumulations of figures, often superimposed on the same panel, which appear to have been produced during different periods and phases. These are found in the Cantabrian region in the caves of Candamo, Tito Bustillo, Llon’n, Altamira, Castillo, Pasiega and La Garma.

The formulae of thematic association, as between animals and signs, or the association between certain themes and parts of the cave, are highly variable, but definitely do not occur at random, as was implicitly supposed until the 1960s. The main association of different animal species, as defined by structuralist researchers, is horse plus auroch or bison; with other animals, above all deer or goats, in marginal positions. This appears in a significant number of sites, especially in easily visible panels, painted with laborious techniques and represented by large-sized figures. But this is by no means the only formula of composition in synchronic assemblages, and is not found in the Cantabrian region in sites such as Chimeneas, Arenaza, Chuf’n entrance, La Loja or Cullalvera, and nor is it the most abundant. Indeed, other important formulae of association are found regionally: in the Cantabrian the hind-horse association is repeated at several sites particularly in the Solutrean period, or that of horse and reindeer at Late Magdalenian sites.

Equally, several tendencies of association between certain themes and parts of the cave are known. Again, here there is a great variety of possibilities, but one of the most significant is the concentration of abstract signs in hidden side-chambers, and not in panels of great visibility on the main route through the cave. This is especially true of the quadrangular and other closed signs of Style III. The central, more visible panels tend to be filled by paintings of large animals, preferentially bison and horses.

5. Regarding the stylistic features of this art, just a few of what we consider to be the most important points, should be mentioned here. The depictions, as commented above, tend to reflect the most essential or characteristic aspects of the animals' bodies, while human figures appear deformed or highly simplified. On the other hand, the figures generally oscillate between a more or less realistic style and a schematic approach which reduces the form to its essential features without details. Both tendencies occur at the same times during the Upper Paleolithic, and occasionally in different figures of the same composition. This is more common in mobiliary art.

The animals are usually drawn as profiles, with their heads sometimes turned backwards or facing the spectator, but frontal views occur too. The former type of figure is usually represented with realism, whereas the latter are schematic, and normally consist of heads of animals with their horns or antlers, as the most common animals in this position are goats or occasionally deer.

Over time, it seems that there was a tendency to change in order to achieve a greater definition of the volume of the animals' bodies. This implied advances in the definition of depth (by different formulae of perspective in horns and limbs), and the reproduction of the different parts of the body (e.g. in the proportion of complete figures, or in the number of limbs depicted). Another development was in the construction of the interior of the animals' bodies, going from the mere indication of their outline, to the generalization of the lines of interior articulation, and the in-filling of parts with color or engraved bands. Similarly, there were changes in the co-ordination and animation of different parts of the body. These were, in any case very general tendencies of change throughout the Upper Paleolithic, and do not imply any strictly ordered or linear modifications during that period. The treatment given to any animal figure, the technique used or the degree of completeness, depended on many more factors than just the general level of artistic skill in each moment or the abilities of each artist.

Finally, it is necessary to add another feature which appears throughout the Paleolithic, although in varying proportions. It is usual to find animals with heavy, voluminous bodies, with insufficiently short limbs, and sometimes with long necks finishing in tiny heads. These conventional deformations affect the pictures of horses more than bovines, cervids or caprids, and are particularly common in the Gravettian and Solutrean periods (c. 27,000 to 17,000 BP), but not exclusively.

6. Dating Paleolithic art has been one of the central problems of research ever since its beginnings until the present time, when modern procedures such as the C14-AMS method have re-opened the subject with new controversy.

Various procedures have been used in different circumstances, either to confirm the chronology of cave art in the Upper Paleolithic, or to obtain a more precise date within that period. Some of the older arguments used were: the depiction of extinct animal species, like mammoth, reindeer or bison, whose bones were only found in Paleolithic sediments, or the use of natural dyes or lithic engraving tools like those found in the strata of Paleolithic occupation. Other arguments were the fact that stalagmitic layers covered some of the paintings, or that the entrances of decorated caves had been blocked by natural processes, and these were only uncovered by large scale public works, such as quarries or roads, or by using caving equipment or sophisticated diving techniques. Similarly, the start of some decorated cave passages may have been blocked by sediments of a later Paleolithic occupation, or walls with rock art were covered by occupation levels, or pieces of the wall containing art had broken off and become integrated in the stratigraphy.

Besides its link with the stratigraphy, the main criteria to date rock art was, and still is, its analysis compared with mobiliary art, which is found in stratigraphic sequences, and therefore has, at least, a relative date. In the early times of research, Breuil and other authors established a few "parallels", or links between the two variants (figures which were characteristic in their themes, technique or stylistic features). They also used superimpositions of figures in panels to organize a technical and stylistic chronology, although this assumed that there always existed a great difference in time between the superimposed figures. Since the 1960s, dating has been based more on the paintings which are well recorded stratigraphically, and the stylistic and chronological analysis of the whole mobiliary corpus - which has become more abundant and of a more precise chronology - and its comparison with rock art. The "parallels" have gradually been revised, so that nowadays only a few are still accepted as sure. But these few are extraordinarily useful.

Since the 1980s it has been possible to date minimum amounts of charcoal from some of the black paintings, using the application of particle accelerators to the traditional method of radiocarbon dating. In this way absolute dates have been obtained for black figures in some twenty caves mainly in France and Spain (the caves of Altamira, Castillo, Covaciella, Monedas and Chimeneas in the Cantabrian region). The results have confirmed the Paleolithic date of the paintings, and roughly speaking, the stylistic chronology, especially in the late periods of the Upper Paleolithic. For older, Pre-Solutrean phases, however, some important contradictions have been produced, which have been the cause of fierce controversy. More recently it has become possible to date calcite layers associated with panels containing art, in caves like La Garma, Pondra and Venta de la Perra. This gives ante or post quem dates for all kinds of depictions, including engravings and paintings with inorganic pigments.

In our opinion, the comparison with mobiliary art, and the so-called stylistic method of dating are still valid in general, at least for broad chronological approximations. In certain regions like the Cantabrian or the southwest of France there does seem to have been a process of changes, in technique and above all expression, aimed at achieving a greater realism and a more faithful expression of the third dimension. But even if this happened it does not mean that it affected all the figures produced in that period in the same way, or that the process can be applied in a simple linear way, or that it is equally valid applied to isolated figures or to synchronic assemblages with many paintings. Not only have there been good and bad artists at any moment, but any painter may not have given all his works of art the same treatment, as he did not intend to achieve always the same degree of realism, or applied all his technical skills in every figure.

If we accept these tendencies to a general change, at least in regions like the Cantabrian, a succession of periods can be detected through the Upper Paleolithic, shown above all by differences in the stylistic conventions applied to animals figures, but also by tendencies to change in the most usual techniques, in the abstract signs associated with them, and in the iconographic structure. Despite having some important problems, the best chronological synthesis is still the one devised by Leroi-Gourhan in the 1960s, and which we will follow, with a few adaptations, in the chronological order of the art of Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country.

7. It is very difficult to know the meaning of this art. It is a fact that there has been an absolute lack of continuity in cultural tradition between the Paleolithic and our society, unlike the situation in Baja California, among the Bushmen, and above all in Australia. This partly explains the little progress made in research on the meaning or reason of art during the Paleolithic, and that most studies prefer to concentrate on documenting the techniques, themes, composition and even on the chronological ordering of the art.

The studies aimed at interpreting the meaning have tended to reflect, unfailingly, the changes in mentality and the way of thinking and considering the past that have taken place, and continue to take place, in our society, as well as the ideology of each researcher. Nowadays, prehistorians usually trust little in sweeping single explanations, valid for the whole long period, whether these are ideas linking the art with good luck in hunting, with the expression of basic mythologies, or with rituals intended to maintain social cohesion, as these do not need to be mutually exclusive. Most studies are now based on the comparison between the different regions, and the different moments of the Upper Paleolithic, as a way of trying to understand the role played by the art, and hence, its meaning.


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Paleolithic rock art in the Iberian Peninsula

by César. González Sainz
Prof. of the University of Cantabria

The role of the Iberian Peninsula in the context of European Paleolithic art has changed decisively in the last few years. Until recently, peninsular rock art was limited to the Cantabrian region, which was a kind of maritime, western appendix to the French areas implicitly considered as central. A few isolated sites in Andalucia and the Mesetas were somewhat awkward to situate within the regions of European art. Nowadays we know cave art sites in almost the whole Peninsula, except in Galicia in the extreme northwest. Together with the great density of discoveries in the Cantabrian region, other prominent artistic groups are known in: the Mesetas and the Atlantic coast; the Andalucian area, with important prolongations to Murcia and the south of Levante, or to the west, and Extremadura and Alentejo. These regions now have important research projects being carried out by Spanish and Portuguese universities.

This decisive incorporation of the central and southern areas of the Peninsula is modifying our knowledge of Paleolithic rock art in more ways than just the quantitative aspects or the geographical distribution. Among these new discoveries, the open-air assemblages in the Duero Valley and a few other places have acquired a special scientific relevance. They alter and enrich the traditional identification of Paleolithic rock art as the art of the dark and mysterious underground world.

The number of Paleolithic caves and open-air sites in the Peninsula is now over 150. Of these, some 103 caves and rockshelters are in the Cantabrian region, 16 sites are in the Duero Valley (11 belonging to the River C™a network in Portugal), the Ebro Valley has 5 or 6 caves, there are 8 in the southern Meseta and Alentejo, 7 in the south of Levante, and about 17 in Andalucia.

These densities vary greatly due to several factors. One of these is the different exploration or tradition of this type of study in each region, and another is the different degree of conservation of the art. This too varies regionally, as in areas with many well-preserved caves, such as the Cantabrian, the importance of freeze-thaw weathering has made it difficult to conserve any possible open-air sites. But in areas which are not too high in Portugal or the northern Meseta, the greater dryness and the type of rock has enabled the survival of this kind of site. Furthermore, the density of human occupation during the Upper Paleolithic may have varied in different regions, together with the quantity, variety and continuity throughout the year of usable natural food resources.

The rock art of the Peninsula, and not only of the Cantabrian region, is clearly related with that of neighboring European areas. In the Peninsula, the art affected a series of regions of very different conditions of habitat and environment, and presumably of different organization of the subsistence economy during the Upper Paleolithic. Yet the art appears to extend through all the regions in a quite homogeneous way in general aspects. It does, nevertheless, show important differences in the structure of themes (animals and signs), and technique, among other aspects. The comparative analysis of these regional artistic groups, and of the environmental and ecological conditions of each area, is one of the fields for future research. It will equally be highly interesting, in coming years, to analyze the open-air sites spatially, as well as their relationship with the surrounding territory, and finally make comparisons between this kind of site and the caves in such classic aspects as themes, composition and distribution of depictions.

1. The Cantabrian Region. This forms a narrow West-East corridor across the north of the Iberian Peninsula, located between the Cantabrian Cordillera and the Basque Mountains to the south and the Bay of Biscay to the north. It is only a small region, about 400km long and 40km wide, connected at its eastern end with the regions of the south-west of France. It is known that there existed intense interaction with this part of France during the Upper Paleolithic, whereas the routes to the south were often blocked by the development of glaciers on the mountains of the cordillera, especially in the western and central sectors. At present, the Cantabrian region is divided into several administrative units, which are from west to east: Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country, and northern Navarra.

This region had a quite large population during the Upper Paleolithic due to its relatively mild climate, and the abundance of hunting, fishing, seafood and plant resources. These were available to groups of hunter-gatherers in varied ecological environments, all located within close range. For those reasons, and the intense karstification of the area, it is easy to appreciate the abundance of well-preserved archaeological deposits, and the examples of mobiliary and rock art, within the caves. On the other hand, it is difficult to locate Paleolithic archaeological sites in the open air.

After more than a century of research, about a hundred caves with art are known, distributed in an irregular pattern along the corridor. At the same time, decorated objects have been found in nearly all the excavations of Upper Paleolithic habitation sites, of which those with greatest stratigraphic interest are the Abrigo de La Vi–a, Cueto de la Mina and La Riera, El Castillo, Mor’n, Rasca–o, Santimami–e and the caves of Aitzbitarte. In these and many other deposits, it has been possible to study the development of the different phases of the Upper Paleolithic, between about 38,000 and 11,500 BP.

The distribution of caves with art is almost the same as the places of habitation. These are caves on the coastal strip, or more rarely, in the interior valleys, always at a low altitude. Nearly all the sites are below 200m above present sea level, and only exceptionally are they found as high as 600m. Human occupation of sites at higher altitudes are only known after 12,000 BP. Some of these caves were major centers, occupied repeatedly during the Upper Paleolithic, with many figures of different style and technique. At the other end of the spectrum, there are also caves with just one or two figures. All sites are, however, important to obtain a full view of the role played by art and the rituals linked to its production in the life of the hunters.

Within the unity displayed by Paleolithic art across most of Europe, the Cantabrian region does have some distinctive features. One of these is the relatively peculiar distribution of animals, with many images of the most common ungulates here, such as red deer, and above all the females or hinds, as well as horses, goats, aurochs and bison, and fewer reindeer, mammoths and other cold climate species, although these are present in many sites. The representation of many more hinds than stags, while it may describe the reality perceived by the Paleolithic hunters because of the organization of these animals during much of the year, seems to be a purely stylistic feature. This is because it is different from the proportion of male and female red deer known in other regions nearest to the Cantabrian, like the Spanish Meseta, the Pyrenees, and the French Dordogne. Similarly, the Cantabrian region has a series of "signs" which are specific to the region, especially in the central and western zones. These abstract images appear with very similar forms in different caves, especially the quadrangular and oval signs, the quadrilaterals with a pointed protuberance midway along one side, and the "Cantabrian" claviforms.

Regarding the techniques used, we find similar types to those in other regions, with small peculiarities. There are no sculptures in low or medium relief either in stone as in Aquitaine, or in clay as in the Pyrenees. Neither was extensive use made of the chipping technique found in the open-air sites of the northern Meseta. In contrast, some techniques such as the red dotted lines, or bands of striated engraving, become very important in the region in certain periods. As will be seen, in successive stages of the Upper Paleolithic, the characteristic art was: first the deep engravings in the daylight zone of caves (Abrigo de la Vi–a, La Lluera and Chuf’n); the groups of red outline or dotted line figures of Solutrean age (ie 21,000 to 16,500 BP) found in caves like Llon’n, La Pasiega, Covalanas, Arco and Arenaza. These are often associated with quadrangular abstract signs, frequently subdivided internally, or with lines of dots, found therefore in the same sites and also in Chimeneas and El Castillo. Later came the great variety of technical and expressive devices used in the Magdalenian period (about 16,500 to 11,500 BP) generally aimed at reflecting reality more faithfully. These may be black paintings, as in Candamo, Cullalvera, Monedas or Santimami–e, or in red, especially the abstract signs of the claviform type, and also engravings of different kinds, as in Tito Bustillo, Llon’n, Hornos de la Pe–a and Altxerri. Some of the most characteristic engravings have striated areas inside the animals, which are most commonly hind's heads. This period also sees the combination of different technical procedures in the bichromes and polychromes of Tito Bustillo, Altamira, Pasiega, Castillo and Ekain.

During the early times of cave art research, the excessive link made between the art and the greater intellectual capacity of Homo sapiens sapiens led to a chronological ordering which attributed a large number of the figures to the first period of the Upper Paleolithic, the Aurignacian (c. 33,000 to 27,000 BP). Nowadays, figurative art in its versions of mobiliary and cave art, is believed to have appeared much more slowly, growing a little more quickly after the Gravettian. As will be seen, an important increase in the quantity of cave art took place during the Solutrean (21,000-16,500 BP), and even more during the early Magdalenian (16,500-14,000 BP), moments when the region acquired a personality of its own. During the Magdalenian, Cantabrian art reached the highest levels of realism and formal virtuosity, while in its later phase, from 14,000 to 11,500, it is possible to see a greater interaction in style and themes with neighboring areas, especially with the French Pyrenees. As is to be seen, it was also during the Magdalenian, especially in its middle and late stages when the production of decorated bone and antler objects, and stone plaquettes, increased spectacularly.

2. Rock Art in the Mesetas and Portugal. The large drainage basins of the Duero and Tajo Rivers hold a number of Upper Paleolithic rock art sites, many of which have been found in recent years. But our knowledge of the Paleolithic population is, in most of this area, limited to these examples of art. Few Upper Paleolithic habitation sites remain in the caves of the Meseta, or if they exist, they still have not been found. Only in Portugal, especially in regions like Estremadura, to the north of the Tajo, have sites with quite important stratigraphic sequences been dug, as in the cave of Caldeirao. So in this area the industrial and economic development of the Upper Paleolithic is coming to be better known, from the Aurignacian to the Magdalenian.

The caves with art are situated in the mountainous edges of both sub-mesetas, especially at the foot of the Central and Iberian Systems of mountains, or at lower altitude in the Portuguese hills, under the influence of the Atlantic. The open-air sites, so characteristic of this region, are located on outcrops of schist, and are located in more open or flatter areas, in many cases on the banks of the rivers themselves.

In the Duero Valley the most important sites are Cueva Mayor de Atapuerca in the North, near the passes to the Ebro Valley, and especially Cueva de la Griega in the northern slopes of the Central System, which has an exceptional group of engravings of horses, deer and signs, represented with conventions of pre-Magdalenian age. As well as these caves, an important number of open-air sites have been discovered in the last few decades. The style and chronology of these is doubtlessly Paleolithic. The figures in these assemblages were produced on rocky outcrops of schist with a characteristic technique of pecking and chipping, or with continuous fine engravings, such as are found on many cave walls, usually for the smaller drawings. These are the sites of Domingo Garc’a and Siega Verde in the northern Spanish Meseta, Mazouco and the impressive network of sites in the valley of the C™a River, a tributary of the Duero, in Portugal. This valley now has a dozen sites with rock art, especially Canada do Inferno, Penascosa, Ribeira de Piscos, Quinta de Barca; and an open-air habitation site has been dug at Cardina I, near Salto do Boi, with remains of camps, above all during the late Gravettian.

Most of these open-air sites are still being studied, but they are notable for the great numbers of aurochs, horses and stags, and occasionally caprids and other animals. A few characteristic abstract signs have been identified too, at least at Siega Verde. Regarding the forms of expression used, some interesting peculiarities include the association of several heads with one body, to give the idea of movement, and certain characteristic lines of interior articulation of the animals. Based on the stylistic assessment, a wide chronology has been proposed for these sites, from the Gravettian to the end of the Upper Paleolithic. However, the most abundant stylistic phase is that of the transition between Style III and early Style IV in the series devised by Leroi-Gourhan.

In the southern sub-meseta, Extremadura and Alentejo, two groups of caves can be differentiated. On one hand, those on the southern slopes of the Central System and in contact with the Iberian System. These form a ring of sites in the north of the provinces of Madrid and Guadalajara, including the caves of Reguerillo, Turismo, Reno and Cojo, and further to the West, Los Casares and La Hoz. They are caves in areas of karst altered by natural factors and sometimes human impact, especially in the case of El Reguerillo. The most important group is that of the engravings in Los Casares, which include an anthropomorph, a lion and a woolly rhinoceros, as well as deer, horses, goats and bovines.

On the other hand, in lower areas of the Tajo Valley, in the west of the region, we find caves in more open landscapes. These are the cave of Escoural in the Portuguese Alentejo, and the cave of Maltravieso near the city of C‡ceres, in the Spanish Extremadura. These have a large number of paintings, which are unusual in the higher inland caves and even rarer in the open air, and with more archaic themes, different from the other areas. The most interesting figures are the positive and negative hands, and triangular signs and series of dots in Maltravieso. In Escoural they are black horses with large bellies and short legs, and red finger-marks and signs, as well as engravings of less precise chronology.

To summarize, the principal features of these sites in the Meseta and the Atlantic coast of the Peninsula are:

* The themes are quite different from those in the Cantabrian region. The typical abstract signs found in the North do not appear here, and signs in general are not too abundant, perhaps because of the smaller number of paintings than of engravings, as will be seen (although they do exist in several sites). The animals represented give little indication of the environmental conditions, as there is a clear predominance of horses and deer, with bovines and goats to a lesser degree. At least in the Mesetas, many of the more typically Pleistocene species can be seen, although their identification sometimes raises doubts. It has recently become clear that both bison and reindeer are depicted in Cueva de La Hoz. These figures thus accompany other Pleistocene species identified previously: a feline and possible glutton and rhinoceros in Los Casares, or a possible giant deer at Siega Verde.

The polarization in horses, deer, aurochs and goats is, in any case, greater than is found in the Cantabrian region. The faunal spectra also differ in the virtual lack of chamois among the caprids, or significantly, the greater frequency of stags, so that here they reach equal numbers with the hinds, unlike in the Cantabrian. Finally aurochs are much more abundant than bison, again in contrast with the situation in the north of the Peninsula. The images of fish and other rare species are even rarer here.

* The techniques are quite homogeneous in character, especially in the Meseta, with a strong polarization towards engraving, nearly always a simple, single line. Striated and scraped lines are found in Los Casares, while the technique of chipping off small pieces of rock, sometimes regularized with lines of abrasion, is typical of the open-air assemblages in the Duero Valley.

Paint is only predominant in the caves of Escoural and Maltravieso, with red finger-marks, and where the technique of spraying was used for the negative hands, and of printing for the positive hands. Figures in red, yellow and black paint are also known in Atapuerca, El Reno, La Hoz and Los Casares. They are nearly always simple lines, and color-wash was only used in Los Casares.

* Regarding the chronology, there is an immediate extra difficulty, which scarcely exists in the Cantabrian region, and that is distinguishing the Paleolithic figures from the art of other later periods belonging to the Holocene and sometimes existing in the same sites. The group of open-air sites on the River C™a, with dates based on the style of the figures going from the Gravettian to the late Magdalenian, summarizes the wide chronological range. Going into more detail, the oldest depictions are the paintings in the caves of Escoural and Maltravieso. The engravings in Cueva de la Griega are clearly of Style III, shown by the large-bellied animals, with characteristic long manes and heads, and few limbs. Finally, many other sites seem to be located between Leroi-Gourhan's Styles III and IV. These are Los Casares, Domingo Garc’a, Siega Verde and part of the C™a sites. In other words, a true artistic explosion appears to have taken place between 18,000 and 14,000 BP.

3. The Ebro Valley and the Mediterranean Coast. The Mediterranean shore of the Iberian Peninsula has an important series of Paleolithic habitation sites, which are well-known due to having been studied since the early days of archaeological research. Some of them, especially Cueva del Parpall— in Valencia, provided a large collection of mobiliary art on stone plaquettes. These contain hundreds of figures, drawn with different kinds of engraving, and occasionally with paint, produced during the human occupation of the cave, and distributed throughout much of the Upper Paleolithic, from the Gravettian to the middle or late Magdalenian. The existence in this area of a mobiliary art of such a plainly Paleolithic style, was one of the main arguments which allowed the Levantine rock art, found in rock-shelters in this part of the Mediterranean, to be dated in the Holocene and to more advanced societies.

However, Paleolithic rock art was lacking, until in the last few decades when a number of sites have been discovered along the Mediterranean coast. Nevertheless, there are still very few decorated caves in relation with the number of known habitation sites, probably because of the important difficulties with conservation in this area, among other factors.

Beginning in the upper Ebro Valley, some caves have long been known, in areas in close contact with the northern Meseta. One is Cueva Palomera de Ojo Guare–a, with a group of figures painted in black, in a unique style, but with animal species which are definitely Pleistocene. Another nearby cave is Penches, with animal engravings in a much more conventional Paleolithic style, and probably of Magdalenian age.

In the central Ebro Valley, only one site is known with definitely Paleolithic art: Cueva de la Fuente del Trucho. It has negative images of hands, in red and black, and always with bent or mutilated fingers, as well as horses and simple lines, meanders or finger-marks. Apart from the caves in the Cantabrian region, Fuente del Trucho, together with the caves of Maltravieso and Escoural, is one of the oldest assemblages in the Peninsula.

On the coast, to the south of Catalu–a, only two figures have been located in a couple of caves. One is an engraved animal in Cova de la Taverna, attributed to the Paleolithic because of its naturalism and its location inside a cave. The other is an auroch in black, probably Paleolithic, in Cueva de la Moleta de Cartagena.

Just as in Catalu–a, Levante has a full series of habitation sites, containing mobiliary art which is of great quality and abundance in Parpall—, or less so in Mallaetes or Cova Matutano. But rock art is limited to a handful of caves. The most interesting is Cueva de El Ni–o, near the headwaters of the River Mundo, in an area of transition with the southern sub-meseta, and very near the eastern Andalucian group of caves. It contains excellent red paintings of deer and goats. Nearer the coast, Cova Fosca has a good number of animal engravings, with deer, bovines and horses, of Style II or III. A short distance away, Cueva de Rein—s is a small cave with just one goat painted in black.

The Segura Valley in Murcia has several caves which have recently been discovered, containing animal paintings of a clear and conventionalized Paleolithic style. Examples are the caves of Jorge, Las Cabras, and Arco I and II, with red paintings of horses, goats, hinds, and non-figurative marks. This group of caves leads on to another group in the east of Andalucia, which in cases like Cueva Ambrosio has art of a very similar style.

4. The First Andalucian Art. Situated in the extreme south-west of the European continent, Andalucia doubtlessly forms the last frontier of Paleolithic rock art, which does not exist in the north of Africa. A considerable number of decorated caves are known besides one open-air site at Piedras Blancas. And new discoveries are being made with a frequency that suggests more will be found in the future. The caves of La Pileta and Do–a Trinidad, both in the province of Malaga, were discovered and studied at the beginning of the century. Since then, in the last twenty or thirty years, the paintings in the caves of Nerja and El Toro were discovered, and then the caves of Navarro, Malalmuerzo, Ambrosio and El Moro among other less clear ones. Furthermore, a number of interesting Upper Paleolithic habitation sites have been located; the caves of Nerja and Ambrosio mentioned above, and Cueva del Pirulejo, as well as the Gibraltar sites.

The rock art sites are distributed along the southern coast, at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea, from Gibraltar to Almeria, with a special concentration on the coast of Malaga. A second group is found in the inland hills of eastern Andalucia. So far, it seems that the art of the inland group (La Pileta and Do–a Trinidad) tends to be of an archaic style, whereas a more recent Magdalenian style is more common on the coast, in the caves of Nerja, El Higuer—n, El Toro and Cueva Navarro.

This first Andalucian art is clearly related to that of its neighboring areas. On its western edge it shows a continuity in its character with those sites in the Alentejo such as Escoural, and in the East with the caves of Murcia (Cueva del Arco) and Alicante. Its main characteristics, then, cannot be separated from those of its surrounding regions:

* The fauna is exclusively of temperate climates, and not specifically cold. Thus the fauna is much more similar to what is known historically in this region than to the animals represented in more northern zones, in which there was a simplification in the species of ungulates at the end of the Pleistocene, which did not happen in Andalucia. In this way, horses, aurochs, deer and goats are represented, as well as fish in Pileta and possible seals at Nerja. To put it another way, this southern third of the Peninsula does not have the cold Pleistocene fauna which is present, however scarcely, in the Mesetas.

* The assemblages discovered so far have quite a small number of figures, exceptions apart. Regarding the depictions themselves, there seems to be a relative abundance of abstract or simply non-figurative art. The simplest types are identical to depictions in northern regions, such as pairs of lines and series of dots. Other types are specific to the southern part of the Peninsula, and are stars, or lines forming grilles or reticules.

* The technical procedures seem to be less diverse than in the North. Simple, single line engravings are known in figures of an archaic style in Cueva del Moro, both in rock and in clay. Repeated and multiple line engravings exist in some cases too. Most of the paintings were produced with simple lines in black or red, or yellow in Do–a Trinidad de Ardales. Color-wash was hardly ever used, or color-shading. Equally, neither clearly bichrome paintings are found, nor figures associating paint and engraving.

* It is difficult to attribute any compositions to the earlier phases of the Upper Paleolithic, which are poorly represented. Researchers in the area tend to distinguish only two successive styles, which they date in the Solutrean and Magdalenian periods.

In the first of these phases we can find animal figures fitting well into Leroi-Gourhan's Styles II and III, for example in the caves of La Pileta, Do–a Trinidad and El Moro. These have animals with heavy bodies and short limbs, incorrect perspective, small heads, and conventionalized details in ears and manes. In caves like La Pileta the animals are accompanied by finger-marks in red.

In Magdalenian assemblages, here as in the rest of southwest Europe, it can be seen that greater efforts were made to express volume and occasionally movement, as in Cueva del Morr—n. Using the same techniques as in earlier periods, it was possible to achieve a greater realism and better coordination of the different parts of many of the figures.


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