The La Garma cave complex is a

parietal art In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also m ...

-bearing paleoanthropological cave system in

Cantabria Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...

, Spain. It is located just north of the village of Omoño, part of the municipality of Ribamontán al Monte. The cave complex is noted for one of the best preserved floors from the Paleolithic containing more than 4,000 fossils and more than 500 graphical units. It is part of the Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain World Heritage Site.

Description

The La Garma cave complex is a

-bearing paleoanthropological cave system in

, Spain, located on the southern side of La Garma Hill, north of the village of Omoño, part of the municipality of Ribamontán al Monte. The cave complex contains more than 4,000 fossils and more than 500 graphical units, with 109 signs, 92 animal figures, and 40 hand stencils. The cave complex is noted for containing one of the best preserved floors from the Paleolithic. La Garma is listed as part of the Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain World Heritage Site. There are ten archaeological sites situated around La Garma Hill (elevation above sea level): the Lower Gallery (Galería Inferior), La Garma A, La Garma B, La Garma C, La Garma D, Cueva del Mar, El Truchiro, Peredo, Valladar, and a hillfort, . Cueva del Mar, Peredo, and Valladar are not part of the La Garma cave system. The La Garma cave system shows evidence of human use from 175,000 years ago through the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

La Garma A

the entrance to the cave system leads through La Garma A, as the only entrance into the cave system. It lies at above sea level and has an extensive stratigraphy, containing Aurignacian,

Gravettian The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by ...

Solutrean The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Paleolithic of the Final Gravettian, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. Solutrean sites have been found in modern-day France, Spain and Portugal. Details ...

, and Magdalenian layers, as well as Mesolithic,

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

, and Middle Ages layers.

La Garma B

La Garma B lies at above sea level and is situated between La Garma A and the Lower Gallery. La Garma B contains Chacolithic and Bronze Age layers. La Garma B leads into the Intermediate Gallery, which contains Paleolithic cave paintings and deposits.

Lower Gallery

The Lower Gallery of La Garma is situated at above sea level and is around in length. It was discovered in November 1995. Its original entrance was sealed during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

by a rockslide about 16,000 years ago, preserving the cave floor in a pristine manner. The Magdalenian Lower Gallery cave floor is one of the best preserved Paleolithic cave floors ever discovered, and thus of great interest to paleoanthropologists. Researchers have divided the Lower Gallery into nine zones. The archaeological finds are found primarily in Zones I, III, and IV. The floor covers an area of more than . Thousands of animal bones and sea shells were found in this section, including Lithic, antler, and bone artefacts. Three stone structures, likely indicative of residential use, were discovered. In a pre-Magdalenian context 27 hand stencils in red, red dots, and simple animal paintings in red were found throughout the Lower Gallery. The Middle Magdalenian paintings and remains of residential structures were found near the entrance to this section of the cave. A vertical bison representation from Zone IX was directly dated to around 16,512-17,238 BP.

La Garma C and D

La Garma C and D are situated above La Garma A and contain burials from the Chacolithic.

El Truchiro Cave

El Truchiro Cave lies at above sea level and contains Mesolithic and Chacolithic layers. A late Mesolithic burial dating to around 5560–5310 BC was discovered, with an individual buried in an oak bark coffin.

Special findings

Cave lion remains

Nine distal phalanxes (claws) from an adult ''

Panthera spelaea ''Panthera spelaea'', also known as the Eurasian cave lion, European cave lion or steppe lion, is an extinct ''Panthera'' species that most likely evolved in Europe after the third Cromerian interglacial stage, less than 600,000 years ago. Phylo ...

'' were discovered in the Lower Gallery. One of the claws was directedly dated and yields a date of around 14,800 BC. The cave lion fossils came from a smaller specimen of Eurasian cave lions that was common in Cantabria. The claws show signs similar to those made by modern hunters when skinning an animal to preserve its pelt. Since no other cave lion fossil elements were discovered, researchers believe that the fossil claws are the remains of a pelt from a cave lion skinned by the inhabitants of the cave.

Portable art

La Garma is notable for its rich repository of Magdalenian portable art found in The Lower Gallery. The most outstanding artefact is a backward-facing ibex depiction carved onto a bovine rib spatula. Other portable art elements found at the cave complex include

perforated baton Perforated baton, bâton de commandement or bâton percé are names given by archaeologists to a type of particular prehistoric artifact from Prehistoric Europe, whose function remains debated. The name ''bâtons de commandement'' ("batons of ...

s'', '', decorated stone plaquettes, and undecorated pendants.

Mortuary practices

During the Neolithic, La Garma was less and less used as a residential site. From the

through the Bronze Age, it was used primarily as a collective burial site. The peculiar remains of five

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kn ...

ic youths were found deep in the cave system. After the bodies had turned into skeletons all of their skulls had been crushed, quite deliberately.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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Cueva de La Garma
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