Altamira Cave
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The Cave of Altamira ( ; ) is a cave complex, located near the historic town of
Santillana del Mar Santillana del Mar () is a historic town situated in Cantabria, Spain. Its many historic buildings attract thousands of visitors every year. There is an old saying that Santillana del Mar is ''The Town of Three Lies'', since it is neither a Saint ...
in
Cantabria Cantabria (, ; ) is an autonomous community and Provinces of Spain, province in northern Spain with Santander, Cantabria, Santander as its capital city. It is called a , a Nationalities and regions of Spain, historic community, in its current ...
,
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
. It is renowned for prehistoric
cave art In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric art, prehistoric origin. These paintings were often c ...
featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of contemporary local fauna and human hands. The earliest paintings were applied during the
Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...
, around 36,000 years ago. The site was discovered in 1868 by Modesto Cubillas and subsequently studied by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. Aside from the striking quality of its polychromatic art, Altamira's fame stems from the fact that its paintings were the first European cave paintings for which a prehistoric origin was suggested and promoted. Sautuola published his research with the support of Juan de Vilanova y Piera in 1880, to initial public acclaim. However, the publication of Sanz de Sautuola's research quickly led to a bitter public controversy among experts, some of whom rejected the prehistoric origin of the paintings on the grounds that prehistoric human beings lacked sufficient ability for abstract thought. The controversy continued until 1902, by which time reports of similar findings of prehistoric paintings in the Franco-Cantabrian region had accumulated and the evidence could no longer be rejected. Altamira is located in the
Franco-Cantabrian region The Franco-Cantabrian region (also ''Franco-Cantabric region'') is a term applied in archaeology and history to refer to an area that stretches from Asturias, in northern Spain, to Aquitaine and Provence in Southern France. It includes the southe ...
and in 1985 was declared a
World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
by
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
as a key location of the
Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain The Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain () is a grouping of 18 caves of northern Spain, which together represent the apogee of Upper Paleolithic cave art in Europe between 35,000 and 11,000 years ago (Aurignacian, Grave ...
. The cave can no longer be visited, for conservation reasons, but there are replicas of a section at the site and elsewhere.


Description

The cave is approximately long and consists of a series of twisting passages and chambers. The main passage varies from two to six meters in height. The cave was formed through collapses following early
karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...
phenomena in the calcareous rock of Mount Vispieres.
Archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
excavations in the cave floor found rich deposits of artifacts from the Upper
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. Detai ...
(c.18,500 years ago) and Lower
Magdalenian Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; ) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a ro ...
(between c.16,590 and 14,000 years ago). Both periods belong to the
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
or Old Stone Age. In the two millennia between these two occupations, the cave was evidently inhabited only by wild animals. Human occupants of the site were well-positioned to take advantage of the rich wildlife that grazed in the valleys of the surrounding mountains as well as the marine life available in nearby coastal areas. Around 13,000 years ago a rockfall sealed the cave's entrance, preserving its contents until its eventual discovery, which occurred after a nearby tree fell and disturbed the fallen rocks. Human occupation was limited to the cave mouth, although paintings were created throughout the length of the cave. The artists used
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
and
ochre Ochre ( ; , ), iron ochre, or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colou ...
or
hematite Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...
to create the images, often diluting these pigments to produce variations in intensity and creating an impression of
chiaroscuro In art, chiaroscuro ( , ; ) is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to ach ...
. They also exploited the natural contours of the cave walls to give their subjects a three-dimensional effect. The Polychrome Ceiling is the most impressive feature of the cave, depicting a herd of extinct
steppe bison The steppe bison (''Bison'' ''priscus'', also less commonly known as the steppe wisent and the primeval bison) is an extinct species of bison which lived from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. During the Late Pleistocene, it was widely dist ...
(''Bison priscus'') in different poses, two horses, a large doe, and possibly a
wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...
. Dated to the Magdalenian occupation, these paintings include abstract shapes in addition to animal subjects. Solutrean paintings include images of horses and goats, as well as handprints that were created when artists placed their hands on the cave wall and blew pigment over them to leave a negative image. Numerous other caves in northern Spain contain Paleolithic art, but none is as complex or well-populated as Altamira.


Discovery, excavation, scepticism

In 1879, following its discovery a decade earlier, amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was led by his eight-year-old daughter María to the cave and realized that the markings on the walls constituted drawings.Travel Advisory; A Modern Copy Of Ancient Masters
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', 4 November 2001
The cave was excavated by Sautuola and archaeologist Juan Vilanova y Piera from the University of Madrid, resulting in a much acclaimed publication in 1880 which interpreted the paintings as Paleolithic in origin. The French specialists, led by
Gabriel de Mortillet Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet (29 August 1821 – 25 September 1898), French archaeologist and anthropologist, was born at Meylan, Isère. Biography Mortillet was educated at the Jesuit college of Chambéry and at the Paris Conservatoi ...
and Émile Cartailhac, were particularly adamant in rejecting the hypothesis of Sautuola and Piera, whose findings were loudly ridiculed at the 1880 Prehistorical Congress in
Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
. Due to the high artistic quality, and the exceptional state of conservation of the paintings, Sautuola was accused of forgery, as he was unable to answer why there were no soot (smoke) marks on the walls and ceilings of the cave. A fellow countryman maintained that the paintings had been produced by a contemporary artist, on Sautuola's orders. Later, Sautuola found out the artist could have used marrow fat as oil for the lamp, producing much less soot than any other combustibles. It was not until 1902, when several other findings of prehistoric paintings had served to render the hypothesis of the extreme antiquity of the Altamira paintings less offensive, that the scientific society retracted their opposition to the Spaniards. That year, Cartailhac emphatically admitted his mistake in the famous article, "Mea culpa d'un sceptique", published in the journal ''L'Anthropologie''. Sautuola, having died 14 years earlier, did not live to witness his rehabilitation. Cartailhac went on to write a pair of books about the cave, assisted by Henri Breuil's hand-drawn reproductions of the paintings. Breuil was both a Catholic priest and a competent draughtsman, whose connection with the cave is discussed in the first chapter of G. K. Chesterton's book, The Everlasting Man. Further excavation work on the cave was done by Hermilio Alcalde del Río between 1902 and 1904, the German Hugo Obermaier between 1924 and 1925 and finally by Joaquín González Echegaray in 1968.


Dating and periodization

There is no scientific agreement on the dating of the archeological artifacts found in the cave, nor the drawings and paintings, and scientists continue to evaluate the age of the cave art at Altamira. In 2008, researchers using uranium-thorium dating found that the paintings were completed over a period of up to 20,000 years rather than during a comparatively brief period. A later study published in 2012 based on data obtained from further uranium-thorium dating research, dated some paintings in several caves in North Spain, including some of the claviform signs in the "Gran sala" of Altamira. The oldest sign found, a "large red claviform-like symbol of ''Techo de los Polícromos''", was dated to (corrected), i.e. still well within the
Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Cro-Magnon, Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the L ...
. A red dotted outline horse, also in the ''Techo de los Polícromos'' chamber, was dated to (beginning
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. Detai ...
), establishing that the paintings span a period of more than 10,000 years.A. W. G. Pike et al., "U-Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain", ''Science'' 336, 1409 (2012), . "We present uranium-series disequilibrium dates of calcite deposits overlying or underlying art found in 11 caves, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo, and Tito Bustillo, Spain. The results demonstrate that the tradition of decorating caves extends back at least to the Early Aurignacian period, with minimum ages of 40.8 thousand years for a red disk, 37.3 thousand years for a hand stencil, and 35.6 thousand years for a claviform-like symbol. These minimum ages reveal either that cave art was a part of the cultural repertoire of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or that perhaps Neandertals also engaged in painting caves." Table 1: Ages are corrected for detritus by using an assumed 232Th/238U activity of and 230Th/238U and 234U/238U at equilibrium.


Visitors and replicas

During the 1970s and 2000s, the paintings were being damaged by the
carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...
and
water vapour Water vapor, water vapour, or aqueous vapor is the gaseous phase of water. It is one state of water within the hydrosphere. Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Water vapor ...
in the breath of the large number of visitors. Altamira was completely closed to the public in 1977, and reopened to limited access in 1982. Very few visitors were allowed in per day, resulting in a three-year waiting list. After green mould began to appear on some paintings in 2002, the caves were closed to public access. A replica cave and museum were built nearby and completed in 2001 by Manuel Franquelo and Sven Nebel, reproducing the cave and its art. The replica allows a more comfortable view of the polychrome paintings of the main hall of the cave, as well as a selection of minor works. It also includes some sculptures of human faces that are not visitable in the real cave. As well as the adjacent National Museum and Research Center of Altamira there are reproductions in the
National Archaeological Museum of Spain The National Archaeological Museum (; MAN) is a archaeology museum in Madrid, Spain. It is located on Calle de Serrano beside the Plaza de Colón, sharing its building with the National Library of Spain. It is one of the National Museums of ...
(
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
), in the
Deutsches Museum The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science museum, science and technology museum, technology, with a ...
in
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
(completed 1964) and in Japan (completed 1993). During 2010 there were plans to reopen access to the cave towards the end of that year. In December 2010, however, the Spanish Ministry of Culture decided that the cave would remain closed to the public. This decision was based on advice from a group of experts who had found that the conservation conditions inside the cave had become much more stable since the closure.


Cultural impact

Some of the polychrome paintings at Altamira Cave are well known in Spanish popular culture. The logo used by the autonomous government of Cantabria to promote tourism to the region is based on one of the bisons in this cave. ''Bisonte'' (Spanish for "bison"), a Spanish
cigarette A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into Rolling paper, thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhale ...
brand of the 20th century, also used a Paleolithic style bison figure along with its logo. The Spanish
comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicat ...
series '' Altamiro de la Cueva'', created in 1965, is named for the Altamira Cave. The comic series depicts the adventures of a group of prehistoric cavemen, shown as modern people, but dressed in pieces of fur, similarly to
the Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera Productions, which takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the R ...
. The song "The Caves of Altamira" appears on the 1976 album '' The Royal Scam'' by jazz-rock band
Steely Dan Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen cho ...
, later covered by soul group Perri. The mid-20th-century modern dinnerware line Primitive, designed by Viktor Schreckengost for the American pottery company Salem China, was based on the bison, deer, and stick figure hunters depicted in the Altamira cave paintings. The iconic bison image has been used for the cover of the poetry collection '' Songs for the Devil and Death'' by Scottish author Hal Duncan. The protagonist in Satyajit Ray's film ''
Agantuk ''Agantuk'' (; known by its English title The Stranger) is a 1991 Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray. Notable for being Ray's last film, it was based on one of his own short stories, ''Atithi''. A joint Indo-French ...
'' was inspired by the charging Bison painting to leave his home and study tribal people. In 2007, the caves were selected as one of the '' 12 Treasures of Spain'', a contest conducted by broadcasters Antena 3 and
COPE A cope ( ("rain coat") or ("cape")) is a liturgical long mantle or cloak, open at the front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour. A cope may be worn by any rank of the Catholic or Anglican clerg ...
. In 2016, British Director
Hugh Hudson Hugh Hudson (25 August 1936 – 10 February 2023) was an English film director. He was among a generation of British directors who would begin their career making documentaries and television commercials before going on to have success in film ...
released the film '' Altamira'' (called ''Finding Altamira'' outside Spain) about the discovery of the caves, starring
Antonio Banderas José Antonio Domínguez Bandera (born 10 August 1960), known professionally as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish actor. Known for his work in films of several genres, he has received numerous accolades, including a Cannes Film Festival Award ...
and with music by
Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE (born 12 August 1949) is a British musician. He was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995, and he is the one of the two members who stayed during the band's existence ...
released on the soundtrack album '' Altamira''.


See also

* 7742 Altamira, asteroid named after the cave *
Art of the Upper Paleolithic The art of the Upper Paleolithic represents the oldest form of prehistoric art. Figurative art is present in prehistoric Europe, Europe and Prehistoric Indonesia, Southeast Asia, beginning around 50,000 years ago. Non-figurative cave paintings, c ...
*
Chauvet Cave The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave ( ) in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life.Clottes (2003b), p. ...
* Caves in Cantabria *
List of Stone Age art This is a descriptive list of Stone Age art, the period of prehistory characterised by the widespread use of stone tools. This article contains, by sheer volume of the artwork discovered, a very incomplete list of the works of the painters, sculpt ...
* Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain


References


Bibliography

* Curtis, Gregory. ''The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006 (hardcover, )). * Guthrie, R. Dale. ''The Nature of Prehistoric Art''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006 (hardcover, ). * McNeill, William H
"Secrets of the Cave Paintings"''The New York Review of Books''
Vol. 53, No. 16, October 19, 2006. *
Sustainable tourism and social value at World Heritage Sites: Towards a conservation plan for Altamira, Spain. Annals of Tourism Research. Eva Parga-Dans & Pablo Alonso González.

The Altamira controversy: Assessing the economic impact of a world heritage site for planning and tourism management. Journal of Cultural Heritage. Eva Parga-Dans & Pablo Alonso González.

The social value of heritage: Balancing the promotion-preservation relationship in the Altamira World Heritage Site, Spain. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management. Eva Parga-Dans, Pablo Alonso González & Raimundo Otero-Enríquez.


External links


Altamira Cave National Museum

The Spanish Cave of Altamira opens – with politics
Bradshaw Foundation Article * "Les peintures préhistoriques de la grotte d’Altamira", Cartailhac and Breuil founding article (1903), online and analyzed o
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lick 'à télécharger' for English version Lick may refer to: * Licking, the action of passing the tongue over a surface Places * Lick (crater), a crater on the Moon named after James Lick * 1951 Lick, an asteroid named after James Lick * Lick Township, Jackson County, Ohio, United State ...
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Human Timeline (Interactive)
– Smithsonian,
National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...
(August 2016) {{DEFAULTSORT:Altamira, Cave Of 1868 archaeological discoveries Limestone caves Caves of Cantabria Cantabrian symbols Prehistoric sites in Spain World Heritage Sites in Spain Caves containing pictograms in Spain Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe