The Cueva del Castillo, or Cave of the Castle, is an archaeological site within the complex of the

Caves of Monte Castillo The Caves of Monte Castillo, located in the Cantabrian town of Puente Viesgo, contain one of the most important Paleolithic sites in the region. The complex of karstic caves is on the slopes of Monte Castillo, a hill south of Puente Viesgo, wi ...

, in Puente Viesgo,

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 ea ...

, Spain.

Bastón perforado-Cueva del Castillo (España)

The archaeological

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock (geology), rock layers (Stratum, strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock, sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigrap ...

has been divided into around 19 layers, depending on the source they slightly deviate from each other, however the overall sequence is consistent, beginning in the Proto-Aurignacian, and ending in the

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 pri ...

. The El Castillo cave contains the oldest known

cave painting 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 origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...

: a large red stippled disk in the ''Panel de las Manos '' was dated to more than 40,000 years old using uranium-thorium dating in a 2012 study.. "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." The El Castillo red stippled disk (sample O-83) was dated to ( 95% CI, corrected). Table 1: Ages are corrected for detritus by using an assumed ²³²Th/²³⁸U activity of and ²³⁰Th/²³⁸U and ²³⁴U/²³⁸U at equilibrium. See also: This is consistent with the tradition of cave painting originating in the Proto-Aurignacian, with the first arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe. A 2013 study of finger length ratios in Upper Paleolithic hand stencils found in France and Spain determined that the majority were of female hands, overturning the previous widely held belief that this art form was primarily a male activity. Cueva del Castillo was discovered in 1903 by Hermilio Alcalde del Río, a Spanish archaeologist, who was one of the pioneers in the study of the earliest cave paintings of Cantabria. The entrance to the cave was smaller in the past and has been enlarged as a result of archaeological excavations. Alcalde del Río found an extensive sequence of images executed in charcoal and red

ochre 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 colours produced ...

on the walls and ceilings of multiple caverns. The paintings and numerous markings and graffiti span from the

Lower Paleolithic The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in ...

to the

, and even into the Middle Ages. There are over 150 depictions already catalogued, including those that emphasize the engravings of a few deer, complete with shadowing.

References

External links

Caves of Cantabria - Spanish Government Council of Culture, Tourism and Sport

Video: Paleolithic Cave Arts in Northern Spain: El Castillo Cave
{{Navbox prehistoric caves C Show caves in Spain Caves containing pictograms in Spain Lower Paleolithic Bronze Age Spain