The Prehistoric Rock-Art Site of Escoural Cave ( pt, Estação Arqueológica da Herdade da Sala/Gruta do Escoural, links=no) is a structure known for its

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone to ...

-era rock-art and funerary burial site, located in the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Port ...

municipality of Montemor-o-Novo, in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

of Santiago do Escoural.

History

The earliest vestiges of human occupation date back to 50,000 years B.C. (pertaining to the middle Paleolithic), associated with the interior of the cave. The first occupants of the cave came from groups of

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While ...

hunter-gatherers, who used the cave as a temporary shelter in order to hunt. Based on bone evidence within the cave, these groups hunted nearby

aurochs The aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') ( or ) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to in bulls and in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocene ...

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the ...

and

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million ...

. Elements of rock art also pertain to 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 coi ...

(40,000 to 10,000 years B.C.) or final parts of the Neolithic period, when the interior was used as a funerary site, while a small settlement inhabited the area in the exterior. During the

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 regul ...

period, a human settlement existed within the cave, developing into a fortified site by the end of Copper Age. A series of archaeological investigations began in 1963, under Manuel Farinha dos Santos, which continued in 1980, while a team of international investigators performed soundings in 1989. In 1999 it was included in the ''Programa de Valorização e Divulgação Turística: Itinerários Arqueológicos do Alentejo e Algarve'', under the Ministry of Commerce and Tourism and Secretary-of-State of Culture, in order to monetize the sight as a tourist pole. As a result, an interpretative centre was constructed from a local traditional building, then expanded, reopened in 2011 after new public works.

Architecture

The rock-art site is located along the E.N.370 motorway between Santiago do Escoural and Alto da Abaneja, approximately five kilometres from the latter. A side road towards the east, in the direction of Herdade da Sala, in the locality of Fonte Nova, directs the traveller to a marble outcropping and cliff face embedded in igneous rock, on which the archaeological site is found. It is in an isolated rural location between the

Tagus River The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to ...

and

Sado River The river Sado () is a river in southern Portugal; it is one of the major rivers in the country. It flows in a northerly direction (the only major Portuguese river to do so) through from its springs in the hills of Ourique before entering the A ...

basins and the plains region of the Alentejo, near other important megalithic monuments, including the Cromolech of Almendres and the

dolmen A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were so ...

Anta Grande do Zambujeiro Great Dolmen of Zambujeiro ( pt, Anta Grande do Zambujeiro) is a megalithic monument located in Nossa Senhora da Tourega, near Valverde, in the municipality of Évora, considered one of the biggest such structures in the Iberian Peninsula. Hi ...

. A complex subterranean structure, the cave is an irregular plan that extends longitudinally northwest to southeast, consisting of a network of horizontal halls and galleries at different levels sealed within a thick

flowstone Flowstones are sheetlike deposits of calcite or other carbonate minerals, formed where water flows down the walls or along the floors of a cave. They are typically found in "solution caves", in limestone, where they are the most common speleothe ...

mantle. Although the excavation and investigation of the cave has been studied since the 1960s, prospecting in the cave has yet to be concluded. The cave, which develops in a very tangled and karst network with multiple connections to the outside, is located within a steep cliff of hard limestone. The latest surveys, made in 1989 (Silva and others, 1991), have revealed new chambers, resulting in further progressive investigations. Beyond the important cave art, paintings and engravings, the underground system has revealed numerous funerary burial sites dating from the

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 part ...

to the

, with a universe of interesting artifacts. Outdoors, in an area defined by the extent of the cliff face, there were recorded traces of a village that existed throughout the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. The monument is a singular example of Neolithic Portuguese archaeology, whose prehistoric art paintings are comparable to those of Altamira and

Lascaux Lascaux ( , ; french: Grotte de Lascaux , "Lascaux Cave") is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 parietal wall paintings cover the interior walls and ceilings of ...

. The site was the first in Portugal in which prehistoric art was identified, and the only location that has examples of Paleolithic artwork. There have been identified hundreds of motifs, engravings and paintings of animals, abstract forms and geometric shapes in the archaeological site.

References

;Notes ;Sources * * * * * * * * * *

External links

The Megalithic Portal

History

Architecture

References

External links

See also