Ancient history

Catalonia discovers its prehistoric cave

An example of parietal engraving found in the cave, representing a horse • JOSEP MARIA / SERVICE DE PRESSE

Catalonia joins the privileged regions of Europe which have superb decorated caves dating from the Paleolithic era. A hundred parietal works - engravings dated 15,000 years, the oldest known in the region - have just been discovered near the village of L'Espluga de Francolí. This is the Font Major cave, spotted by chance in 1853 and whose network is one of the longest in the world. Located in the heart of an urban center, which is rare today, it is made up of an underground passage more than 3.5 km long with easy access corridors. Renovation work did not begin until 1992, and it was transformed into a museum trail.

Warning, fragile!

A team of prehistorians from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), which was conducting an archaeological excavation campaign, wanted to explore unknown areas of the cave, as they were difficult to access. They did not expect to come across parietal works when they located engravings on the walls:“In Catalonia, there was no Paleolithic art so far,” said archaeologist Josep Maria Vergès. In total, a hundred figures of horses, deer and bovids, but also abstract symbols, are engraved in the layer of silt that covers the rock, a very fragile crumbly support:a simple friction can erase the engravings. The researchers kept their discovery secret for several weeks to be able to carry out the 3D surveys of the engravings and incisions. This will make it possible to continue the study of the cave without entering it and to present the work to the general public.

The engravings date from the Magdalenian, a very rich period for rock art. Some engravings could be even older. The best known and most spectacular cave in Spain nevertheless remains that of Altamira, which contains one of the most beautiful pictorial ensembles of prehistory, with paintings dating from 15,000 years BC. J.-C., and which can be compared to Lascaux in France.


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