Northern Spain harbours some of humanity’s earliest examples of accomplished art. Rosie Khdir takes a journey back to the Stone Age.

Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was a lawyer with an insatiable intellectual curiosity. It was this curiosity that led him to discover the infamous Palaeolithic paintings in the cave of Altamira in Cantabria.

In 1879, Sautuola was digging in the Altamira cave after discovering small bones, shells and drawings there four years before. His young daughter Maria, who was with him at the time, wandered a little further inside the cave and said she had seen pictures of oxen.

Sautuola who has studied prehistoric art in depth, immediately recognized these paintings, actually of bison, as prehistoric creations dating back to the Palaeolithic era of the Old Stone Age.

After years of fighting against the ‘elite’ of French pre-historians about the age and origin of these pieces of artwork, Sautuola’s discovery was finally validated using a modern dating technique 14 years after his death in 1888.

Since then the cave has become a National Monument and a UNESCO World Heritage site with its own trust and museum. The Museo de Altamira is only 2 km from the village of Santillana Del Mar, only and an hour and half from the port of Bilbao.

The exhibition is based around two main areas the “New Altamira Cave” and “The Times of Altamira” which includes a reconstruction of a Palaeolithic camp, a bear pit and the Chamber of Paintings. The “New Cave”, a reproduction of the original, offers visitors a look at the monument from 14,000 years ago.

These paintings are extraordinary and show us that even cavemen appreciated a pretty picture! The colours and detail of the bison, boar and doe featured in the cave is unbelievable, and the exhibition at the museum helps you understand how such art was possible in such a time.

The cave itself is currently in what scientists call a karst system which means the process of natural degradation is aggravating its structure. The cave itself is currently closed to tourists as a team from the Higher Council of Scientific Research and the Spanish Historical Heritage Institute try to establish a method of conservation.

For more information on opening times and the exhibition itself visit the official Museo De Altamira website.

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Image credit: Ramessos

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