A Spanish cave hid 280 engravings in plain sight. Their ages are still a puzzle

A hidden gallery, newly documented

A study published on November 5 documents 280 engraved motifs in a Catalan cave that visitors had explored for decades, including 55 animal figures. The archaeologists first recognized the ancient markings in 2019; their new paper describes the collection and argues that it changes the map of Ice Age art in northeastern Spain.cambridge +1

The Cova de la Font Major, beneath the town of L’Espluga de Francolí, became a tourist attraction in 1993. Thousands of people passed the engravings, and some scratched their own names and dates over them without recognizing the older figures.cambridge +1

Horses, a bear and modern graffiti

The gallery includes horses, deer, possible cattle and a rare depiction of a bear, as well as parallel lines and other nonfigurative marks. The bear’s ears face forward and its mouth is slightly open, according to the study. Some modern damage may have obscured or destroyed earlier images.cambridge +1

The discovery came when archaeologist Josep Maria Vergès examined a side gallery after hearing that tourists had emerged from it. He used his headlamp to look at the graffiti and noticed older lines. Frontal headlamps and the distracting modern marks may help explain why visitors missed the shallow engravings, the researchers told Gizmodo.gizmodo

The age is not settled

The engravings themselves have not yet been directly dated. Radiocarbon evidence from the cave’s interior places human activity between roughly 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, and some animal forms resemble pre-Magdalenian art from before roughly 19,000 years ago. But the authors say later engravings cannot yet be ruled out.cambridge +1

One distinctive panel of loops has an uncertain date and cultural attribution, the paper says. The researchers hope to use uranium-series dating on calcite covering at least one animal figure, although a date for that figure would not establish the age of the whole collection.cambridge

A different view of the region

Before the find, researchers had documented only two possible Ice Age wall-art figures in Catalonia. Font Major now ranks behind only Ardales and La Pileta in the number of animal figures known from sites along Iberia’s Mediterranean side, the paper says.cambridge +1

The researchers argue that the images add to evidence of a distinct Mediterranean artistic tradition. The decorated gallery is now closed to visitors because its walls are fragile; researchers also hope to investigate sediment-filled passages that could conceal more art.scientificamerican +1