Archaeologists identify 280 engravings in Catalonia cave

Archaeologists from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) described hundreds of rock-art engravings dating back around 26,000 years in the Cova de la Font Major in Catalonia, Spain, reporting the findings in Antiquity as covered by Nature nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. Archaeologist Josep Maria Vergès Bosch first spotted prehistoric engravings among modern graffiti during a planned excavation in 2019 nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗.

Catalogued motifs

Vergès Bosch and archaeologist Míriam Salas-Altès documented 280 Palaeolithic art motifs throughout the site, including 55 depictions of animals nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. The identified etchings include figures of a horse, a bear, and an aurochs, accompanied by numerous swirling lines nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. The authors reported that ancient artists integrated natural fissures and wall contours into their work, using one natural line to represent the ground surface underneath a horse nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗.

Cave environment

The underground system comprises more than 3.5 kilometres of subterranean passageways that have been occupied multiple times across human history nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. The site has been open to the public for some seven decades and became a museum in the 1990s nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗.

Salas-Altès stated that the depressions remained difficult to spot under direct illumination nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. Documenting the shallow lines required directing light from varied angles to reveal the depressions beneath modern markings nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗.