Monte Castillo Caves

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monte Castillo Caves

The caves of Monte Castillo are located in Puente Viesgo in Cantabria in Spain . They are one of the important Paleolithic sites in the region and are known for their cave paintings (the oldest in the world) up to 64,800 years old . The four big caves are called: Las Monedas, El Castillo, Las Chimeneas and La Pasiega.

There are a number of caves along the Rio Pas on Monte Castillo. They are at the crossroads of different valleys. Because of this, it was a good place for fishing and hunting, which explains the occurrence of the prehistoric complexes.

Cueva de Las Monedas

The Cueva de Las Monedas (Eng. Cave of Coins) was found in 1952 by Don Isidoro Blanco. It is a cave with a small vestibule that gives access to a wide network of rooms where there are sintered curtains, stalagmites , stalactites and other typical cave formations.

Cueva El Castillo

  • Monte Castillo

  • Plan of the Monte Castillo mountain

  • Cueva La Pasiega

  • Henri Breuil , Hugo Obermaier and Hermilio Alcalde del Río during the tour

  • Deer from the Cueva de Chimeneas

  • Monte Castillo

  • Cueva de Las Monedas

  • Cueva del Castillo

  • Access to El Castillo

  • Cueva de las Chimeneas

Cueva de las Chimeneas

The Cueva de Las Chimeneas (Eng. Cave of Chimneys), discovered in 1953, is a two-story cave room that is connected by karst chimneys , which gave the cave its name. Archaeological interest is on the lower floor as the top of the cave is a sterile maze.

In 1956, Joaquin González Echegaray published a study of the cave and its images, which are based on Style III by Leroi-Gourhan , d. H. correspond to the solutre . However, the dates of the remains show that they come from the older Magdalenian . The engravings and black contours show cervids , cattle, horses, stag, hind, ibex. In addition, rectangular symbols as well as horns, antlers and ears in half-twisted perspective.

Cueva de La Pasiega

The Cueva de La Pasiega is a gallery up to 120 meters long (known part), running more or less parallel to the slope of the mountain with six small blocked entrances. The access for visitors is at the second entrance. The main gallery is about seventy meters long. From it go labyrinthine galleries that sometimes form rooms decorated with the Solutreen and the Magdalenian.

The highlights are depictions of deer (male and female), horses and cattle. There are also numerous abstract signs.

The complex caves of Monte Castillo are registered in the list of world cultural heritage of the Unesco of 2008 as "Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic cave paintings in Northern Spain".

With the help of uranium-thorium dating , wall paintings in this cave were dated to an age of at least 64,800 years in 2018 and attributed to the Neanderthals ; the first anatomically modern humans only settled in Europe around 40,000 years ago.

literature

  • Victoria Cabrera Valdes, James L. Bischoff: Accelerator 14 C dates for early upper paleolithic (basal Aurignacian) at El Castillo Cave (Spain). In: Journal of Archaeological Science 16, No. 6, 1989, pp. 577-584, doi: 10.1016 / 0305-4403 (89) 90023-X .

Web links

Commons : Caves of Monte Castillo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dirk L. Hoffmann et al .: U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. In: Science. Volume 359, No. 6378, 2018, pp. 912–915, doi: 10.1126 / science.aap7778 , full text (PDF)
  2. ↑ Neanderthals thought like us. Neanderthals created cave paintings on the Iberian Peninsula more than 64,000 years ago. On: mpg.de from February 22, 2018


Coordinates: 43 ° 17 ′ 27.6 ″  N , 3 ° 58 ′ 1.2 ″  W.