Spain's oldest cave paintings may be 30,000 years old: investigator
19/4/2007 16:19
The paintings in Spain's Cantal caves date back to 30,000 years ago
and are the oldest in Spain, researcher Pedro Cantalejo said yesterday at a
press conference. Cantalejo, who has spent 20 years in the Upper Paleolithic
caves, in Andalucia municipality Rincon de la Victoria, said the
hunter-gatherers who painted Cantal's more than 200 paintings, began work 30,000
to 20,000 years ago, older than the famous cave paintings of Altamira in
northern Spain as well as those of Lascaux in southwest France. The caves
were used again around 6,000 years ago, painted with human figures and used as a
collective grave, in the late Neolithic and the Calcolithic. Cantalejo's new
book Prehistory in the Cantal Caves describes the cave as a cultural and
religious cathedral, not just a refuge from daily life, adding that Rincon de
Victoria may be founded because of these caves. The Cantal caves are more
than 2.5 km long and only 500 meters are open to the public. They were
discovered in 1918 by an abbot, Henri Breval, but formal research began only in
1983. Discovered in 1879 and 1940 respectively, the caves of Altamira and
Lascaux contain magnificent specimens of Paleolithic art.
Xinhua
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