This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Archaeologists have discovered the third-largest assemblage of Ice Age cave art ever found in Mediterranean Iberia in a region thought devoid of cave art, transforming our knowledge of Paleolithic European art. Since the 12th century A.D., people have been visiting the Cova de la Font Major in Catalonia.
From 1957 onward, it was widely frequented by visitors, speleologists and treasure hunters, and it was even converted into a tourist attraction in 1993. Despite this, no art from the Ice Age had ever been discovered there, and it was believed that the cave walls were unsuitable for engraving Paleolithic art. The Iberian Peninsula contains more than 50% of all cave art documented in Upper Paleolithic Europe, but its distribution is uneven, with a high concentration found in the Franco-Cantabrian region (located between modern France and Spain) but only two representations found in the entirety of Catalonia.
"Until now, the Paleolithic rock art identified in northeastern Iberia has been very scarce compared with the abundant record of the neighboring Franco-Cantabrian region," states research co-author Josep Maria Vergès from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA). This all changed when archaeologists identified 280 Paleolithic motifs in the cave, right under our noses the entire time. This is the highest concentration of Paleolithic parietal representations currently known in Catalonia.
"For more than six decades, thousands of visitors passed directly in front of the engraved surfaces, and in some cases inscribed names and dates over them, without the Paleolithic origin of the figures being recognized," says Vergès. This discovery means that Cova de la Font Major contains the third-largest Paleolithic cave art assemblage on the Mediterranean side of the Iberian Peninsula. "Along the Iberian Mediterranean facade, from the Pyrenees to Gibraltar, around 75% of known assemblages contain no more than five zoomorphic figures, and over 90% contain no more than 20," adds co-author Míriam Salas-Altès from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA).
"The sheer quantity of art discovered at the Cova de la Font Major is therefore particularly exceptional." The authors analyzed the rock art and determined that the motifs are different from the art of the neighboring Franco-Cantabrian region, leading them to conclude that this represents a distinct Paleolithic artistic tradition. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity. These findings demonstrate, for the first time, that northeastern Iberia was home to its own particular artistic customs.
The quantity of art could indicate that the region, previously seen as marginal, was densely occupied, transforming our understanding of the Paleolithic in the western Mediterranean. "Contrary to what was previously thought, northeastern Iberia holds first-rate Paleolithic rock art sites," concludes Salas-Altès. "The Mediterranean art of western Europe is now enriched by a new body of rock art, which allows us to characterize in greater depth a Mediterranean graphic tradition with an identity of its own, distinct from that of the Franco-Cantabrian region." Josep Maria Vergès Bosch et al., Filling gaps: the Palaeolithic rock art of the Cova de la Font Major on the north-east Iberian Peninsula.
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