The Upper Paleolithic of Cantabrian Spain

Abstract

Study of the Cantabrian Upper Paleolithic began in the 1870s with excavations by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola in the caves of El Pendo, Camargo, and especially Altamira, where, in 1878, he discovered rupestral paintings and recognized their relationship to the Ice Age archeological deposits he was digging in the vestibule of the cavern1 (Fig. 1). Following two decades of dismissal by most of the prehistoric “establishment,” Cantabrian prehistory once again asserted its importance with the discovery, a century ago, by H. Alcalde del Rio and Lorenzo Sierra, of such major art and archeological sites as El Castillo, Hornos de la Pena, Covalanas, La Haza, El Miron, and El Valle.2 Since then, and at an intensified pace in recent years, some 100 cave art loci and many more Upper Paleolithic habitation sites have been discovered, making the relatively small Vasco-Cantabrian region of northern Spain one of the richest in the world for the archeology of the period between c. 40,000 to 10,000 radiocarbon years ago. The purpose of this article is to review and make available to an English-speaking readership some of the most salient and distinctive aspects of the Upper Paleolithic record of Cantabrian Spain, highlighting the discoveries and developments in our understanding of major problems that have occurred since publication, more than a decade ago, of my book on the Stone Age prehistory of northern Spain, Iberia Before the Iberians.3 In particular, this record is significant in relation to the ongoing debate about the socalled Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition; the impact of the Last Glacial Maximum on human settlement in Europe; study of Upper Paleolithic art in its broader socio-cultural-economic contexts; and the worldwide phenomenon of diverse human responses to the termination of Pleistocene environmental conditions around 10,000 radiocarbon years ago.