España tiene algunas de las más antiguas muestras artísticas.

U-Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain


Autores: A. W. G. Pike1,*, D. L. Hoffmann2,3, M. García-Diez4, P. B. Pettitt5, J. Alcolea6, R. De Balbín6, C. González-Sainz7, C. de las Heras8, J. A. Lasheras8, R. Montes8, J. Zilhão9

En el presente artículo aparecido en "Science", se reportan losresultados del trabajo de un equipo de estudiosos en la datación de los dibujos de 11 cuevas españolas, entre ellas las famosas de Altamira. Las técnicas utilizadas proporcionan nuevos datos en cuanto a la antiguedad de algunas de las principales muestras del arte paleolítico en España.


+ Author Affiliations

1Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UU, UK.

2Bristol Isotope Group, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK.

3Centro Nacional de Investigatión sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca s/n, 09002 Burgos, Spain.

4Department of Geography, Prehistory and Archaeology, University of Basque Country (UPV/EHU), c/ Tomás y Valiente s/n, 01006 Vitoria,Spain.

5Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield S1 4ET, UK.

6Prehistory Section, University of Alcalá de Henares, c/ Colegios 2, 28801 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.

7Department of Historic Sciences, University of Cantabria, Avenida Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain.

8Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira. 39330 Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain.

9University of Barcelona/Institució Catalana de Reserca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Departament de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia (SERP), c/ Montalegre 6, 08001 Barcelona, Spain.

↵*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: alistair.pike@bristol.ac.uk

Abstract


Paleolithic cave art is an exceptional archive of early human symbolic behavior, but because obtaining reliable dates has been difficult, its chronology is still poorly understood after more than a century of study. We present uranium-series disequilibrium dates of calcite deposits overlying or underlying art found in 11 caves, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo, and Tito Bustillo, Spain. The results demonstrate that the tradition of decorating caves extends back at least to the Early Aurignacian period, with minimum ages of 40.8 thousand years for a red disk, 37.3 thousand years for a hand stencil, and 35.6 thousand years for a claviform-like symbol. These minimum ages reveal either that cave art was a part of the cultural repertoire of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or that perhaps Neandertals also engaged in painting caves.