The upper Paleolithic rock art of Iberia

N Bicho, AF Carvalho, C Gonz�lez-Sainz…�- …�Method and Theory, 2007 - Springer
N Bicho, AF Carvalho, C Gonz�lez-Sainz, JL Sanchidri�n, V Villaverde, LG Straus
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2007Springer
Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian
Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian
Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human
demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably
painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic
discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both�…
Abstract
Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11�kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both geographically and temporally in recent years, in close coincidence with the growth of contemporaneous archeological evidence: cave art loci in Arag�n and Levante attributable to the Solutrean and Magdalenian, many cave art sites and a few open-air ones in Andaluc�a and Extremadura that are mostly Solutrean (in line with evidence of a major Last Glacial Maximum human refugium in southern Spain), the spectacular C�a Valley open-air complex in northern Portugal (together with a growing number of other such loci and one cave) that was probably created during the Gravettian-Magdalenian periods, and a modest, but important increase in proven cave and open-air sites in the high, north-central interior of Spain that are probably Solutrean and/or Magdalenian. Despite regional variations in decorated surfaces, themes, techniques and styles, there are broad (and sometimes very specific) pan-Iberian similarities (as well as ones with the Upper Paleolithic art of southern France) that are indicative of widespread human contacts and shared systems of symbols and beliefs during the late Last Glacial. As this Ice Age world and the forms of social relationships and ideologies that helped human groups survive in it came to an end, so too did the decoration of caves, rockshelters and outcrops, although in some regions other styles of rock art would return under very different conditions of human existence.
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