In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art, found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 years old and found in the caves in the district of Maros. The oldest are often constructed from hand stencils and simple geometric shapes. More recently, in 2021, cave art of a pig found in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and dated to over 45,500 years ago, has been reported.
Biscay is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilbao.
The Cave of Altamira is a cave complex, located near the historic town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. It is renowned for prehistoric cave art featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of contemporary local fauna and human hands. The earliest paintings were applied during the Upper Paleolithic, around 36,000 years ago. The site was discovered in 1868 by Modesto Cubillas and subsequently studied by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola.
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago, according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in early modern humans, until the advent of the Neolithic Revolution and agriculture.
Mutriku is a coastal town located in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Autonomous Community of Basque Country in northern Spain. It has a population of around 5000 and provides access to the Bay of Biscay. It is the site of the world's first multi-turbine breakwater wave power station, opened July 8, 2011. The Church of San Andrés can be found here, being one of the oldest churches in Gipuzkoa, dating to the year 1080.
Toquepala Caves are located near Toquepala mine, about 154 km (96 mi) from the city of Tacna, in the extreme southeast of Peru. They are notable for a number of rock paintings. The best known of them is the cave named Abrigo del Diablo.
The Caves of Nerja are a series of caverns close to the town of Nerja in the Province of Málaga, Spain. Stretching for almost 5 kilometres (3.1 mi), the caverns are one of Spain's major tourist attractions. Concerts are regularly held in one of the chambers, which forms a natural amphitheatre.
The Cueva del Castillo, or Cave of the Castle, is an archaeological site within the complex of the Caves of Monte Castillo, in Puente Viesgo, Cantabria, Spain.
The greater Basque Country comprises the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country and Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque Country in France. The Prehistory of the region begins with the arrival of the first hominin settlers during the Paleolithic and lasts until the conquest and colonisation of Hispania by the Romans after the Second Punic War, who introduced comprehensive administration, writing and regular recordings.
Yafteh is an Upper Paleolithic cave located at the foot of Yafteh Mountain in the Zagros Mountains range, located northwest of Khoramabad in western Zagros, Lorestan Province of western Iran.
The art of the Upper Paleolithic represents the oldest form of prehistoric art. Figurative art is present in Europe and Southeast Asia, beginning between about 40,000 to 35,000 years ago. Non-figurative cave paintings, consisting of hand stencils and simple geometric shapes, are somewhat older, at least 40,000 years old, and possibly as old as 64,000 years. This latter estimate is due to a controversial 2018 study based on uranium-thorium dating, which would imply Neanderthal authorship and qualify as art of the Middle Paleolithic.
The Cantabrian caves' unique location make them an ideal place to observe the settlements of early humans thousands of years ago. The magnificent art in the caves includes figures of various animals of the time such as bison, horses, goats, deer, cattle, hands and other paintings. Archaeologists have found remains of animals such as bears, the remains of arrows and other material indicating a human presence; these artifacts are now found mostly in the Regional Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology of Cantabria.
Damjili – is a half-circular shaped cave site in Azerbaijan, where evidence of prehistoric human presence during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic was discovered.
The Cave of Altxerri is located in the municipality of Aya (Gipuzkoa) in the Basque Country (Spain).
The Marsoulas Cave in southwestern France, near Marsoulas in the Haute-Garonne, is a small cave notable for its archaeological wealth, including Paleolithic cave paintings and ornaments from the Magdalenian. It consists of a straight gallery about 100 m (330 ft) long with parietal art along the entire length of the cave. The art includes human and animal figures as well as geometric forms and has been described as being of "profound stylistic originality with few equivalents in the region from the same period". The prehistoric artists who produced these used the varied topography of the cave and ceiling to produce three-dimensional engravings and paintings in scales ranging between 2.2 m (7.2 ft) to tiny miniatures.
The archaeological site Peñas de Cabrera, containing numerous rock shelters, is located in the municipality of Casabermeja (Spain). The entire surrounding area of Las Peñas de Cabrera, rife with natural minerals, rocks and fossils, is named after one of its districts of the same name. The entire complex of mountains and valleys consists of many shelters revealing rock art of paintings and engravings.
Armintxe Cave in Lekeitio (Spain) is an important Paleolithic rock art site, estimated to date from between 12,000 and 14,500 years ago.
Vasco-Cantabria, in archaeology and the environmental sciences, is an area on the northern coast of Spain. It covers similar areas to the northern parts of the adjacent modern regions of the Basque country and Cantabria. In geology the "Vasco-Cantabrian Basin" or "Basque-Cantabrian Basin" covers the area and the seas off the coast, in the Bay of Biscay, an area between the Iberian and European tectonic plates.
Bambata Cave is one of the Southern Africa prehistoric sites situated in Motobo National Park along with Inanke, Nswatugi, Pomengwe and Silozwane caves in Zimbabwe.
The Hand of Irulegi is a late Iron Age archaeological artifact unearthed in 2021 during excavations in the archaeological site of Irulegi (Navarre), next to the medieval castle of Irulegi, located in the municipality of Aranguren, to the south of Pamplona in Navarre, Basque Country. The bronze artifact has the distinctive shape of a right hand with extended fingers. It has five separate strings of letters, probably corresponding to five or more words, carved on the side that represents the back of a hand. It predates the earliest known attestation so far of a Basque word by around 1000 years.
