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September 2020 - present
January 2019 - September 2020
January 2016 - December 2018
Publications
Publications (45)
This paper presents the first attempt to establish a Mid and Late Upper Palaeolithic absolute chronology of the Adriatic basin, including both eastern and western Adriatic coasts and their hinterlands. The proposed chronology for Gravettian, Early and Late Epigravettian techno-complexes is based on statistical analysis of 278 ¹⁴C dates from 66 arch...
Palaeolithic rock art is one of the most distinctive cultural traits of Upper Palaeolithic societies in Europe. Traditionally restricted to South-western Europe, especially to the Franco-Cantabrian province, in recent years, the geographic distribution of this phenomenon has noticeably expanded. Several years before these discoveries, the first dec...
Paleolithic art offers unique perspectives on prehistoric societies and cultures. It is also considered a key component of modern human behavior. Until recently, Paleolithic artworks were thought to be geographically restricted to a very few areas, especially southwestern Europe. Discoveries of art in other parts of Europe and other parts of the gl...
Palabras clave: arte levantino; arte parietal; Pirineo central; Arqueología de Alta Montaña.
Rock art is key for understanding European Palaeolithic societies. Long thought to have been restricted to South-west Europe, recent discoveries on the Balkan Peninsula have expanded significantly the geographic distribution of Upper Palaeolithic figurative rock art, calling into question the idea of its limited distribution. This article presents...
In 2012 a new survey Project aiming at the investigation of the Paleolithic rock art in Serbia was started. The primary working hypotheses is that the first Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) to reached Western Europe already possessed an incipient graphic and symbolic behavior. Therefore, evidence of early graphic activity should be found along the...
Research on Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies has traditionally been based on the analysis of archaeological remains resulting from daily activities. However, the selection of a site and its functionality expresses a set of social paradigms from these human groups. The development of specific methodologies and especially a theoretical fra...
In a previous publication on Altxerri B Cave, we explained a chronological hypothesis which proposed that the graphic activity in the site dates to an early Aurignacian phase. This paper presents a complete study of the parietal ensemble, including descriptions of the graphic motifs and other anthropic evidence that has been documented. The number...
In a previous publication on Altxerri B Cave, we explained a chronological hypothesis which proposed that the graphic activity in the site dates to an early Aurignacian phase. This paper presents a complete study of the parietal ensemble, including descriptions of the graphic motifs and other anthropic evidence that has been documented. The number...
In 1976, a team led from the Museum of Huesca conducted a series of archaeological works in El Forcon Cave (San Juan de Toledo, A Fueba, Huesca). In addition to the recovery of several materials and prehistoric tools in a completely disturbed context, it was discovered the existence of parietal anthropic engravings. After the discovery of the Palae...
Une étude de plusieurs sites archéologiques avec des représentations d’art rupestre du Magdalénien cantabrique récent a été développée entre les années 2010 et 2014. L’échantillon, représentatif de l’art paléolithique de cette période, dans cette région, inclut un total de 9 sites et près de 500 unités graphiques. Les résultats de cette recherche o...
Much of our knowledge of the symbolic world of Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers is based on the study of the graphic representations found in Western European caves. However, to date, few studies have been conducted on rock art apart from chronological and stylistic characterisation. Altamira Cave (northern Iberia) is characterised by an outstan...
In a recent paper by Ochoa and García-Díez (2013) the available evidences for a chronology of western Pyrenean Paleolithic cave art are critically analyzed and discussed, and an alternative chronological organization is proposed on the basis of stylistic comparison. In this paper we discuss the critics made to the immediate context dating proposals...
The main corridor that has acted as an entrance to the Iberian Peninsula through the Western Pyrenees was as an important communication route in Western Europe during the Paleolithic. This is an area where, despite having documented intense human occupation during different periods of the Upper Paleolithic, the symbolic activity seems incomprehensi...
In the course of research currently being carried out at Santimamine (Bizkaia, Spain) (Gonz’alez S’ainz & Idarraga 2010) and Altxerri (Gipuzkoa, Spain) a series of zoomorphic figures have been identified (four in total between the two sites) that represent creatures that do not exist in nature (Figure 1). They are examples of the so-called ‘imagina...
This paper presents the results of the study of cave paintings in Aitzbitarte IV Cave (Errenteria, Gipuzkoa). Prospecting carried out in 2012
located two panels decorated with red paint, one near the entrance and the other at the back of the cave. Both were in a good state of con-
servation with stylistic and technical characteristics that date the...
We present the discovery, realised in February of 2012, of an unpublished set of paleolithic parietal art in the
cave of Lumentxa (Lekeitio, Bizkaia). The most significant elements of this set are in a panel decorated with two
big bisons and a horse head painted in red, following graphical conventions that directly associate them with the artistic...
This paper presents the results of the study of cave paintings in Aitzbitarte IV Cave (Errenteria, Gipuzkoa). Prospecting carried out in 2012 located two panels decorated with red paint, one near the entrance and the other at the back of the cave. Both were in a good state of conservation with stylistic and technical characteristics that date them...
The question of the perspective shown by Paleolithic animal representations has interested researchers since the early twentieth century. Traditionally it has been used to support a phenomenon of linear evolution towards the attainment of expertise in graphic representation. In recent decades, this evolutionary model has been in crisis, questioning...
RESUMEN: El fenómeno de la superposición entre figuras en el arte parietal paleolítico ha interesado a los investigadores desde su descubrimiento. Sin embargo, en la actualidad coexisten dos líneas interpretativas antagónicas. Para los primeros investigadores, representados por H. Breuil, las superposiciones constituían auténticas estratigrafías pa...
El conjunto rupestre de la cueva de El Castillo contiene uno de los registros más completos de la actividad artística del Paleolítico superior. Uno de los lienzos más interesantes por la acumulación de varias fases pictóricas es el Panel de las Manos. En este trabajo proponemos la reinterpretación de la forma y la situación de una figura, lo cual n...
Projects
Projects (3)
In 2009, a project called CRORA (CROatian Rock Art) was launched, which aims to systematically catalog, valorize and present rock art in Croatia. As a part of this project, a total of 123 sites with rock art engravings and paintings in Croatia, dating from the Paleolithic to the Modern age, were recorded, pointing out that this area, with its numerous karst phenomena, is an extremely potential region for further systematic survey and study of rock art.
PALAEOARTEAST examines a number of cave art sites in the Balkans, an area important for understanding the arrival of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Europe and the origins of Pleistocene art and symbolism in this continent. It mainly focuses on the sites of Romualdova pecina and Badanj, the two first cave sites where archaeologists discovered palaeolithic images in SE Europe, which becomes PALAEOARTEAST a natural continuation of our previous project: BALKARTS. Additionally, we study of other Eastern European cave art sites, such as Kapova (southern Urals, Russia) with the aim of comparing and linking the symbolic behaviour of these populations.
The project is led from the University of Southampton and majorly funded by the British Academy in the context of the Newton International Fellowships program.
This project examines the question of the origins of art through the archaeological analysis of Paleolithic sites within the Danubian corridor and the Adriatic Coast.
The emergence of Paleolithic art and symbolism is considered as a major milestone in human evolution. This is related to the fact that art is thought to be one of the first expressions of symbolic and cognitive thought in human history. Traditionally, the development of Paleolithic art and symbolism has been considered a Western European phenomenon exclusively developed by anatomically modern humans (hereafter AMH). Nowadays, whilst there is no consensus about whether Neanderthals created artwork, this possibility suggests that Upper Paleolithic (UP) art and symbolism originated in Western Europe. However, the situation is more complex, and evidence supporting a non-Western European origin for the first artistic expressions has increased in recent years, with the discovery of several Pleistocene (c. 40,000 BP) decorated caves in Australia (Sahul), Indonesia (Wallacea) and South Africa (Late Stone Age, LSA).
The main objective of this project is to find and to document UP symbolic and artistic sites in the Balkans area, especially from early phases of the UP. This is a key area as is the most probable route followed by AMHs to colonize Europe from the Near East, and it is a practically unexplored territory archaeologically. The discovery of Early UP rock art in the region would imply the possibility that this phenomenon had its origins outside of Western Europe, questioning a well-established archaeological paradigm.
To achieve this goal, BALKARTS project proposes the archaeological survey of more than 60 Paleolithic cave sites in 4 countries (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia) seeking rock art, as well as the excavation of test pits to contextualize the initial evidence found during a recent pilot project.
