-_-----in Spain and -------in France are sites where cave paintings of Palaeolithic Age can be found
Answers
The early humans (Homo sapiens) who arrived in the Iberian Peninsula some 40,000 years ago were probably cave dwellers and presumably hunters, like the Neanderthals and earlier inhabitants.
Still, very little is known about them. What we do know, however, is that they left indelible imprints in remarkable cave paintings principally, but not exclusively, in caves in the chain of mountains that runs along the north coast of Spain.
The paintings themselves are calculated to be about 10,000 to 20,000 years old. Every discovery brings with it, nevertheless, problems not only in dating but even in some cases in the matter of authenticity. For example, the discovery in 1990, in the Zubialde caves near Vitoria in the Basque province of Alava, of some 75 images (astonishing in their variety of animal figures, hand-prints and strange symbols) was at first greeted with wide enthusiasm. However, most if not all of these are now believed to be clever fakes, fabricated for reasons known only to the hoaxers.
Not so the paintings of numerous other caves along the north coast. The most famous is undoubtedly the Cave of Altamira, nestled in the Cantabrian Mountains near the picturesque, medieval village of Santillana del Mar. Popularly called the “Sistine Chapel” of prehistoric art because the paintings are on the cave ceilings, the images are remarkably alive and vivid even after thousands of years.
What gives such character to these prehistoric works, deeply buried in galleries within the cave and executed therefore under flickering firelight, is the combination of lifelike forms and aesthetic sensitivity.
The ability to convert, for example, a protruding rock into the powerful shoulder muscles of a bison or the hollows to represent the flanks with such exquisite touch makes it difficult to believe that these are products of the Stone Age.
The extraordinary play of texture and shading, and the sight of numerous life-size animals –bison especially, with wild boars, deer, goats and horses, and other animals in lesser number– leaping or curled at rest against the natural curves and undulations of the cave ceilings produce the uncanny feeling of having entered a time warp.
They still seem to have a life of their own in the half light. So realistic and so sophisticated are they that when they were first glimpsed by the young daughter of a local scholar who was exploring the cave in 1879, she is reported to have exclaimed “Papa, Papa, oxen, oxen…”
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