Art in Red: New Dates for Paintings of Cave of Altamira, Santillana Del Mar, Spain

Abstract

The Cave of Altamira is a designated World Heritage Site, famous for its prehistoric paintings and engravings. Although the rock art of Cave of Altamira was discovered more than 140 years ago, its chronology still has remained unclear (Heras, Montes y Lasheras, 2013). Previous radiocarbon dating of charcoal, which was used as black pigment for the paintings, suggested a Magdalenian age, while U-series dating of overlying carbonate crusts indicated that some of the red-painted figures can be attributed to the Aurignacian period (Pike et al., 2012; García et al., 2013). Within the international project FIRST ART framework, new samples were collected from carbonate crusts superimposed on graphic elements represented at various points of the Cave of Altamira for dating, using the U-series method.The main objective of this new study was to verify the previous U-series ages estimates and to obtain new data that would provide information to clarify the diachronic sequence of the iconographic set known in this cave, with special emphasis on the so-called “Polychrome Ceiling”. Three sedimentary samples, analysed to assess the detrital 230Th/232Th activity ratio, provided a mean of 0.862 ± 0.127, which was used as the site-specific value for U-series age corrections. The sample ALT22-SP1B yielded a minimum age of 32,790 ± 4,830 years for the claviform signs, and the samples ALT20-SP03 and ALT20-SP04 yielded minimum ages of 22,600 ± 70 years and 32,020 ± 170 years for the associated red-painted horses. Overall, the newly obtained results confirm the previously published U-series ages for the Polychrome Ceiling, and suggest the coexistence of figurative and symbolic rock paintings in the Iberian Peninsula from the earliest part of the Upper Palaeolithic.

Keywords: Cave of Altamira, rock art, U/Th dates, diachronic sequence