On the margins, marginal too? A western outpost of the Paleolithic Cantabrian cave art (NW Iberia)

Abstract

The Franco-Cantabrian group of cave art ranks among the best known examples of Paleolithic symbolic behaviour. For more than a century no decorated cave was reported beyond the Nalón valley in the center of Asturias, until the carvings and paintings from Cova Eirós were discovered. At more than 100 km from the Nalón, Eirós' art remains an isolated spot in the NW Iberian peninsula and, unlike other famous places like Altamira the images from Eirós (horses, bovids and signs) have been dated in a very late stage of the Paleolithic cave art. Still Eirós shows interesting coincidences (in stylistic and chronological terms) with other decorated sites (both caves and open-air) in the Douro valley, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away, hinting at the existence of shared systems of symbolic expression in a moment of environmental and cultural change.