Του Γιώργου Λεκάκη
Το σπηλαιοσυγκρότημα του Sala de las Pinturas, στο Ojo Guareña στα βόρεια του Πύργου / Μπούργκος Ισπανίας, είναι μια από τις μεγαλύτερες «κοιλότητες» / σπήλαια στον κόσμο: Καλύπτει περίπου 110 χιλιόμετρα!
Μια νέα μελέτη επιβεβαιώνει κατοίκηση ανθρώπινων ομάδων από την Παλαιολιθική έως τον Μεσαίωνα!
Η ομάδα με επί κεφαλής την αρχαιολόγο Ana Isabel Ortega Martínez (Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, CENIEH), εδημοσίευσε πρόσφατα μια μελέτη που επιβεβαιώνει ότι η τέχνη του σπηλαίου έχει ηλικία 13.000 χρόνια - 12.000 χρόνια!
Οι τελευταίες ομάδες ανθρώπων «χριστιανοποίησαν» το μέρος, αλλοιώνοντας τα σύμβολα που θεώρησαν «ειδωλολατρικά»...
ΠΗΓΗ: Ana Isabel Ortega-Martínez, Miguel Ángel Martín-Merino & Marcos García-Diez «Palaeolithic creation and later visits of symbolic spaces: radiocarbon AMS dating and cave art in the Sala de las Pinturas in Ojo Guareña (Burgos, Spain)», στο «Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences», volume 12, αρ. 240 (2020), 22 September 2020. ΑΡΧΕΙΟΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΥ, 23.9.2020. CENIEH, Τετάρτη 30 Σεπτεμβρίου 2020.
Abstract
The comprehensive study of spaces decorated during the Palaeolithic is able to obtain information about visits to the sites and their uses. However, it is essential to determine the temporal relationship between the different forms of archaeological evidence and not assume their synchronicity with the parietal art. Therefore, numerical dates are necessary. 14C-AMS dates for the art and other evidence in the Sala de las Pinturas in Ojo Guareña Cave have documented discontinuous human visits to the site from ~ 13,000 to ~ 1000 cal BP, in the course of at least five phases. This new information implies the observation and probably the use of the Palaeolithic art by farming communities after its creation by hunter-gatherers. The fact that decorated caves were used repeatedly adds a new dimension to the study of Palaeolithic art, which may have been reused in a time after it was produced, and underscores the need to date archaeological events to understand the degree of synchronicity and/or diachronicity of the human actions.
12,000 years of cave art
in the Ojo Guareña karst complex
The CENIEH has participated in a study of the Sala de las Pinturas, located in this cave complex to the north of Burgos, which confirms visits by human groups from the Paleolithic up to the Middle Ages
A team led by Ana Isabel Ortega Martínez, an archaeologist at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), and beneficiary of a Reale Foundation post-doctoral research grant from the Fundación Atapuerca, has recently published a study in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences confirming that the cave art in the Sala de las Pinturas at Ojo Guareña (Burgos), one of the largest cavities in the world covering some 110 km, was frequented by human groups over 12,000 years.
By applying Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), the researchers were able to corroborate that the black paintings in the Sala de las Pinturas were made during the final stages of Europe's last hunter-gatherer groups, some 13,000 years ago.
From then and until 1,000 years ago, there was ongoing human presence in the space over at least five phases, from the final hunter-gatherers in the Upper Paleolithic until the High Middle Ages, and including the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, three periods linked to the development of the earliest productive (agricultural) and metallurgical societies.
The dating was conducted on small fragments of plant charcoal related to illuminating the interior of the cavity, either in torches or fixed lights on the ground, and the creation of animal figures and signs on the walls, where the charcoal was used as a “pencil” for sketching.
“The evidence that decorated caves are spaces that were used repeatedly adds a new dimension to the study of Paleolithic art focusing on its reuse after creation”, says Marcos García Diez, of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), co-author of this work.
Repeated visits by human groups implied speleological exploration of the underground space, with even climbing techniques being necessary, and it entailed the reuse of symbols by human groups with a later, and different, economic and symbolic tradition. Indeed, the last groups actually Christianized the place, marking the symbols now considered to be pagan.
The frequenting and use of caves for symbolic purposes is documented throughout history, which implies a human conduct maintained over time that considers cavities as places of symbolic significance, possibly linked to spiritual and/or ideological actions.
“The records of the presence of different human groups in the Sala de las Pinturas over time poses both new and old challenges about the use and perception of the space. Visits which suggest respect for the place and its artistic manifestations, symbols which to a certain extent represent the appropriation and transformation of the subterranean landscape”, states Ortega.
This study, financed by the Junta de Castilla y León through a collaboration with the Fundación Atapuerca, was also supported by the Diputación Provincial de Burgos, through an agreement with the Grupo Espeleológico Edelweiss.
arxeion-politismou.gr
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