<< Our Photo Pages >> Altamira - Cave or Rock Shelter in Spain in Cantabria

Submitted by coldrum on Thursday, 01 March 2018  Page Views: 16824

Natural PlacesSite Name: Altamira Alternative Name: Cueva de Altamira
Country: Spain
NOTE: This site is 6.38 km away from the location you searched for.
Region: Cantabria Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Santillana del Mar  Nearest Village: Herran
Latitude: 43.376840N  Longitude: 4.11975W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 5

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DrewParsons 43559959 would like to visit

AP_Southsea_UK visited on 20th May 2023 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 5 The original cave cannot be seen/visited or even located? (although it is nearby) The museum of Altamira contains a reproduction of the cave, the Neocave which is a meticulous and exact reproduction, made in full scale, which reconstructs the cave of Altamira as it was between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago. I took 30 photos of the ceiling paintings and 30 other photos of the museum artifacts More info here: https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/spain/altamira/

Megalithic89 visited on 1st Jul 1992 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 5

Kuba visited - their rating: Amb: 3 Access: 5

Andy B have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 5 Ambience: 4.33 Access: 5

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Coloured Bison, from "Introduction to Stone Age Art.." via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain (Vote or comment on this photo)
A cave in Cantabria, Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and multicoloured rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands. The original caves can no longer be visited and a replica has been made for visitors.

Its special relevance comes from the fact that it was the first cave in which prehistoric cave paintings were discovered. When the discovery was first made public in 1880, it led to a bitter public controversy between experts which continued into the early 20th century, as many of them did not believe prehistoric man had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression. The acknowledgement of the authenticity of the paintings, which finally came in 1902, changed forever the perception of prehistoric human beings.

It is located near the town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain, 30 km west of the city of Santander. The cave with its paintings has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

During 2010 there were plans to reopen access to the cave towards the end of that year. However, the Spanish Ministry of Culture decided that the cave would remain closed to the public. This decision was based on advice from a group of experts who had found that the conservation conditions inside the cave had become much more stable since the closure.

More at Wikipedia and Wikipedia Commons Images. The local museum web site is museodealtamira.mcu.es.

Altamira is spanish for high views. A critique of Jean Clottes' latest book: Pourquoi l’art préhistorique? - also lots of archive images of the cave art.

The Journal of Antiquities also features an entry for this cave - see their webpage for the Cave of Altamira, Santillana Del Mar, Cantabria, Northern Spain, which gives directions for finding the cave, together with background information, a description, a drawing from 1880 and photographs.

Note: Episode 1 of the much heralded new BBC documentary Civilisations is tonight (UK, 1st March), featuring cave paintings and the possible soundscapes that accompanied them in caves that date up to 40000 years old. More details in the comments on our page
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Altamira
Altamira submitted by Creative Commons : Bison from the model of the ceiling of Altamira, in the Brno museum Anthropos Creative commons image by HTO (Vote or comment on this photo)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by Flickr : Bisonte de la Cueva de Altamira Site in Cantabria Spain La imagen nos muestra una pintura rupestre. El soporte es la propia roca de la cueva. Ni los materiales empleados por el artista, ni la técnica con la que trabajó se corresponden con ninguno de los pigmentos o procedimientos usuales en la historia de la pintura. Tampoco existe una forma de hacer única para toda la pintura rup... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Engraved and painted Bison, from "Introduction to Stone Age Art.." via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain (Vote or comment on this photo)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Antelopes, image from "New Stone Age in Northern Europe" via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain (Vote or comment on this photo)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Bison, image from "Men of the Old Stone Age" via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Deer, head and neck, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Bison, multi-coloured, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org

Altamira
Altamira submitted by Andy B : Great hall of policromes of Altamira, published by M. Sanz de Sautuola in 1880. Public domain image

Altamira
Altamira submitted by Creative Commons : A model of the ceiling of Altamira from left, in the Brno museum Anthropos Creative commons image by HTO

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : STAG #30 Red Ochre 16,000 BCE (Altamira cave paintings)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : HIND HEAD #50 Polychrome Charcoal & Red Ochre 12,500 BCE BISON #26 Black Charcoal 12,500 BCE (Altamira cave painting)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : BISON HEAD #17 Charcoal 12,500 BCE (Altamira cave painting)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : BISON #15 Black Charcoal 12,500 BCE (Altamira cave painting)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : HORSE #4 Red Ochre 16,000 BCE WILD GOAT #11 Red Ochre 16,000 BCE HAND - Red Ochre 20,000 BCE (Altamira cave painting)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : Horse #2 Red Ochre 16,000 BCE (Altamira cave painting)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : Main room of the Neocave inside the Museum of Altamira (May 2023)

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : Altamira Plan of Cave Paintings

Altamira
Altamira submitted by AP_Southsea_UK : Site in Cantabria Spain

Altamira
Altamira submitted by Flickr : Réplica de Altamira Site in Cantabria Spain Image copyright: pedro.saura, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Altamira
Altamira submitted by Harald_Platta : Stamp: Altamira Cave 1967

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Tectiform and scutiform figures from the cave, from "Paleolithic Man" via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Anthro-figure from "Anthropologie..." via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Head of a deer, from "Introduction to Stone Age Art" via archive.org

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : Deer stag and antelope, from "Introduction to Stone Age Art..." via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain

Altamira
Altamira submitted by durhamnature : "Hind", or possibly a Bison calf, from "Introduction to Stone Age Art..." via archive.org Site in Cantabria Spain

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The 2011 Neocave of Altamira is an exact 3D replica of the actual cavern by AP_Southsea_UK on Monday, 03 July 2023
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On our visit 20-May-2023 (Riviera travel - Basque country tour) The original cave cannot be seen/visited or even located? (although it is nearby)
The museum of Altamira contains a reproduction of the cave, the Neocave which is a meticulous and exact reproduction, made in full scale, which reconstructs the cave of Altamira as it was between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago.
The replica cave and museum were built near the original and completed in 2001 by Manuel Franquelo and Sven Nebel,

More info here:
https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/spain/altamira/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Altamira
[ Reply to This ]

Episode 1 of the much heralded new BBC documentary Civilisations is tonight by Andy B on Thursday, 01 March 2018
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Songs of the Caves writes: Professor Rupert Till, director of the University of Huddersfield's Sound Archaeology Research Group, features tonight on the first episode of the BBC2 TV series Civilisations. The programme explores the culture of prehistoric caves, and Professor Till discusses the soundscapes that accompany the paintings in caves that date up to 40000 years old.

The caves featured are the same ones that are featured in an interactive app that allows you to look around caves in northern Spain, as well as listen to what they sound like. You can download the EMAP Soundgate App for iOS smartphones and tablets, as well as for Android, PC and Mac. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/emap-soundgate/id1207687938?mt=8

With Professor Till is Nay player Mina Salama, who is here playing a reconstruction of a prehistoric flute like instrument, left in a French cave 20000 years ago.

Professor Till has also co-produced an album of recordings made with bone flutes, you can find the Edge of Time at
http://delphianrecords.co.uk/product-group/the-edge-of-time-palaeolithic-bone-flutes-from-france-germany-emap-vol-4/

You can see more about the programme at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05xxp5j

Research linked to the programme has been published as

Sound archaeology: terminology, Palaeolithic cave art and the soundscape
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00438243.2014.909106
and

Cave acoustics in prehistory: Exploring the association of Palaeolithic visual motifs and acoustic response
http://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.4998721

More at
https://songsofthecaves.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/civilisations/
[ Reply to This ]
    Re: Episode 1 of the much heralded new BBC documentary Civilisations is tonight by Andy B on Thursday, 01 March 2018
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    Second Moment of Creation
    Civilisations, Series 1 Episode 1 of 9

    The first film by Simon Schama looks at the formative role art and the creative imagination have played in the forging of humanity itself.

    The film opens with Simon's passionate endorsement of the creative spirit in humanity and the way in which art can help to forge the civilised life. Civilisation may be impossible to define, but its opposite - evidenced throughout history in the human urge to destroy - is all too evident whenever and wherever it erupts. Simon Schama explores the remote origins of human creativity with the first known marks made some 80,000 years ago in South African caves - marks which were not dictated merely by humanity's physical needs. He marvels at the later cave works - shapes of hands, in red stencils on the walls of caves, and at the paintings of bison and bulls, and Stone Age carvings.

    As time passes, the elements of civilisation are assembled - written language, codes of law, and expressions of warrior power forged in metals. And humanity begins to produce art not just for ritual, as Simon discovers in Minoan civilisation. But how do such cultures arise and how do they fall? Simon travels to the civilisations of Petra in the Middle East and the Maya in Central America to explore those questions. He finds that ultimately civilisations depend on humanity's relationship with the environment for their survival, and while all believe in their own continuity, all are doomed to fall.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05xxsmp
    [ Reply to This ]
      Re: Episode 1 of the much heralded new BBC documentary Civilisations is tonight by Blingo_von_Trumpenstein on Thursday, 01 March 2018
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      Nice one Andy - didn't know about this series. 9 parts of joy I suspect...
      Might have to find a print of some of the bison - they are absolutely beautifully depicted. I sense their emotion.
      [ Reply to This ]

A critique of Jean Clottes' latest book: Pourquoi l’art préhistorique? by Andy B on Wednesday, 03 April 2013
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Emmanuel Guy writes: There is a discomfort in reading the most recent book by Jean Clottes - Pourquoi l’art préhistorique ? published by Gallimard (folio essais) 2011. Yet there’s nothing especially novel about the writing. For the most part, the author takes up his already published work on shamanism. But the particularity of the book and the awkwardness to which it gives rise comes from his bias of indiscriminately combining scientific hypotheses with anecdotes from his travels around the world. The author’s aim is clear: it involves both postulating the universality of his theory and assessing with all the weight of his long experience in the field in an attempt to have us more easily swallow the shamanic pill.

As a reminder: in the mid 1990s, Clottes and David Lewis-Williams updated for the times the hypothesis whereby Paleolithic art is considered shamanic. According to them, the Paleolithic people, like numerous hunter-gatherer populations, entered into caves and its shelter in order to come into contact with spirits. This mainly happened through trance (itself brought on by extended periods spent in the caves) during which the shaman’s spirit set out to encounter supernatural powers. The painted signs and animals are said to be the result of the visions obtained by the shamans during these “voyages.”

An unverifiable theory

Let me be clear, I am not strictly anti-shamanist. Clottes’ theory does not seem unlikely. Like others before, it is not the hypothesis that I am contesting, it is the method. In the absence of written or oral sources, an image can signify anything and everything. It is based on this lucid observation that the prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan vowed to stick to the analysis of facts only when it came to interpretation (while giving himself permission, Clottes reminds us, to stray in a few cases).

As seductive as they sometimes are, Clottes’s predictions cannot, by definition, find any scientific validation. It can never be proven that the bone fragments found in the crevices of certain cavities did serve, like in practices elsewhere, to enter into contact with supernatural forces. In fact, if the shamanic explanation seems to the author not as easy to reject as other interpretations (art for art’s sake, the magic of hunting, etc.), it is because it remains on the level of generality and in such a way that it foils almost every contradiction. How can a trance and the artistic quality of prehistoric drawings be reconciled? Easy, the shaman painted once the trance was over. If the darkness of the caves played a primordial role in unleashing visions, how can one explain the existence of Paleolithic art outdoors? No problem, the shaman also had access to drugs or abstained from eating for several days, etc., etc.

Clottes’s approach is all the more surprising that he himself, indirectly, demonstrates the failure of any interpretative attempt by revealing, through pages and peregrinations, the polysemy that is hidden behind gestures, behaviors or apparently identical signs. For example, with regard to handprints painted in the shelters and caves throughout the world, Clottes reports that they may have served to enter into contact with a world beyond or, in other contexts, to express different social statuses between members of the group. Strangely, it is the first explanation that is retained by the author with respect to Paleolithic examples.

Read more at:
http://www.paleoesthetique.com/eng/cave-art-the-shamanic-impasse/

En Français :
http://www.paleoesthetique.com/grottes-ornees-limpasse-chamanique/
[ Reply to This ]
    Re: A critique of Jean Clottes' latest book: Pourquoi l’art préhistorique? by June on Monday, 08 April 2013
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    Speaking as one who is an artist and has the experience of the shamanic journey on numerous occasions, there are no contradictions:
    'it foils almost every contradiction. How can a trance and the artistic quality of prehistoric drawings be reconciled? Easy, the shaman painted once the trance was over. If the darkness of the caves played a primordial role in unleashing visions, how can one explain the existence of Paleolithic art outdoors? No problem, the shaman also had access to drugs or abstained from eating for several days,'
    Many times an artist will experience a light trance while creating exquite works of art in the 'realistic' form. Shaman may experience trance in different degrees. Shaman walk between the worlds and are therefore aware of both worlds and can function in either or both to varying degrees. It is possible to be in trance and walk through a busy metro area and function normally, with all the awareness of present danger. Experienced shaman do not need darkness to produce anything creative including the shamanic journey. There is no black and white, we all have varying degrees of expertise. It seems that some people will invent opposites to make an argument when an observant person sees no contradiction.
    [ Reply to This ]

Controversy Over Reopening the 'Sistine Chapel' of Stone Age Art by Andy B on Monday, 31 October 2011
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Plans to reopen Spain’s Altamira caves are stirring controversy over the possibility that tourists’ visits will further damage the 20,000-year old wall paintings that changed views about the intellectual ability of prehistoric people. That’s the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). The caves are the site of Stone Age paintings so magnificent that experts have called them the “Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art.”

Carmen Drahl, C&EN associate editor, points out in the article that Spanish officials closed the tourist mecca to the public in 2002 after scientists realized that visitors were fostering growth of bacteria that damage the paintings. Now, however, they plan to reopen the caves. Declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Altamira’s rock paintings of animals and human hands made scientists realize that Stone Age people had intellectual capabilities far greater than previously believed.

The article explains how moisture and carbon dioxide from tourists’ breath, body heat and footsteps (which kick up bacterial spores) foster growth of bacteria on the cave walls. Those bacteria damage the precious wall paintings, which supposedly influenced great modern artists like Picasso. Drahl discusses the scientific controversy over limited reopening of the caves to tourism and measures that could minimize further damage to the paintings.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111026122437.htm

Ref:
Carmen Drahl. For Cave's Art, An Uncertain Future. Chemical & Engineering News, 2011; 89 (43): 38-40
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    Ancient cave paintings threatened by tourist plans by bat400 on Monday, 21 November 2011
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    Prehistoric paintings in northern Spain could be irreparably damaged if plans to reopen the Altamira cave to tourists go ahead. Local officials want to reopen the cave to boost the local economy, but visitors could heat the caves and introduce microbes that destroy pigments.

    Although reopening the caves might boost the economy in the short term, says lead researcher Cesáreo Sáiz Jiménez, the damage would outweigh the benefit. "The paintings are a legacy from the past and their importance exceeds local culture."

    The researchers say they want to prevent the scale of damage that occurred at the Lascaux cave in France, where mismanagement led to successive waves of pathogens attacking wall paintings there. For example, pesticides intended to destroy microorganisms became a source of nutrients for them instead.

    Sáiz Jiménez and his colleagues conclude that only isolation from the outside world can prevent the same kind of damage at Altamira.



    Thanks to coldrum for the link to: http://www.newscientist.com.
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Spain to reopen Caves of Altamira despite warnings by coldrum on Saturday, 19 June 2010
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A cave complex boasting prized prehistoric paintings will reopen after eight years of closure, despite scientists' warnings that heat and moisture from human visitors damage the site known as the Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art.

The Culture Ministry and the site's board of directors said Tuesday that visits to the Caves of Altamira in the northern Cantabria region will resume next year, although on a still-unspecified, restricted basis.

The main chamber at Altamira features 21 bison painted in red and black, which appear to be to charging against a low, limestone ceiling. The site was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1985. The paintings are estimated to be 14,000 to 20,000 years old.

Discovered in 1868, the cave complex became a tourist magnet and by the 1970s received 3,000 visitors a day. Body heat and moisture from people's breath were blamed for a gradual deterioration of the images, and from 1982-2002 only a handul of visits were allowed each day.

The cave was completely shut off to most visitors after scientists detected green mold stains on the paintings in the main chamber.

A replica of the caves was built in a museum in 2001.

In April of this year, the government's main scientific research body, called the CSIC, recommended that the caves remain closed. "The people who go in the cave have the bad habit of moving, breathing and perspiring," CSIC researcher Mariona Hernandez-Marine wrote then.

The site's board voted to reopen, however, calling the caves too valuable to keep closed.

"Altamira is an asset we cannot do without," the Cantabria region's president, Miguel Angel Revilla, said.

He said he had had the misfortune of saying no to Jacques Chirac when the former French president once asked to see the caves, and more recently to the visiting president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon.

"The other day I suggested we could even invite (Barack) Obama. The important thing is that at least somebody can see this symbol," Revilla said.

A committee has been appointed to set the new rules for how many people can visit the caves each day and will meet for the first time next week.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20100608/ap_tr_ge/eu_travel_brief_spain_cave_paintings
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Re: Prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete by DrewParsons on Saturday, 22 May 2010
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Religious beliefs are the basis of the origins of Palaeolithic art.
This item resourced by coldrum.

This statement isn't new, but for years anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of art understood these artistic manifestations as purely aesthetic and decorative motives. Eduardo Palacio-Pérez, researcher at the University of Cantabria (UC), now reveals the origins of a theory that remains nowadays/lasts into our days.

"This theory is does not originate with the prehistorians, in other words, those who started to develop the idea that the art of primitive peoples was linked with beliefs of a symbolic-religious nature were the anthropologists", Eduardo Palacio-Pérez, author of the study and researcher at UC, explains to SINC.

This idea appeared at the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century. Up until then, Palaeolithic art had been interpreted as a simple aesthetic and decorative expression.

"Initially scientists saw this art as the way that the people of the Palaeolithic spent their free time, sculpting figurines or decorating their tools", Palacio points out. His investigation, published in the last edition of Oxford Journal of Archaeology, reveals the reasons for the move from this recreational-decorative interpretation of Palaeolithic art to different one of a religious and symbolic nature.

The history of the discovery and study of this art is long and complex. On one hand, Palaeolithic art is composed of so-called mobiliary art –pieces of stone, horn and bone sculpted or engraved- that are included within archaeological deposits. These discoveries, that spread through the scientific community from 1864, are dated to the same period as the rest of the archaeological material and there was "practically no doubt about their Palaeolithic origin".

"The problem came years later with the discovery of the paintings in the cave of Altamira (in 1879), published by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and spread by the Spanish geologist Vilanova and Piera at a scientific conference held in Lisbon in 1880. This art composed of paintings and engravings on the walls and the ceilings of the caves, was not included within the archaeological deposits and it was unknown if it was so old. The international scientific community ignored its Palaeolithic origin for 20 years", states the researcher.

Palacio explains how these studies went unnoticed: "They were heard, but little attention was paid to them because the format of the paintings was too spectacular and too "perfect" due to their naturalistic nature. It was understood that such complex art could not have been done by primitive man; something that did not occur with mobiliary art."

New times for western art

Between 1880 and 1900 the conception of art changed in western society. Anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of Art started to consider other possibilities. Artistic theory and practice that was being made in Europe changed with postimpressionism, the appearance of Art Nouveau or the generalisation of photography; in addition, with the mass arrival to museums of the metropolis of artistic pieces from non-Greco-Latin cultures and "primitive arts" of the colonies. "All this produced a transformation in the concept of art itself", pointed out the expert.

"At this time, the conception of the origins and the nature of art that the westerners and scientists had at the time was redefined. From then on Palaeolithic art was reinterpreted in a symbolic-religious key, at the time when the age of parietal art was accepted", concludes the researcher.

More at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/f-sf-rba032610.php

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Prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete by coldrum on Friday, 30 January 2009
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It may have taken Michelangelo four long years to paint his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but his earliest predecessors spent considerably longer perfecting their own masterpieces.
By comparing the ratio of uranium to thorium in the thin layers on top of the cave art, researchers were able to calculate the age of the paintings

Scientists have discovered that prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete.

Rather than being created in one session, as archaeologists previously thought, many of the works discovered across Europe were produced over hundreds of generations who added to, refreshed and painted over the original pieces of art.

Until now it has been extremely difficult to pinpoint when prehistoric cave paintings and carvings were created, but a pioneering technique is allowing researchers to date cave art accurately for the first time and show how the works were crafted over thousands of years.

Experts now hope the technique will help provide a valuable insight into how early human culture developed and changed as the first modern humans moved across Europe around 40,000 years ago.

Dr Alistair Pike, an archaeologist at Bristol University who is leading the research, said: "The art gives us a really intimate window into the minds of the individuals who produced them, but what we don't know is exactly which individuals they were as we don't know exactly when the art was created. If we can date the art then we can relate that to the artefacts we find in the ground and start to link the symbolic thoughts of these individuals to where, when and how they were living."

Hundreds of caves have been discovered across Europe with elaborate prehistoric paintings and carvings on their walls. It is thought the designs, which often depict scenes of animals, like bison, grazing or hunting expeditions, were created up to 40,000 years ago – sometime after humans began moving from southern Europe into northern Europe during the last ice age.

Traditional dating techniques have relied on carbon dating the charcoal and other pigment used in the paintings, but this can be inaccurate as it only gives the date the charcoal was created not when the work was crafted.

"When you go into these caves today there is still charcoal lying on the ground, so the artists at the time could have been using old charcoal rather than making it fresh themselves," explained Dr Pike.

"If this was the case, then the date for the painting would be very wrong. Taking samples for carbon dating also means destroying a bit of these precious paintings because you need to take away a bit of the pigment.

"For carvings, it is virtually impossible to date as there is no organic pigment containing carbon at all."

The scientists have used their technique to date a series of famous Palaeolithic paintings in Altamira cave near Santillana del Mar, northern Spain. Known as the "Sistine Chapel of the Palaeolithic", the elaborate works were thought to date from around 14,000 years ago.

But in research published today by the Natural Environment Research Council's new website Planet Earth, Dr Pike discovered some of the paintings were between 25,000 and 35,000 years old. The youngest paintings in the cave were 11,000 years old.

Dr Pike said: "We have found that most of these caves were not painting in one go, but the painting spanned up to 20,000 years. This goes against what the archaeologists who excavated in the caves and found archaeology for just one period.

"It is probably the case that people did not live in the caves they painted. It seems the caves they lived in were elsewhere and there was something special about the painted caves."

Bison on the ceiling of the polychrome chamber in the Altamira cave in northern Spain

Dr Pike and his team were able to date the paintings using a techniq

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