The curious story of how an eight -year -old girl unwittingly discovered the paintings of the Altamira cave

A few minutes by car from the precious, fresh and walkable Cantabrian town Santillana del Mar is one of the great national treasures, the Altamira cave. Closed to the public now for obvious reasons, but visited through a recreation made to the millimeter baptized as NeocuevaAltamira retains an impressive collection of Paleolithic paintings, the oldest with more than 30,000 years of history. And like many other great discoveries, we arrive at her by chance. This is its story.

Modesto Cubillas. Although the discovery of the Altamira cave has always been involved in a certain controversythe Ministry of Culture of Spain He attributes it To Modesto Cubillas in 1868. The story that Cubillas was hunting when his dog fell through some rocks while chasing a dam. When attending his aid, he met the caverns, to which he did not give greater importance for 1) to be common in the region and 2) be covered with vegetation.

The first visit. Cubillas told what he had seen his neighbors, but the thing was there. It was not until 1875 when Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, naturalist, Spanish prehistoriator and great -great grandfather of Ana Botín (president of the Board of Directors of the Santander Bank), visited the cave for the first time to meet zero units of things that called him attention, beyond black lines to which he did not give importance.

But yes … Years later, Marcelino attended the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1878 And there he could see prehistoric objects. How were, how to identify them. Armed with new knowledge, he decided to return to the cave with the little girl María San de Sautuola y Galantehis daughter of only eight years. That was in 1879.

The innocent curiosity. While the father was looking for remains at the entrance of the cave, little Maria, motivated by the innate curiosity of a girl of her age, decided to continue forward and enter the gallery. Upon arriving at the bottom, Maria shouted “Look Dad, oxen” while pointing to the roof. They were not oxen, but bison, but the error was normal: the oxen were the shot animals used in the area.

Marcelino identified the species represented as the bison, which was then considered extinct in Europe, but did not find bones of the animal in the cave. Given the unusual of the cave, whose realistic paintings extended throughout the roof, thus being one of the most important and large discoveries of the moment, all kinds of debates were generated. From the denialism of discovery to accusations that it had been Marcelino himself who had painted the figures. The years, however, would be right, although this could write rivers and ink rivers.

And he got. The news of the discovery of the paintings soon arrived at the nearby corners. Hundreds and hundreds of people approached the cave carrying, in an entire exercise of irresponsibility as a result of ignorance, candles, candiles, compasses and strings. The visitors took the remains to their home, chopped the ground to find more and the cave began to deteriorate.

Thus, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuloa decided to place a wooden door on the hole that made the entrance. Puerta that paid from his own pocket and after obtaining the authorization of the village of Vispieres, headlines of the cave. In return, he invited them to a snack that took place, curiously, inside Altamira. In the lower image the signed document can be seen and the promise of making a snack. Later, in 1880, the wooden door was changed to an iron fence and a guard was appointed.

Entrance is not the original. An important note: the hole that was covered with a fence was not the original entrance. The great mouth of the cave where the inhabitants of Altamira made life collapsed 13,000 years ago. That entry remained covered until its discovery in 1869. Thanks to the stability of the inner atmosphere, the paintings have been able to preserve well for millennia. The current entrance was built in 1927 and the closest to the original mouth is the entrance to the Neocueva.

THE VISITS PROBLEM. Returning to La Cueva, in 1910 the City Council of Santillana del Mar created a conservation and defense board of the cave that, back in 1917, allowed the visit with a guide. In 1924 he was declared a National Monument and the rest can be imagined. The number of people who accessed the cave increased more and more, being the 60s and 70s the most dangerous. Only in 1973 more than 174,000 people accessed inside. Such was the influx of people who, after a study and A debate that reached the Congress of DeputiesIn 1977 he closed.

Closed. Altamira closed its doors until 1982, when it was reopened with a limited capacity of 8,500 people a year. The interest of the people valued the idea of creating a visitable replica, something that happened in 2001 with the Neocueva located in the newly opened National Museum and Research Center of Altamira. In 2002, the cave closed the public again Waiting for impact studies. It would be reopened in February 2014 and until August of that same year, admitting five people per day for 37 minutes to study the impact of possible visits.

Knowing Altamira. Currently, the Altamira cave has a controlled and limited access regime of public visit. This access regime, approved by the Board of Trustees of the Museum, establishes a maximum of five people a week, 260 people a year. There is a waiting list, closed since 2002, which was reactivated in 2020 and whose registered can visit the original cave when their turn arrives.

And now that we know the story, and since knowledge does not take place, then we will teach to identify all the figures in Altamira so that, if one day you have the opportunity to visit it, you know what you are looking at.

Images | Xataka

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*An earlier version of this article was published in July 2024