Overview
- Researchers published a study in Antiquity this week reporting 280 engravings at the Cova de la Font Major in Espluga de Francolí, Catalonia, including about 55 animal figures.
- The marks were first recognised during a 2019 excavation when archaeologists distinguished shallow Paleolithic incisions from modern graffiti that had long covered the gallery.
- Stylistic study and radiocarbon dates from associated deposits suggest Upper Paleolithic origins, with human-occupation windows around 40,800–35,400 and 26,300–25,900 years ago, while direct dating of the engravings is now being pursued using methods such as uranium-series on calcite overgrowths.
- Decades of tourism and visitor inscriptions have obscured and in some cases damaged the ancient engravings, prompting immediate access limits, detailed documentation, and targeted conservation measures by site managers and researchers.
- The assemblage alters the regional picture by adding one of the largest Paleolithic collections on the Iberian Mediterranean, shows artists used natural rock features in compositions, and raises the prospect that similarly overlooked art survives in other heavily visited or geologically unconventional caves.