Qualla: Cave of El Castillo

Cave of El Castillo: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Malopez 21, CC BY-SA 4.0. Some of the oldest marks ever left by a thinking mind may be hiding in a hillside in Cantabria. In 2012, uranium-thorium dating of red discs painted on the walls of El Castillo cave returned dates older than 40,000 years, pushing the art back to the very arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe. The dates were so old, in fact, that some researchers began asking whether the painters might not have been human at all, but Neanderthals.

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Image: Malopez 21 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cave of El Castillo: Inside Monte Castillo

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pylaryx, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Cueva del Castillo sits within the Caves of Monte Castillo complex near Puente Viesgo in Cantabria, northern Spain. It is one of four caves in the hillside, alongside Las Monedas, Las Chimeneas, and La Pasiega, but El Castillo stands apart for the sheer density and age of its...

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Image: Pylaryx | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cave of El Castillo: Two Thousand Seven Hundred Motifs

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jl FilpoC, CC BY 4.0. Between 2003 and 2023, Marc and Marie-Christine Groenen conducted a comprehensive study of El Castillo that revealed the cave's true scale. They identified 2,698 individual motifs and pieces of archaeological evidence: 541 figurative images including 475 animals, 21 human figures...

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Image: Jl FilpoC | CC BY 4.0

Cave of El Castillo: Whose Hands Were These?

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bernietaylor, CC BY 4.0. Eighty-four hand stencils survive on El Castillo's walls, made by pressing a hand against the rock and blowing pigment around it to leave a negative impression. A 2013 study of finger length ratios in Upper Paleolithic hand stencils from France and Spain determined that the major...

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Image: Bernietaylor | CC BY 4.0

Cave of El Castillo: At the Edge of Human Memory

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit José-Manuel Benito, CC BY-SA 2.5. The uranium-thorium dates from 2012 placed El Castillo at the center of one of archaeology's most provocative questions. If the red disc paintings are indeed older than 40,000 years, they overlap with the period when Neanderthals still inhabited the Iberian Peninsula. Could they ...

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Image: José-Manuel Benito | CC BY-SA 2.5