'They take you out of life, out of time': a journey into Spain's astonishing cave paintings

[erronis]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/02/journey-into-spain-palaeolithic-cave-paintings-altamira
Stephen Phelan -- The Guardian - The Long Read

For tens of thousands of years, these Palaeolithic artworks were unseen. When they were rediscovered, onlookers marvelled at their vivid beauty. One of the world's leading experts took me up close



This is one of the "long reads" that I find very educational. Also available as a podcast.

The aurochs, the mammoth and the steppe bison are long extinct, but their painted likenesses still look relatively fresh across the walls and roofs of Altamira. Or so said Diego Garate Maidagan, who is one of the very few humans allowed to enter that exalted cave in northern Spain.

I met Garate last summer in a small Basque village called Gautegiz Arteaga. A professor of prehistory and Palaeolithic art at the University of Cantabria, he told me he'd been inside Altamira as recently as the week before, furthering his lifelong investigations of the prep work, tools and methodologies developed by early Homo sapiens painters.
A reproduction of the great deer of Altamira cave. Photograph: Jesus de Fuensanta/Getty Images/iStockphoto
'They take you out of life, out of time': a journey into Spain's astonishing cave paintings - podcast


About 34,000 years ago, our distant ancestors began making frescoes with chiaroscuro effects through that suite of subterranean vaults, which remained in use for many millennia, until the cave mouth was sealed by a rockfall. The best part of a geological epoch passed before a curious gun dog clawed its way across the threshold in 1868, leading a succession of witnesses into the first such prehistoric gallery ever seen by modern eyes.

The technique on display at Altamira seemed much too sophisticated for troglodytic numbskulls, as Palaeolithic people were then assumed to be, and self-appointed experts from France initially declared the whole thing a hoax. (Those accusers were to look pretty stupid when similar caves were found in their own country.) Pablo Picasso is said to have visited, or at least looked at some photos, and the quote attributed to him is possibly apocryphal, but an appraisal for the ages nonetheless: "After Altamira, all is decadence."

. . .

[Junipercity]

1. It was only last week, I made the connection

To one of my favorite Steely Dan songs. Fifty years it took me.

The "Dan" is like that. 😄

[erronis]

3. Thank you for that trip back in time.

I think I remember that song, but I definitely remember their style.

[Attilatheblond]

2. Altamira exposed a lot of arrogance among 'modern' men in academia

The artistry proves ancient humans were keep observers, skilled painters, and had true genius.

[erronis]

5. Doesn't this happen almost every time? Someone pronounces a "truth" and it is rapidly (or slowly) disproven.

Almost always it is a man, as you cite. Frequently the "man" with the "truth" is in politics and is trying to force the path.

[Attilatheblond]

6. Often, these people with influence are connected to universities with religious affiliations too.

Can't leave out the influence of the greatest 'white man' ever, that God or his son not everyone is a follower of but stuck with doctrine anyway.

[Srkdqltr]

4. I have always believed that people have always been more alike than different. Color, education, era, position on the

earth. We all have various talents. Drawing being one best understood by all.

[erronis]

8. And genetics tell us that we are very similar - but some people need to accentuate the differences.

Otherwise they wouldn't be "special", just like their moms told them when they were 3yo.

[Danascot]

7. Lascaux in France was one of the highlights of my travels

The actual cave is closed except for limited study by scientists but the visitors center has a very accurate replica of the cave that can be visited via a guided tour. The ancient art is breathtaking. Many paintings were in deep recesses of the cave in places that would have been hard to get to or high on the walls so they would have needed ladders or some type of scaffolding. Their only light was small lamps fueled with animal fat or torches covered in resin. In some cases the irregular walls suggested to the artists shapes of animals that they painted on them. Other paintings have multiple pictures of animals over-layed to depict movement. Almost no humans are depicted. Another thing that that really impressed me was that they used small hollow bird bones as a primitive airbrush.

[erronis]

9. Thank you. I'd love to visit that museum.

[Srkdqltr]

10. The cave drawings are absolutely beautiful and so wonderful to see.