Interesting places / Altxerri Cave

City: Aia


The Altxerri Cave is in the Basque Country; it is part of a complex of prehistoric caves around the Bay of Biscay. There are other such sanctuaries in the Basque Country , such as Ekain, Santimamiñe and Isturitz.

The discovery of the Altxerri cave and its prehistoric sanctuary was made in two very different phases.

The existence of caves in the area was unknown until in 1956 the road was being built which passed in front of the Altxerri farmhouse. A temporary quarry was excavated to extract construction material from the limestone behind the farmhouse.

Six years later, the members of the Aranzadi Science Society - which had learnt of the discovery - decided to explore the cave. On October 28th, 1962, Felipe Aranzadi, Javier Migliaccio and Juan Cruz Vicuña , three young people from San Sebastian , explored the chasms of the cave with the necessary speleological material.

As they were making the preparations to explore one of the chasms they noticed some black marks on the wall close to it, forming the figure of a bison. They subsequently discovered several other groups of figures in other parts of the cave .

They informed José Miguel de Barandiaran - then Director of the Prehistory Department at the Aranzadi Science Society - of their findings. Barandiaran authenticated the discovery and found, thanks to his experience, lots of other figures.

Both the present and the old entrance to the cave open in a nearly vertical cleft of rock. The entrance to the cave is 20 metres above sea level and 15 above the valley. The current distance to the coast is 2.5 km, but in the Magdalenian period in the Basque Country , when the sea level was about 60 metres lower than it is now, the distance from Altxerri to the sea was about 6 km.

The entrance opens through we stratified limestones with numerous joints. These strata are relatively thin, with few exceeding 40 cm in thickness. They are interspersed with other fine marly limestones.

In these strata there are some beautiful examples of folds and small joints. As a result, a number of stone blocks have fallen and now litter the ground, especially near the entrance, making it very uneven. In other areas, sedimentation of the clay washed down by constant percolation of water has made the ground more regular.

As a result, the Altxerri cave is quite different to most other in the Basque Country , which often run through compact limestones.

The figures have been made either on the fronts or cuts in the strata or in the stratification planes. In the first case, the relative thinness of the strata made it necessary to make the figures quite small so that they would fit on these faces.

The cave contains both carvings and paintings. The former are in a good state of conservation, but the latter have deteriorated greatly over the millennia. The walls are very damp in many parts, and the result is that the paint has been smudged to the point where in many cases it is almost unrecognisable. That is why the cave has remained closed to the public since the archaeological discovery. It is only open to prehistorians who can accredit their status with published works and their collaborators.


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Photo of Altxerri Cave

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