El Pendo Cave
Another UNESCO site in the region
Another UNESCO site in the region
While Altamira is an outstanding example of cave wall art, El Pendo offers one of the most important collections of portable art and ornamental pieces in the Franco-Cantabrian region. For this reason, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 as a valuable complement to it.
These artifacts and decorated objects allow us to interpret the ways of life and worldview of the cave’s successive occupants from about 82,000 years ago—when the area was inhabited by Neanderthals—through the Bronze Age. The artifacts recovered from the cave are currently on display at the MUPAC, where they can be viewed.
The scientific data gathered during successive research campaigns since 1878 allows us to understand what the geographical environment of Costa Quebrada was like throughout this entire period and to interpret the evolution of the fauna and flora as significant changes in the area’s climate occurred. Furthermore, it allows us to understand the relationship between these early inhabitants and coastal resources at a time when, with sea levels lower than today’s, the shoreline was shifted about 10 km further out to sea.
The tour of the cave culminates with the presentation of an impressive frieze of paintings, approximately 27 m wide, discovered in 1997, depicting deer, goats, and horses using the stippling technique. All the paintings appear to have been created at a single time, about 20,000 years ago.