The Upper Palaeolithic record of Coímbre Cave (Asturias, northern Spain). A symbolic place, a place for living

Abstract

Coímbre cave (135 meters asl) is located on the southwestern slope of Mount Pendendo (532 m), in the small valley of Besnes river, tributary of Cares river, in a medium-higher mountain are in the central-western Cantabria –northern Iberian Peninsula- (Álvarez-Alonso et al., 2009; 2013b). The landscape in the surroundings of the cave –situated in an interior valley but near to the current coast in a low altitude- can be described as a mountainous environment where valleys, small hills and steep mountains with high slopes are integrated, which confer a relative variety of ecosystems to this area. Coímbre contains an important archaeological site divided in two different areas. B Area, is the farthest from the entrance, and is the place where took place the excavations carried out to date, between 2008 and 2012 (Álvarez-Alonso et al., 2009, 2011, 2013a, 2013b). Coímbre B shows a complete and very interesting Magdalenian sequence (with Lower, Middle and Upper Magdalenian levels), and a gravettian level, that converts this cave in one of the biggest habitat areas in western Cantabria. Its rich set of bone industries, mobiliar art and ornaments, provide key information that shows the connections between this area, the Pyrenees and the south-west of Aquitaine. Moreover, Coímbre cave presents an interesting set of Magdalenian engravings, located in different places of the cavity, both in open and accessible areas, and in narrower and inaccessible places, which clearly define two different symbolic spaces. All this artistic expressions belong to the Magdalenian, and it is possible to establish a division between a set of engravings framed in the first stages of this period (the most abundant and remote); and a more limited set of engravings, in which stand out a block with a engraving of a bison with a deep trace of more than one meter long, that belongs to the recent Magdalenian. This work presents the preliminary results of the analysis of Magdalenian occupations in Coímbre, after the end of the excavations in B Area, and the study of its rock art, shaping this site as one of the most important places of Magdalenian human activities in western Cantabria.