280 Ice Age engravings found in Spanish cave overlooked for 60 years
Archaeologists have discovered 280 Palaeolithic engravings in a Spanish cave that had been visited by the public for decades. The findings, identified in 2019, provide new insights into prehistoric artistic traditions on the Iberian Peninsula.
Why it matters
This discovery highlights how significant historical artifacts can remain hidden in plain sight, necessitating ongoing archaeological surveys even in well-traversed areas.
Not all art is exhibited or put on display. Some of it remains hidden in plain sight, etched into rock and can go unnoticed for centuries, even when people have been walking past them for decades. In a cave in Spain, hundreds of such engravings has now opened up new avenues of research, offering archaeologists a fresh understanding of the prehistoric artistic traditions of the Iberian Peninsula.A research conducted by Josep Maria Vergès Bosch and Míriam Salas-Altès of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA), was published in Antiquity on 5 November 2026.
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