Members of the Museum of Altamira’s research team and managers of the Handpas project, a venture that documents and spreads images of Palaeolithic hand representations in Europe, have found three new hand prints on the walls of Altamira cave, in Spain’s northern Cantabria region, that “almost certainly” were done more than 20,000 years ago.
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Hand prints in the Altamira Cave [Credit: Getty Images] |
After they were discovered, the hands were digitally photographed and added to Handpas’ 3D catalogue of Paleolithic hands in Europe. The collaboration between the project and the museum was announced by Pilar Fatás, director of Altamira Museum, by her deputy Carmen de las Heras, and by the director of Handpas, Hipólito Collado, who is also head of the archaeology department of the regional government of Extremadura.
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Digitally enhanced image of six of the hand prints found on the ceiling of Sala de Polícromos (Polychrome Room) of the Altamira Cave [Credit: P. Saura] |
The others, located in the Polychrome Room, vary in color, ranging from a dark violet to an intense red. Although it is not known for sure, De las Heras believes that the hands are superimposed on the images of horses. According to data obtained and analyzed by Collado, 70% of the prehistoric population was right-handed.
The importance of the finding does not lie in the number of prints discovered, but rather in the way that they illustrate what the Polychrome Room looked like before the famous bison painting, says De la Heras. “Thirty-two years after the last publication on the art of Altamira, the cave continues to produce relevant findings that never cease to amaze us and show us its greatness,” she says.
The Museum of Altamira has showcased a documentary called Handpas, manos del pasado (Handpas, hands of the past), which aims to provide answers to many of the questions raised by the prehistoric art. The documentary has been shown at multiple international science film festivals.
Source: El Pais [February 02, 2019]
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