C A N T A B R I A   U N I V E R S I T Y
 
 
   
 
  PALEOLITHIC ART      
Cullalvera (Ramales)  
    Dots   It is a cave located in the city center of Ramales de la Victoria. It has got a gallery of big dimensions with NW-SE direction, with a height of 20 to 30 meters and a depth of aproximately two kilometers. The floor is covered by blocks that have fallen because of the strong running waters that appear during theraining season. The presence of these streams, besides some lagoons, makes it extremely difficult to explorate.

Since a long time ago, the big mouth of entrance has been used to keep farming equipments. Nevertheless, despite being known long time ago, nobody noticed the paintings that there were inside. Even, in the famous piece of work "Les Cavernes de la Region Cantabrique" published in 1911 by Alcalde del Rio, Lorenzo Sierra and H. Breuil, they only mention the existance of remainings of a deposit, in the entry to the cave, but at that moment it was already distroyed by the erosive action of the water.

In 1954, thanks to father Carballo´s initiative, a group of spscialists got into the cave and located part of the rupestrian paintings. The first paintings are not far from the entry: loose remainings of red painting. A little fartherfrom here, several groups of signs can be seen: dots and claviforms in red as in black. Finally, between the figurative representations there are three horses in black painting, one of them recently located and studied by members of the Area of Prehistory from the Historic Science Department of the University of Cantabria, leaded by Dr.Cesar González Sainz. The executions of the representations are dated aproximately between 15.500 and 13.000 years ago.

 
   
 
Claviform signs
 
   
   
 
Horse
 
 
 
   
 
Horse
   
                               
  P R E H I S T O R I C   A R T