The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) participates in a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, on Sala Keimada, one of the rock art sanctuaries in Cueva Palomera, the main cave of the Ojo Guareña Karst Complex (Merindad de Sotoscueva, Burgos, Spain).
Led by Ana Isabel Ortega Martínez, from the Royal Burgos Academy of History and Fine Arts – Fernán González Institution, the study presents 18 previously unpublished dates indicating that the chamber remained in use from around 13,500 years ago until more than 2,000 years ago.
The site, discovered in 1976 by the Edelweiss Speleological Group, was mentioned in several popular publications in 1986 and 2013. However, it had remained unpublished in the scientific literature due to the difficulty of access, which requires visitors to crawl through a narrow passage, and the lack of dates that would allow it to be placed within a chronological framework. As a result, most specialists focused almost exclusively on Sala de las Pinturas, located opposite Sala Keimada.
The main panel of black geometric motifs, closely resembling the triangular figures in Sala de las Pinturas, has been dated to around 13,500 years ago, at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic. The chamber contains numerous engravings on walls and low ceilings, most of them created by dragging fingertips across the clay film covering the rock surface, although fine incised and striated engravings are also present.
Several engravings are overlain by charcoal traces left by torches, providing minimum dates that confirm an Upper Palaeolithic age for some of them, while others may belong to later prehistoric periods, including the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. A zoomorphic head engraving associated with a black outline has been dated to around 7,500 years ago, during the Early Neolithic. Pits excavated with wooden sticks preserve wood remains dated between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, while the only clearly identified hearth dates to the Chalcolithic.
One of the most significant discoveries is a complex structure built from two large limestone slabs placed upright and supported against one another, reinforced by smaller stones. The main slab, measuring 1.5 metres in length, has a carefully shaped upper edge that creates a pointed profile resembling an animal figure facing the main panel of paintings.
“Both this slab and some of the stones supporting it preserve engravings and charcoal marks that attest to intense human activity around the structure. In terms of its characteristics, it closely resembles another Palaeolithic slab documented in Tito Bustillo Cave (Ribadesella, Asturias), although it is larger,” explains Ortega Martínez.
The study also documents the remains of a young domestic pig, approximately three months old, deposited in one of the small natural calcite pools located in the centre of the chamber, next to a distinctive quadrangular formation of apparently human origin. The date obtained for these remains corresponds to the period immediately preceding the Roman conquest of the region following the Cantabrian Wars, suggesting that they may be related to one of the last ritual activities carried out in the sanctuary. This interpretation is reinforced by the symbolic importance of pigs and wild boar in Iron Age offering practices.
The Regional Government of Castilla y León authorised the work carried out in Sala Keimada and, through its Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage, funded seven of the dates presented in this study as part of the Ojo Guareña Dating Project. Developed through successive collaboration agreements with Fundación Atapuerca, the project enabled Ana Isabel Ortega Martínez to carry out and coordinate this research while she was part of CENIEH. The remaining eleven dates were funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the project An Eternal Present: The Atemporality of Palaeolithic Rock Art, led by Marcos García-Diez of the Complutense University of Madrid.