The modern store rooms at Altamira, air-conditioned and adapted to the highest conservation standards, hold large archaeological collections from various Cantabrian sites. Logically, some of the most important items come from the different digs carried out in Altamira Cave itself, but other significant sites are represented as well, such as Chufín, Rascaño, Salitre, Juyo, La Pila and El Castillo.
The first digs inside the cave were carried out by its scientific discoverer, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. Other later sporadic finds, and several seasons of digs, have shown that the deposit has two occupation layers, dated in the late Solutrean and early Magdalenian periods. The collapse of the cave entrance, about thirteen thousand years ago, sealed the cave and was the reason for the excellent preservation of its paintings and engravings.
An open-air site located in the immediate surroundings of Altamira Cave. The artefacts found have been classified typologically in the late Acheulian period. The most characteristic implements are type 0 cleavers and bifaces, cobbles chipped both unifacially and bifacially, as well as simple side-scrapers. The raw materials used are sandstone and cobbles from the nearby rivers and terraces.
An enormous open-air site located near La Pila Cave. Like the cave, it has suffered the disastrous consequences of quarrying, so that it is now badly degraded. The site has provided a great number of late Acheulian artefacts, some of which were deposited in Altamira Museum together with the materials from La Pila.
Discovered by Alcalde del Río in 1903, this site contains a wide range of cave art as well as a hugely important deposit, with archaeological levels covering the periods from the Acheulian to the Chalcolithic. The sequence provides important data for the greater understanding of the transition between the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, and similarly between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Great attention is given to the chronology and the processes that were involved in the substitution of human types and cultural layers.
Morín Cave has an important archaeological deposit formed by 22 layers dated in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Layer 17, of Mousterian age, contained a wall enclosing a curved area, inside which a large number of worked stone and bone implements were found. Layer 8, of the Aurignacian period, had another structure, separated by a screen made of animal skins from an area used as a cemetery, where the marks left in the clay by the burial of four people could be detected.
This cave is found in a mountainous area, on the left bank of the River Miera. It has layers dated in the Aurignacian, Magdalenian and Azilian period. This small site must have been occupied by a small human group, who fished salmon and trout, and who above all hunted mountain goat, which accounts for 85% of the identified animal remains. These are mostly adults, especially males, which were mainly hunted in the summer.
The location of this cave is very similar to that of Rascaño, in the same Miera Valley, on a steep hillside overlooking the valley and river. It was discovered in 1903 by Lorenzo Sierra, who recognised the existence of an important archaeological deposit and of cave art inside the cave. The stratigraphic sequence is uncertain, as no systematic digs have been carried out, but Upper Palaeolithic and Azilian layers have been identified.
The cave is located in the gorge of the River Lamasón, a tributary of the River Nansa, just above the level of the waters in La Palombera reservoir. It has an important group of Palaeolithic cave art, and an archaeological deposit dated in the Solutrean period. This layer has provided notched and concave-based Solutrean points, and other artefacts manufactured in quartzite, quartz and to a lesser degree in flint.
This cave was discovered in 1953 by Don Alfredo García Lorenzo. It is located in the bottom of a doline, in undulating karst scenery, approximately 5 km from the present day coastline. It contains stratigraphy dated in the early Magdalenian, providing interesting series of artefacts in stone, bone and antler, as well as important data on the environment and subsistence. Its inhabitants hunted red deer intensively, and gathered seafood and plants. A number of structures found in layer 4 have been interpreted as a shrine, demonstrating the existence of a complex spiritual world.
When La Pila Cave was threatened by quarrying, a rescue dig was carried out, and shortly afterwards the cave was completely destroyed. The cave was already known by the local people, who used to extract earth from the cave to fertilise their fields. In this way they destroyed a medieval deposit, as well as several Bronze Age burials. The Palaeolithic deposit consisted of Azilian and late-final Magdalenian layers, providing valuable information about the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. A magnificent collection of decorated harpoons, spearheads, chisels and pendants was found.
This small cave was discovered in summer 1928, when stone was being quarried out for the construction of a road to Altamira Cave. It is purely of geological interest, with beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, as no archaeological deposit or cave art has been found. However, the cave had a human skeleton, dated in the Bronze Age, as well as the remains of a roe deer, and their presence inside the cave is still an enigma.
This collection is formed by a series of artefacts in antler, bone and stone, from different sites in France and Spain. It is not known when this collection reached the museum, although it is thought that it could have come from Santander Middle School, nowadays Santa Clara Secondary School, where it may have been used for educational purposes. It should be remembered that Sautuola and other researchers deposited their archaeological finds in this school, before the Provincial Prehistory Museum was founded.
A small collection of objects is made up of stone artefacts from open-air sites dated in the Lower Palaeolithic. This collection, coming from prospecting carried out between 1979 and 1983, gives an idea of the techno-typological character of open-air sites on the Cantabrian coast in the Pre-Würm period. The main locations sampled are Cabezón de la Sal, Oyambre, Peña Caranceja, Cúlebre and La Veguilla.
© Ministerio de Cultura
