Cueva de La Pasiega - The Discovery of La Pasiega

The Discovery of La Pasiega

The scientific discovery of the La Pasiega can be credited to Wernert and Hugo Obermaier. While excavating the cave of El Castillo in 1911, they received news that the workers knew of another cavity nearby that villagers called "La Pasiega." The investigators soon confirmed that the cave contained rock paintings. Later, Henri Breuil, Hugo Obermaier, and Hermilio Alcalde del Río began their systematic study of the cave. However, the study could not be finished due to Henri Breuil's ongoing work on his magnum opus A separate monograph was necessary, and was published in 1913. The study was crucial to the advancement of prehistoric science in Spain.

"In the next decade, Alcalde del Río was to assist fully in the international project that the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in París sponsored, in which Abbé Breuil and H. Obermaier were prominent. That is the period in which the cave of La Pasiega was discovered. This is the most important moment in the study of Cantabrian rock art. The fruits of this labour were to feature in the monumental joint publications on the caves of the region, issued in Monaco, in the general work (Alcalde del Río, Breuil and Sierra, 1911), and specifically on La Pasiega (Breuil, Obermaier and Alcalde del Río, 1913)" - Joaquín González Echegaray

Previously, the cave El Castillo was discovered by Alcalde del Río in 1903, and, as noted, Obermaier carried out excavations between 1910 and 1914. The excavations were continued at various times, intermittently, until our own times, by qualified specialists. Ultimately the investigation was taken up by the archaeologists Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann and César González Sainz. After the discovery of "La Pasiega" and the first campaigns, the area was little visited — mainly owing to the difficult historical circumstances of Spain in the 1930s. After this, in 1952, while a eucalyptus plantation was being put in, another cave was found with a small monetary treasure of the 17th century: hence the new cave was called "Las Monedas": in it, however, was found a rock sanctuary with important pictures and drawings. In light of this, the engineer Alfredo García Lorenzo concluded that Monte Castillo held more secrets. Therefore a geological survey was set in motion which resulted the following year in the discovery of another cave with rock paintings, "Las Chimeneas" ("The Chimneys"), and also other covachas of lesser importance such as "La Flecha", "Castañera", "Lago" etc.