La Garma cave (Cantabria, Spain): identification, structuring and spatialization of underground settlements since the Palaeolithic

Résumé 0

‪Ornamented caves are remarkable for the size and strength of the cave paintings. But this is only the spectacular side of a probably more diversified use of underground environments. For several years, the study of several emblematic sites (Chauvet cave, Nawarla Gabarnmang, Bruniquel cave) has demonstrated the deliberate modification of these spaces by societies and has opened the door to new ways of looking at the spatial appropriation of decorated sites over time. The Lower Gallery of the Garma cave (Cantabria, Spain), closed by a collapse of the porch at the end of the MIS2, has allowed an exceptional conservation of the floors: bones, occupation floors, footprints, cave art, broken speleothems, but also anthropic structures. If the structures have been studied since their discovery in 1995, an integrated approach based on an exhaustive inventory of the morphologies, deposits and remains of the gallery and their overlapping constitutes a relevant tool for analysing these anthropic modifications, sometimes significant, of the space invested by past societies. Beyond the identification of the human gesture itself, a high-resolution cartographic approach can also make it possible to discuss the spatial coherence of these actions, their complementarity, their chronology and their relationship to the volume into which they are inserted. In the long term, beyond an exhaustive documentation, the objective of this work is to show the morphological heritage of humans in the underground landscape and to underline the diversity of the forms of appropriation of the underground space by ancient societies.‪