Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain

When the painted ceiling of Altamira came to light in 1879, few could believe Ice Age hunters had produced such art — its polychrome bison remain the most famous images of the Palaeolithic. UNESCO inscribed the Cantabrian cave in 1985 and later joined seventeen further decorated caves of northern Spain to the listing: deep galleries whose stable climates preserved humanity's first accomplished art, created between roughly 35,000 and 11,000 BCE.