Archaeology handicrafts and science and technology sites to visit Spain

This young wine estate of 13 hectares, one of the only in the comarca with the most modern equipment, has benefited from the fertile soils of this region of Gavarres - a mixture of volcanic rock, silica-limestone land and alluvial sediment - to grow grapes. You can visit the manufacturing factory by appointment and enjoy interesting offers from the shop. A very informative visit in an idyllic setting.

The Las Villuercas site has a large cave art spread over over 30 panels. In the heart of the country of Las Villuercas, it is one of the most spectacular areas in the region, where the Mediterranean forests in perfect conservation conditions are combined with the mountainous alignments which have one of the most important peaks in Extremadura.

The engravings of the Hurdes are spread over a vast territory covering the communes of Casar de Palomero, Pinofranqueado, Caminomorisco, Nuñomoral and Casares de las Hurdes.

In the country of Las Hurdes there is a series of open-air engravings which, by their number and their remarkable character, constitute within the post-Palaeolithic cave art of the Iberian Peninsula a uniform and singular nucleus.

In total, 15 different rock destinations are now perfectly marked for better access to visitors. They are located in various important places: Casar de Palomero, Pinofranqueado-Caminomorisco and Nuñomoral. These are enclaves of the type "pétroglyphe", of slate outcrops of slate, most often, which have been the object of identifiable engraved by percussion and incision.

The sites are generally made of rocky outcrops located at mid-slope, above the bed of a river or stream, and most often oriented on a north-west/northeast line.

If the grounds appear most often on the horizontal surface of the rock, with the floor, there are also some sets of decorated rocks. These are - in all cases - natural outcrops of slate or shale.

In most cases, the themes represented are geometric or linear, and there are also, with a certain profusion, a few figurative elements such as horse fers, representations of shaven human feet, agricultural tools (sickles, serpes), and arms (swords, knives, launchers). Much more exceptional, anthropomorphic or schématisations of human silhouettes in which they wanted to see idols and other elements difficult to interpret.

One of the most significant rock art ensembles in the Cáceres region, and the first to be the subject of an archaeological register in 1916. It is structured in a unique scene where the human figure is the main element. This scene consists of small groups characterized by their different chiefs and ornements, and, according to the interpretation that has been made, represents a tribal meeting. Painting is the only technique used, in a pretty weathered red color. There are also some symbolic elements and two very patterned representations of zoomorphes. The whole is dated from Neolithic to the age of copper.

Traces of Occupation's human occupation have been uncovered in this small cave that is still being excavated. The excursion will also be the occasion for a beautiful walk in beautiful landscapes.

A few kilometres from the city centre, the cave of Ardales was discovered in 1821 in favour of a small earthquake that represented the entrance. The cavities, dug by thermal waters, form a maze of 1 500 m long which was explored by Abbot Breuil in 1918. Traces of habitat were found about metres from the mouth, but it is likely that this cave served only temporary camp during hunting periods.

Engravings and paintings have been discovered throughout the cave, even in the most obscure places. Stalagmites carved and filled with fuel, usually made with the wax of bees, animal fats and olive oil, were used to illuminate the passages. For inaccessible places, ropes made in the rock were also found. There were a total of 107 drawings dated Gravettien and Solutréen, and over symbols. Among the most important representations: a large deer with red legs, coloured by a mixture of resin and clay, and a silhouette that could be that of a woman, and many hands in negative. Notable is: most of the engravings were made not with a tool but at the point of the finger.

2 km southwest of La Zarza is this small shelter under rock dominating the plain. Park your car near signs and follow signs for about minutes.

The site was discovered and studied by Abbot Breuil in the second decade of the twentieth century. century and revealed numerous figurative and symbolic inscriptions: features, angles, spirals and others with less indentifiables shapes. The entire wall, about a dozen meters, is covered, but most paintings have suffered from the passage of time and are no longer very visible.

The paintings revealed very schematic anthropomorphic, zoomorphes and idéomorphes signs, the meaning of which, again, is not known.

The cave, closed to the public, presents a collection of paintings and engravings for most of the Paleolithic, and some further schematic elements. There was a set of hands painted in negative (71 in total) that the current research works are located chronologically at the very beginning of Paleolithic cave art. It should be added to this the presence of zoomorphes patterns (cattle, capridés and deer) and some graphèmes of symbolic type (point alignments, coupled contributor, triangles, etc.).

The Interpretive Centre introduces visitors to the most characteristic aspects of Maltravieso cave art, through posters, models, audio-visual documents and a small reproduction at the real scale of one of the cave halls.

The popular architecture of the village is a typical example of the architecture of the so-called Lathe Estrémadure, a system of most often wooden lattage and usually nailed or bolted to the frame to receive coverage. The houses have a ground floor built in masonry and a top floor developed from a wooden frame filled with pisés, all complemented by wooden balconies and small stone staircases. We also note the large tiles covering the part of the wall that can receive rain. All this is to be found in the most captured part of the village, on the land, the so-called Quartier district. In the highest part of the village, the bourgeois houses appear. Built during the expansion of thermal tourism at the end of the th and early th centuries, they are all in beautiful stone, display wrought-iron balconies and sometimes decorate their facade of modernist elements such as plant motifs or plume.

On the edge of the road between Santa María la Real de Nieva and Bernardos (parking), you can take a few steps among the numerous open air engravings that adorn the rocks. With the site of Siega Verde, it is one of the most important fields of petroglyphs on the peninsula: no fewer than 200 figures have been listed, with a very large majority of horses and deer. There are also some goats and bison. The rocks also inspired the artists of the Middle Ages who added scenes of fighting on horseback, dances, arms…

The cave was used as a necropolis in the bronze age and was the subject of several excavations during which the older traces of human attendance were uncovered. The visit is therefore interesting to more than one title and includes, apart from the rock heritage, an archaeological area and village reproduction, not to mention, of course, the geological interest. In the course of the visit, many concretions and multicolores natural sculptures can be observed.

Some paintings and hundreds of engravings are present in the cave. These are essentially signs and symbols or simply of geometric, grouped or isolated forms. The paintings are made to carbon despite the presence of manganese oxide in the cave, and represent anthropomorphic motifs.

The cave had long been known to the villages surrounding the villages, but it was only in the early 1970 s that it was the subject of a excavations campaign that would update all the treasures it contains. With a rather modest size, she houses beautiful engravings and red paintings depicting deer, goats and bovines. Some of them are depicted in full strokes and others, as in the cave of Covalanas, dotted. The cave was also used as a residential space at the Solutréen.

The large central panel of the vestibule is certainly the most admirable in the cave. There is a bison and biches as well as a fish, which is more rare in the Cantabrian caves. Inside, you will also note an anthropomorphic silhouette, which is also very rare for this time. But it is mainly for the quantity of signs and symbols made at the point of the finger that the cave of Chufín owes its reputation. We find it in many places, without linking them, and without knowing its meaning. Codes, plans, first drafts of beliefs? Signs in prehistoric times do not have their Rosette stone yet and keep their mystery for them.

Located on the easternmost coast of Asturias, the cave El Caves was discovered in 1908 and studied by the great French préhistorien Henri Breuil. It presents beautiful animal etchings and paintings, including two probable mammoths, rarely represented in Spain, as well as symbols.

Dated 3 000 years BC, the dolmen of Santa Cruz is located under a church in an underground crypt. There are several slabs of varying sizes, the largest of which slightly exceeds 2 metres. All are decorated with engravings and red coloured drawings.

Near the village of Chard, the cave of Buxu, discovered in 1916, presents beautiful animal engravings as well as some symbols and geometric signs dated from Solutréen and Du. The excavations at the beginning of the last century also made it possible to find many pieces of pieces of furniture such as a bird carved on the croc of a cave bear. Without being a place of continuous habitation, the cave of Buxu served as a camp during hunting periods. 

Known as the tennis cave, because its imposing size - 50 metres out of 25 and a ceiling of 30 metres - would easily make it easy to build a land, the Cuevona is a typical cathedral cave, offering huge volumes and massive natural sculptures. The size of the spaces, composed of small, medium and large rooms, made it possible to organize concerts and even a wedding! The visit is very easy because the paths and stairs were very easy to fit.

Discovering, scientifically speaking, in 1856, it would be worth more exploration campaigns. The soil, beyond the spaces reserved for visitors'wanderings, is literally littered with remnants of shells, bones, tools and carved stones. On the walls, it is assumed that some traces correspond to paintings erased by water. The Cuevona was certainly inhabited, like the cave of Tito Bustillo adjacent to which it is connected by an underground river.

Lost in the fields, the Dolmen de Soto was discovered by chance in 1923. It is one of more than 200 megalithic monuments found in Huelva province, erected between the Neolithic and the bronze age. If the region has many megaliths of this type, it distinguishes itself by its size. The gallery is part of a circle of stones, unfortunately disappeared, which originally reached 75 metres in diameter, which is the longest dolmen in Spain. As in Campo Lameiro, the dolmen is buried under an artificial hill. The building had several functions: it was buried in a mother and a child, whose skeletons were found, but certainly also in terms of timing and observatory. The stone blocks supporting the roof of the gallery are all engraved with signs and symbols.

In the interpretation centre, a documentary in synthetic images details the construction of the dolmen by the population of a neighbouring village whose traces were found at 400 m from the site. A second film focuses more closely on the symbols found in the gallery.

With the dolmen approach, please note the ambulatory, which is still visible on the ground and which did the entire round of hill. Some stones remained, but most disappeared, parts for the construction of houses around or used as galleries to attend the bullfighting, as shown in the ground of the arena, which encroaches on the mound. We enter the latter with a 21 m long gallery and at the end of which the ceiling height reaches 3,5 m. The biggest stone supporting the whole weighs over 20 tons! Excavations carried out during his discovery found 8 skeletons, including that of a child. Most of them had a very large number of engravings: daggers, anthropomorphic silhouettes or symbols adorn stones in different places, without a precise reading or interpretation of the stones.

The restoration of the site has been very well conducted. The interpretation centre, drowned in the landscape, is almost invisible and the lighting of the gallery has been thought of so as to highlight the engravings.

In 2015, the municipality sought to acquire part of the adjacent field where there is a second dolmen, a little smaller dolmen that has not yet been subjected to full excavations and studies. Early research in the 1920 s found the skeletons of 18 to 20 individuals, some crouching and supported against walls and others lying on their backs. So the site is still far from having delivered all its secrets.

The visit begins with the Ecomuseum ecomuseum who presents the cave ecosystem. Its formation, the secondaires and the secondary cavities, the water circuit… everything went on to show you the scenes! You can also slip into the skin of a bat and move in the cave by getting from its point of view. Attention, tight turns…

The visit of the cave takes about 1 hour. Unfortunately, there will not always be a bats, the tourist attendance long ago prompted tenants to move. In the 1950 s, there were no fewer than 15 000 bats, but only a few specimens attached to them were still volettent. You will therefore be able to concentrate on the geological and archaeological aspect of the visit. Engravings have been discovered there recently. In 2002, scientists noticed a sign that until then had escaped them and on which a deer, bovidé and bear were found. But here are the goats that predominate: There are no fewer than 56 ancient Neolithic engravings. Dated 4300 to 3900 years before our age, these are the first drawings of the Neolithic found in Western Andalucia. Among other reasons, one would note an anthropomorphic and another, more enigmatic, which could be an owl.

The journey of the visit takes us down 65 m, until the place where, voluntarily, a woman was buried about 4 000 years ago in a foetal position. We are still wondering about the motivations that have led men to undertake such a well-equipped to bury this woman precisely here, in a very difficult place of access where it is possible to break his neck every step (rest assured, stairs have been built since). Take the time to admire the geological formations of the cave, especially interesting, with numerous stalagmites and stalactites. They are so many in a room that the latter was called the organ room. The visit is in several stages, with the first discovery of the vestibule, which serves a number of galleries that have enabled a circuit to be set up in 8. The gallery of paintings, with goats, precedes the training room, of more geological interest. Corridors and halls follow up to the lowest point, before they go back almost half a kilometre underground. The entire cave is much larger and reaches 2 km.

Built in 1878 by Leopold Lemoniez, this building is one of the most emblematic of the city's industrial past. First factory flour, it was then (1889) a factory producing electricity. Discover by walking along the river.