PRAILEAITZ I: A MAGDALENIAN LUNAR-SOLAR CAVE AT 15,500 BP IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Abstract

Hayden et al. (2012) have questioned whether there was a Palaeolithic „astronomy‟, yet nevertheless show that ethnographic evidence confirms such knowledge amongst extant „complex hunter-gatherers‟. Included in their critique is a rejection of Marshack‟s (1972) suggestion that Palaeolithic modern humans made nondecorative lunar notational systems. During fieldwork in the Basque country in March 2015 the authors examined the orientation of the Praileaitz I cave in the valley of the River Deba. The site excavation report (Peñalver, 2014) reveals that the cave was a place of ritual for local hunter-gatherers during the Magdalenian period around 15,500BP. The cave was one of 22 probably inhabited by the same group during the Magdalenian. Since none of the remaining 21 caves displayed any evidence as being places of ritual, then this data-set allows a statistical procedure to identify what particular portfolio of characteristics led to this cave being chosen as a place of ritual. The Praileaitz I cave has a vulva shaped entrance, 29.5 pendants arranged around the cave‟s chambers, an outward facing vestibular seat, red ochre crayons, a cutting antler baton and abstract „art‟. Many of the pendants displayed marks consistent with Marshack‟s lunar model. The field archaeoastronomy reveals that the cave entrance had an alignment on summer solstice sunrise. This lunar-solar astronomical finding shows a step-change from tracking discrete months as demonstrated by Marshack to organising „lunar‟ rituals abstracted from any particular month displaced onto a solarized time scale. This suggests that the Magdalenian Praileaitz I rituals served as a bridging ritual form between monthly, synodic, rituals in the early Palaeolithic and later monumental alignments on the solarized sidereal moon in the Mesolithic, as for example at Warren Field in Scotland (Gaffney et al., 2013), and in the Neolithic, as for example at Stonehenge (Sims, 2006).