The story of this place
In 1879 an eight-year-old girl, María, wandered off from her amateur-archaeologist father Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola inside a Cantabrian cave and looked up: 'Papá, mira, bueyes!'—Look, oxen! Overhead sprawled a ceiling of polychrome bison, deer and horses painted around 36,000 to 15,000 years ago, using the rock's natural bulges to make the animals bulge with muscle. Experts refused to believe Stone Age people could paint so well and accused Sautuola of fraud; he died disgraced in 1888. Only in 1902, after similar French caves emerged, was Altamira vindicated. To protect the fragile art, visitors now tour a meticulous replica beside the sealed original.