TITO BUSTILLO CAVE

Located in the Ardines massif, just at the mouth of the River Sella, the cave is part of a group of karstic rocks that were carved out by the San Miguel River, which still runs the length of the cave, but at a lower level. It was discovered in 1968 by a group of student cavers and named after one of them, who was killed a few days later while exploring another cave. At first, they explored the whole main gallery without finding any paintings and engravings. It was only at the very end of the cave, when they turned around in a side gallery, that they discovered the now famous vulvas and retraced their steps to realize that they had unknowingly passed by the most important set of cave paintings and engravings in the region. There is a polychrome panel dating from the Magdalenian period which is one of only two visible to the general public (the second is in France, in Les Eyzies).

The cave itself is a large main gallery, 700 meters long, whose entrance was opposite the entrance artificially arranged for tourist visits. You will be walking in the opposite direction to the one taken by the cavers and the occupants of the cave who decorated the walls.

As the discovery of this cave is relatively recent, we will have to wait for new excavation campaigns to know its precise ancient history. The floor, in some places, is littered with bones, carved flints and other remains testifying to several phases of occupation.

The youth of the discovery, due to the landslide that concealed access to the cave for thousands of years, has one advantage: the paintings and engravings are much better preserved than in other caves of the same period. The difficulties of access to some of the side galleries make it impossible to visit them, but you will enjoy the vulva chamber, drawings in which specialists want to see the representation of female genitals, the large purple horse, or the rock carved in the shape of a bison. The large main polychrome panel shows the diversity of periods and techniques used for the drawings. On both sides of a gallery are superimposed dozens of animals, mainly horses, but also deer and reindeer.

Inaccessible to the public, the anthropomorphic room conceals one of the rare representations of human forms. You can see a replica of it at the interpretation centre.