SOPEÑA CAVE

3 km from the village of Miera, the caves offered shelters that our hunter-gatherers were certainly attending 10 to 30 000 years. For the time being, they had a high quality of life with a favourable climate during the summer months. They lived from hunting, most of the large animals following river valleys to migrate or simply drink, but also to fish thanks to abundant salmon, often very large as evidenced by the fossils found.

The caves of Salitre, closed to the public for conservation (but whose cave of Sopeña offers some reproductions), had a residential use but, at least two times, around 18 000 and 15 000 BC, or two periods of the upper Paleolithic (the Solutréen and the Magdalénien), they also served as rock sanctuaries. The reproduction of the cave and the fac of the many updated paintings in the original caves can be seen in the Sopeña. The opportunity to follow a visit that combines archaeology, rock art and geology.

In the livable part, that is, the mouth of the cavity, have been reconstituted from residential areas where they are exposed to everyday objects used by our ancestors to cook, hunt, paint, dress, manufacture tools, lit and maintain fire…

In the plus part of the gallery, sheltered from light, there are cave paintings: red, drawn to manganese oxide, and black, drawn to carbon. Deer, biches and horses are the dominant silhouettes on the different panels.

The guided tour will take you further into the cave which is also a geological marvel with many natural sculptures formed by time, water and erosion. This was where the cave bears were hibernate, which shared the caves with the first men. Sopeña has been found several skeletons of dead bears during their sleep.