Côa Valley Rock Art

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CONTENTS

• Why is Côa Valley So Important?
• Where is the Côa Valley Art Found?
• How Many Prehistoric Sites are in the Côa Valley?
• Discovery of the Rock Art
• How Old is the Côa Valley Rock Art?
• Who Created the Rock Art at Coa Valley?r
• Characteristics
• Rock Engraving Techniques
• Outdoor Rock Art in Australia
• References

Why is Côa Valley So Important?

The Portuguese Côa Valley is the most extensive open air site of rock art in Europe.

Like a vast open air gallery, it features hundreds of stone panels with thousands of animal engravings and other forms of prehistoric art, dating back to the early Gravettian culture of the late Stone Age.

The valley contains the oldest art in Portugal and has become an important centre of Stone Age culture on the Iberian Peninsula.

It serves as an important reminder that not all rock art was made in caves - indeed, we may yet discover that cave art accounts for a minority of the total art produced during prehistory.

In addition, it's worth noting that discoveries of open air rock art in Europe, dating back to the Paleolithic, are relatively recent events.

The first discovery was in Mazouco (Portugal), in 1981. After this came Domingo García (Segovia, Spain), Piedras Blancas (Andalusia, Spain), Campôme and Fornols-Haut (both in the French Pyrenees), and Siega Verde (across the Spanish border).

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Where is the Côa Valley Art Found?

The Côa River is a left-bank tributary of the Douro River, one of the major waterways that traverse the Iberian Mountains from east to west.

Its petroglyphs can be found in the last 17 kilometres of the Côa river valley up to where it joins the Douro.

How Many Prehistoric Sites are in the Côa Valley?

The Côa Valley archaeological zone consists of 23 sites with prehistoric engravings or paintings, along the final stretch of the River Côa.

There are ten sites on the left bank and eight on the right bank. The remaining five sites are situated along other tributaries of the Douro River, at Faia, Quinta da Barca and Penacosa.

Out of the 23 sites, the following 14 are classified:

• Broeira (Vila Nova de Foz Côa)
• Canada do Inferno (Foz Côa)
• Faia (Pinhel)
• Faia (Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo)
• Fonte Frieira (Foz Côa)
• Meijapão (Foz Côa)
• Penascosa (Foz Côa)
• Quinta da Barca (Foz Côa)
• Quinta do Fariseu (Foz Côa)
• Ribeirinha (Foz Côa)
• Ribeira de Piscos (Foz Côa)
• Vale da Figueira (Foz Côa)
• Vale de Moinhos (Foz Côa)
• Vale dos Namorados (Foz Côa)

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Since 1995, a team of scientists have been cataloguing the outdoor engraved drawings and paintings throughout the locality.

A museum and an archaeological park have also been established to inform visitors.

The whole project is supported by several different bodies, including: the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, the National Centre for Prehistoric Art, and the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology.

In 1998, UNESCO designated the 'Prehistoric Sites of the Côa Valley' a World Heritage Site.

In 2010, the Côa Valley World Heritage site was extended to include the open air engravings at Siega Verde (across the border in Spain), whose antiquity is on a par with Côa.

To see how Côa's engravings fit into the evolution of Paleolithic culture, see: Timeline of Prehistoric Art (from 540,000 BC).

Discovery of the Rock Art

The Côa Valley rock engravings were discovered in the early 1990s by Nelson Rebanda, a local archaeologist, just as the valley was due to be flooded as part of a major dam project.

The petroglyphs were identified as Paleolithic by archaeologist Mila Simoes de Abreu - a discovery which led ultimately to the cancellation of the dam.

In total, researchers discovered well over 5,000 outdoor engraved drawings of horses, bison, aurochs, deer, and other animals, as well as a few human figures, along with numerous abstract signs.

All of these artworks are situated outdoors, except for the parietal art in the Faia rock shelters.

In all, around 214 engraved panels have been discovered in 22 different groups.

Among the animals featured are aurochs, bison, deer, horses and ibex.

In addition, there are several images of fish, as well as a small group of geometric or abstract symbols (at Penascosa and Canada do Inferno), and one engraving of an anthropomorphic figure complete with phallus (at Ribeira de Piscos).

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How Old is The Côa Valley Rock Art?

The dating of outdoor rock art is extremely difficult due to the long term effects of weather and the obvious likelihood of disturbance.

Cave art is much less prone to disturbance, and typically retains dateable traces of artifacts, organic material or calcite overlays.

As a result, many open air sites are eagerly awaiting new dating technologies (e.g. improved luminescence dating) which may provide direct evidence of their antiquity. The Côa Valley is no exception.

Up until recently, archaeologists relied entirely on stylistic comparisons with cave art to construct a timeline for Côa Valley sites.

They found three phases of activity connected to the era of Upper Paleolithic art.

• The oldest images, consisting of about 137 rocks with 1,000 carvings and rare paintings, features naturalistic engravings of animal figures, which date to the Late Gravettian period (22,000-20,000 BC).
• A second phase of animal petroglyphs, notably muzzled horses, occurred during the Solutrean era (20,000-18,000 BC).
• A final and longer phase of engraving, which included a few human figures as well as more detailed animal figures, evolved during the Magdalenian era (15,000-10,000 BC).

The latest research, as documented by world-archaeology.com, focuses on a buried panel decorated with about 20 animal representations, which was recovered from sediments dating to the Early Gravettian period (28,000-21,000 BC).

Who Created the Rock Art at Coa Valley?

The dates show the petroglyphs were created by Cro-Magnons, the species of Homo sapiens who occupied Europe.

Their art is hunter-gatherer art, which is presumably why the focus is on animals.

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Characteristics

In total, more than 5,000 animal rock carvings have been found in the Côa Valley, including drawings of aurochs, bison, deer, horses and ibex.

At the archaeological site of Faia, in the south, there are a number of rare painted engravings, in which red ochre paint has been applied to outline the carving and highlight the mouth and nostrils of the animals.

The engraved drawings are found invariably on vertical rock faces, and sizes range between 15 cm (6 inches) and 180 cm (6 feet), averaging about 40-50 centimetres in height.

They often appear in clusters, forming multi-image compositions.

Côa valley engravings are similar in style to images preserved in caves and rock shelters in southwestern Europe. However, the Côa engravings are unique in that they depict movement.

This sense of motion is achieved by drawing a single animal body with two or even three heads, drawn to represent successive positions during movement.

Human figures are only present at Coa in rocks decorated between 16,000 and 12,000 BC. Even then, they are rare.

For example, they occur on only two rocks of the Ribeira de Piscos site, and on another two at the neighbouring site of Quinta do Fariseu.

For similarly aged rock carvings in caves, see Grotte des Deux-Ouvertures (26,500 BC).

Rock Engraving Techniques

Côa Valley engravers employed several different techniques:

• Incision or engraving
  This involves scratching or cutting lines into the stone surface, using a sharp lithic flake or metal blade. The effect varies between bold deep lines and thin shallow lines.
• Pecking
  This is a type of indirect percussion whereby a second rock is used like a chisel between the hammerstone and the surface of the rock.
• Pounding
  Used to make indentations, cupules and other hollows, this involves the use of a heavy hammerstone or pebble to batter the rock face directly.
• Painting after engraving
  This involves the use of red ochre or black manganese to highlight outlines of figures or pick out certain anatomical details. Sadly, only rare examples of this technique have survived.

In addition, in line with techniques used by artists at Chauvet Cave (34,500 BC) and elsewhere, variations in the morphology of the rock surface are used to give added relief to the animal figures.

Outdoor Rock Art in Australia

As mentioned above, as far as paleolithic engraving is concerned, indoor examples (in caves and rock shelters) far outnumber outdoor examples - at least in Europe.

Only in Australia is the situation reversed - no doubt for climatic reasons.

The finest examples of open air Aboriginal rock art include:

• The Burrup Peninsula Engravings in the Pilbara.
• The Kimberley Rock Art in northern Western Australia
• The Ubirr Rock Art in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory.

Once again, direct dating is problematic, but most experts agree that the tradition of decorating rocks in all these areas dates back to at least 30,000 BC.

• See: World's Oldest Art.

References

(1) "Into the daylight: a new rock art discovery." Thierry Aubry, António Fernando Barbosa, Luís Luís, André Santos, and Marcelo Silvestre. World Archaeology: Issue 101: May 22, 2020.
(2) "Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley and Siega Verde". Lisbon, Portugal: IGESPAR – Instituto de Gestão do Património Arquitectónico e Arqueológico.