Editorial: "Don't bury Europe's remarkable prehistoric culture"
WHEN I leave the sunshine and enter the gloom of the El Castillo cave in northern Spain, I'm just the latest in a long line of human visitors stretching back 150,000 years. Once inside, I walk past a wall of muddy debris 20 metres high – the household remains of the cave's inhabitants – and enter the labyrinth beyond.
The first chamber is vast, and I catch glimpses of aurochs, deer and bison painted on the walls, but I'm here to see something more enigmatic: a series of abstract marks that seem to be a kind of Stone Age code.
My journey leads me to a hidden chamber so small that I have to lie down so as not to damage the images overhead. They are unlike anything I've ever seen – abstract art composed of large rectangles filled with lines and ...
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