Art rupestre du bassin méditerranéen de la péninsule Ibérique

Brève description

Pietat d'Ulldecona, détail de l'Abric numéro 1 © calBenido

Justification d'inscription

Critère iii : L’ensemble de peintures rupestres de la fin de la préhistoire situé dans le bassin méditerranéen de l’Espagne orientale est le plus grand groupe de sites d’art rupestre que l’on puisse trouver en Europe, et il offre un portrait exceptionnel de la vie de l’homme dans une période essentielle de l’évolution culturelle humaine.

Description longue

The corpus of late prehistoric mural paintings in the Mediterranean basin of eastern Spain is the largest group of rock-art sites anywhere in Europe, and provides an exceptional picture of human life in a seminal period of human cultural evolution. Its uniqueness, its documentary value, its integration into a landscape bears the imprint of man but is also of high ecological value, and its fragile and vulnerable nature. It is exclusive to the Mediterranean basin of the Iberian Peninsula because of the complexity of the cultural processes in this region in later prehistory, and to the factor related to conservation processes, such as the nature of the rock and specific environmental conditions.

The eastern Spanish rock art is an exceptional historical document which, because of its range, provides rare evidence in artistic and documentary terms of the socio-economic realities of prehistory. The predominant colour used was red, in various shades, black to a lesser extent, and white used in some areas. The scenes represent the first narrations in European prehistory and cover a number of different areas. Hunting activities, most frequently represented, show hunting by groups, with details of animal traps and the tracking of wounded animals. Gathering activities, such as that of honey, the most common, is of exceptional historical material to beekeepers. The earliest depictions of combats and executions appear in the form of archers shooting at their victims. Scenes of domestic daily life show groups of people sitting and talking, people walking together, seated hunters, butchering of animals, etc. The representations of the human figure provide information on clothing and personal ornament, such as different hairstyles, bracelets, arm-rings and necklaces, and mark the beginnings of social inequality. Funerary rites are shown in the form of recumbent corpses and ritual scenes. Scenes illustrate the mythologies of these prehistoric societies: sorcerers in strange costumes are common, as are figures combining human characteristics with those of animals (deer, bulls, birds). Female figures are also common, and these seem to represent female deities because of their prominent positions in the scenes depicted and their larger size.

Human modification of the landscape that was begun by the first Neolithic communities has less impact on these upland areas where the hunter-gatherer cultures that created the eastern Spanish art evolved. These lands are the last reserves of very interesting biological communities, such as a number of the most threatened European species of raptors, such as the royal eagle, the partridge eagle, and the peregrine falcon. Among the mammals the rarest species in Europe, the Iberian lynx, is still to be found in some places, also a large number of the animal most represented by prehistoric artists, the wild goat, are still in the area of rock-art sites. The existence side by side of living fauna and prehistoric art gives these areas the exceptional quality of a timeless landscape. The rock art in the over 700 sites have a number of regional variations, which are not always easy to distinguish:

• northern zone: single naturalistic zoomorphic figures and the rare stylized human figures;
• Maestrazgo and Lower Ebro: dynamic hunting and combat scenes, containing human figures;
• mountain areas of Cuenca and Albarracín: paintings in shelters and rocks in siliceous rocks;
• Júcar river cave and neighbouring mountain area: depiction of hunting scenes that are full of action;
• Safor and La Marina regions (Valencia and Alicante): hunting and social scenes but no combat.
• Segura River basin and neighbouring mountain areas: zoomorphism predominates;
• Eastern Andalusia: this form of rock art is to be found in two areas of eastern Andalusia;
• Los Vêlez region and the foothills of the Sierra Morena: mostly zoomorphic figures.

Description historique

La péninsule ibérique est riche en art rupestre préhistorique. On trouve dans la région orientale de l'Espagne un certain nombre de sites importants, datant de l'ère paléolithique, dont les meilleurs exemples proviennent du Solutréen (environ 19000 - 16000 avant Jésus-Christ), importé du sud de la France.

Ce n'est qu'avec l'apparition de communautés néolithiques sédentaires fondées sur l'agriculture que cet art caractéristique de l'Est de la péninsule s'est développé et épanoui. Pendant des années, la datation de cet art a fait l'objet de débats dans les rangs des préhistoriens. Toutefois, il est maintenant généralement accepté qu'il n'est pas paléolithique, du fait de la culture qu'il dépeint, mais son attribution exacte - à savoir s'il a commencé à l'ère épipaléolithique (de 10000 à 5000 avant Jésus-Christ) ou à l'ère néolithique qui suivit - reste assez mal établie. Le dossier de proposition d'inscription envisage de réconcilier élégamment les deux points de vue : " Il s'agit de l'art de peuples dont les racines culturelles plongent dans l'ère épipaléolithique, qui continuèrent d'utiliser des systèmes économiques essentiellement basés sur la chasse et la cueillette mais incorporèrent graduellement des éléments néolithiques dans leur bagage culturel." Cela peut être interprété comme une parenthèse dans le temps entre 8000 et 3500 avant Jésus-Christ environ.