The scientists Marcos García-Diez, from the Isabel I University, and Andoni Tarriño, of the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), have presented today in Santillana del Mar (Cantabria, Spain)), the results of their contribution in the project "The times of Altamira ", which are collected in a monograph where more than 40 specialists from around the world have collaborated with the aim of expanding the cultural knowledge of this cave, a World Heritage Site since 1985.

This is the 26th monograph of the National Museum and Research Center of the Cave of Altamira, posthumous work of its former director José Antonio Lasheras, who died in a traffic accident, and includes research carried out over 12 years in three sites in the area: Caves of El Linar, Las Aguas and Cualventi, which contain occupations mainly, of the Upper Paleolithic.

The analysis and study of the remains and paintings located in these three Cantabrian caves have served to understand the rock art of Altamira that is now contextualized in its immediate surroundings, and have also allowed to know accurately and globally the ways of life of the populations between 12,000 and 30,000 years ago.

The participation of CENIEH has been concretized in the characterization and study of lithic materials, to recognize the places of collection that Paleolithic groups used to make their tools, and consequently to know the mobility and the settlement network. Isabel I University, in turn, has focused on the study of the chronology of rock art from the application of the Uranium series method..