Page 9 - ART AND NATURE IN PREHISTORY. THE COLLECTION OF TRACINGS OF CAVE ART OF THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES

the oldest blazons of the hispanic peopleel tajo de las figuras caveBecause of its location close to Janda Lake and the Strait of Gibraltar, it is not surprising that big ocks of migratory birds in their seasonal migration could be seen from the cave. Cabré had already mentioned it in 1914:“Rock art representations of birds in the interior of caverns are extremely rare both in Spain and abroad, which makes this pictorial work even more valuable... To our knowledge, paintings of birds ying have not been found in any prehistoric painting or engraving, of which we have an example in the painting in the ceiling, next to the nest, seen from the side.”In fact, the drawings do not depict just any bird, as the morphological details of the paintings are particular to speci c species:“In the lower side of the back wall we can see three swans swimming. e S shape of the neck, the short beak and the silhouette of the trunk swayed us.”art and nature in prehistory. the collection of rock art tracings of the mncn009