Hey! We come to cheer you on with #FridayPaleoart, today we will travel to southern Europe ...

Cave: El #Morrón
Place: #Torres (Jaen). #Andalousia (Spain)
Motif: Two small painted ibex, one red and the other black.
Chronology: #Premagdalenian (probably, #Solutrean).

Nowadays, El Morrón is the only cave with Paleolithic Art in the province of Jaén and one of the about thirty caves with Paleolithic Art in Andalusia.

The discovery of the Paleolithic art was made in 1981 by Juan A. Bonilla, Carmen Ortiz, Ricardo Blanco and Ricardo Ruiz (from the old speleologists groups "Amaya" and "Equus”, Burgos). (Figure: José Manuel Troyano Viedma)

In 1982 Professor José Luis Sanchidrián (today member of B-Art project), in the framework of his doctoral thesis, published the first study of the paintings in Zephyrus journal (Sanchidrián 1982).
https://gredos.usal.es/bitstream/handle/10366/71263/La_cueva_del_Morron_%28Jimena%2c_Jaen%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Almost simultaneously, also archaeologists M.G. López Payer and M. Soria Lerma published their work on the cavity (López et al. 1982).
In 2015, the archaeological study was restarted by a team of researchers from the University of Córdoba and the Nerja Cave Research Institute

led by Dr. Mª Ángeles Medina-Alcaide (today member of B-Art project). The aim a systematic review of the whole subterranean landscape, together with the reconrding of the archaeological remains, with special emphasis on their state of conservation.

In the floor several ceramic fragments, flints, , fauna and human remains, along with an anthropic accumulation of blocks and earth. Inside this structure human skeletal remains were located and these were dated in High Middle Ages.

The Paleolihic Art of this cave was expanded with a partial representation of a possible animal and new several red spots and black lines. Likewise, an important deterioration of the known cave-art was verified.

The detailed results of this work can be found in the following article published in 2017 in the Munibe Journal (Sanchidrián et al. 2017).
http://www.aranzadi.eus/fileadmin/docs/Munibe/maa.2017.68.02.pdf

Likewise, in this work it is proposed a #Solutrean chronology of the art based on stylistic parallels with several pieces of portable art from #Parpalló Cave (in these case engraved and partially painted).

Finally, in 2019 the cave was closed and protected through a closure adapted to the environmental parameters of the endokarst and the preservation of the art (project led by archeologist Rosa Mª Ruiz-Márquez, University of the Cordoba).

The detailed characteristics of this enclosure can be found in the following article published in 2016 in the CuevaTur Congress (Ruiz-Márquez et al. 2017).
https://www.academia.edu/29415082/Ruiz-M%C3%A1rquez_et_al._2016_La_Cueva_de_El_Morr%C3%B3n_Torres_Ja%C3%A9n_Medidas_para_su_conservaci%C3%B3n_protecci%C3%B3n_y_puesta_en_valor_VI_Congreso_Espa%C3%B1ol_sobre_Cuevas_Tur%C3%ADsticas._El_karst_y_el_hombre_las_cuevas_como_Patrimonio_Mundial_pp.471-481
End of thread!