Archaeologists intensify investigation into human presence in the Côa Valley

An international team of archaeologists is analyzing the Penascosa site, one of the richest rock art sites in the Côa Valley, to deepen our understanding of human occupation in the region, well beyond 12,000 years ago.

The certainty of the continuity of artistic expression in the Paleolithic, in a never-interrupted 30,000-year cycle, is consolidated with the advancement of research, which now addresses the exploration of schist stone at the Penascosa site and verifies the destruction of existing panels in later periods, particularly at the beginning of the 20th century.

"The archaeological sites classified as national monuments or World Heritage sites are so classic that no one wants to touch them. Here in Penascosa, it was impossible to determine the extent or distribution of the engraved rocks, due to the extraction of shale for the construction of dams or walls on the banks of the Côa River [in more recent times]," Thierry Aubry, scientific director of the Côa Parque Foundation, explained to Lusa news agency.

According to the archaeologist, after this intervention there is “completely new” data, because the original extent and distribution of the rocks at the Penascosa site were not known.

"And with these excavations, we gain an understanding of what schist stone mining was like at the Penascosa site. The sequence of the route taken, resulting from the stone removal, is not continuous, which could lead one to believe that Paleolithic man chose not to engrave sequentially. But this is not true, because downstream of the Côa River, there is evidence of stone mining that destroyed several panels," Thierry Aubry emphasized.

In Penascosa, in the municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Côa, not even the heat can quell the curiosity of a multidisciplinary team that intends to prove that the extraction of schist stone on the banks of the Côa River caused many engravings in this rock art sanctuary to disappear. Evidence is now emerging that human action, especially at the beginning of the 20th century, took many of these engravings with it.

The ongoing survey involves field work, excavation, soil analysis, detailed documentation of findings, among other actions, as well as the use of new technologies to identify areas of interest.

The entire prospecting site is in fact being combed through with a fine-tooth comb, using new technologies, although practical and conventional archaeology is also applied on the ground, with archaeologists cleaning, washing, scrubbing and tracing on paper all the details that evidence the presence of the Côa Art, continuously, in this place classified as being of Humanity.

"All the surveys indicate that, at Penascosa, there were many more engraved rocks during the Paleolithic period than what is currently known. This is important because when we interpret the distribution of art at this site in the Côa Valley Archaeological Park [PAVC], we conclude that what hindered [knowledge of the continuity of] prehistoric artistic manifestations was the exploitation of stone. This is new information," Thierry Aubry emphasized to Lusa.

According to the archaeologist, this work is important “to better understand this site for future memory.”

"At the beginning of the 20th century, people in the region were still unaware of this important movement linked to rock art. All this destruction was due to ignorance, which is not the case today, and cannot be the case," the researcher emphasized.

In this location, there are other new discoveries, such as human occupation dating back more than 12 thousand years “with the chipped stone industry”, associated with the graphic phase of engraving pecking.

“Here we are certain that the Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of Penascosa had other occupations, as they were hunters and gatherers,” he said.

Another objective of the research is the alluvial behavior of the Côa River, to understand how and where it flowed and to understand the sediments it carried during times of flooding.

Archaeologist André Santos, from the University of Coimbra, explained to Lusa that several techniques are being used to understand the volume of the missing panels, with knowledge complemented by direct tracing on the rock.

"After the surfaces are cleaned, a layer of transparent plastic is applied and then we trace over the engraving on the rock with permanent ink pens and artificial light, so that the lines are clear and copied as accurately as possible, and another researcher or visitor can understand what figure is represented there and [what] their techniques were," explained the archaeologist.

This place is dominated by figures of aurochs (wild ox), horses, mountain goats, deer, fish and even bears.

According to the interim president of the Côa Parque Foundation, Domingos Lopes, in 2024 more than 8,800 people visited the Penascosa archaeological site, in the middle of the PAVC, which attests to the archaeological importance of the Côa Art.

The PAVC, for reasons of safeguarding and conserving the rock art 'sanctuary', is limited to a maximum of 15,000 visitors per year, which has been the case.

When the PAVC was created in August 1996, 190 rocks with rock art were identified. Currently, there are 1,511, of which 38 are painted, representing a total of 15,661 identified motifs, in more than a hundred different sites. The predominant ones are Paleolithic engravings, created approximately 30,000 years ago, in an artistic cycle that has never been interrupted.

The Côa Art was classified as a National Monument in 1997 and, in 1998, as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Like an immense open-air gallery, the PAVC occupies 20 thousand hectares of land spread across the municipalities of Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Mêda, Pinhel and Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, in the district of Guarda, along with the municipality of Torre de Moncorvo, in the district of Bragança, with its rock art displays.