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in which prehistoric cave paintings were discovered.When the discovery was first made public in 1880, it led to a bitter public controversy between experts which continued into the early 20th century, since many did not believe prehistoric man had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression.Altamira was completely closed to the public in 1977, and reopened to limited access in 1982.Very few visitors were allowed in per day, resulting in a three-year waiting list.

Solutrean paintings include images of horses and goats, as well as handprints that were created when artists placed their hands on the cave wall and blew pigment over them to leave a negative image.In the millennia between these two occupations, the cave was evidently inhabited only by wild animals.Human occupants of the site were well-positioned to take advantage of the rich wildlife that grazed in the valleys of the surrounding mountains as well as the marine life available in nearby coastal areas.In 2008, researchers using uranium-thorium dating found that the paintings were completed over a period of up to 20,000 years rather than during a comparatively brief period.A later study published in 2012 based on data obtained from further uranium-thorium dating research, dated some paintings in several caves in North Spain, including some of the claviform signs in the "Gran sala" of Altamira, and concluded that the first works in Altamira belonged to the Aurignacian culture, 35,600 years old, right at the beginning of human occupation of North Spain by modern humans.