Of objects and science: Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and the archaeological collections of the Altamira Cave

Abstract

In this article we present the history of the archaeological collections of the cave of Altamira that belonged to Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, its first excavator and the discoverer of its cave art. Sanz de Sautuola collected the first archaeological objects around 1875, but the bulk of his collection was formed between the autumn of 1878 and 1880. At that time, the Palaeolithic was a little-known period in Spain. Assuming the existence of a remote past for mankind was not easy, especially when cave art had just been discovered, also in Altamira. He saw in his archaeological findings proof of the antiquity of the paintings, which he considered to be contemporaneous with the deposit and therefore also belonging to the Palaeolithic period. He therefore decided to send some of the objects found inside the cave to the only institutions and people who could support this attribution at the time, such as the National Archaeological Museum, the prestigious palaeontologist and geologist Juan de Vilanova i Piera and Emile de Cartailhac, one of the leading French archaeologists of the time. Sanz de Sautuola's personal collection was passed on to new generations of his family until it became part of the permanent collections in various museum institutions in Cantabria, as described below.