It is a charming story: in 1968 a group of students out caving with local guides from Ribadesella find an intriguing chimney in the limestone uplift next to the river. Down below they find a sizable cavern, and they turn left because the footing is easier than turning right. One of the boys steps into a crevasse to relieve himself, and when he looks up, the light on his helmet illuminates markings in red paint on the wall. The group begins to explore, and they find marks and symbols in several chambers of the extensive space. It is getting late, so they leave the same way they came, and a smaller group of them returns a few weeks later to continue their exploration. This time they turn to the right, and find more chambers, one with an entire gallery of horses on the walls. They name the complex in honor of one of their original group, Celestino “Tito” Bustillo, who has recently died in a climbing accident. The site is quickly adopted by geologists from the University of Oviedo nearby, and the rest is history (excuse the pun).
The series of openings that constitute the cave follows a subterranean river, the San Miguel, that opens into the Sella. Narrow passages connect the larger rooms. Nearly every room has art in it, and the passages are marked with red spots on the walls to guide the Paleolithic visitor. The majority of the paintings are of animals -- horses, reindeer, bison -- some of which are huge (six feet from head to tail) and startling in their realism. There are other less readable symbols, as well as anthropomorphic figures. They are estimated to be around 22,000 years old, with some dating back 40,000 years, plus.
There is too much to tell about the significance of this “rock art” site -- it is on a par with Lascaux and Altamira -- for one message, and the information is available elsewhere, as are photos. (We were not allowed to take any, anyway.) I had expected a cave (ho, hum) and some paintings (yeah, yeah), and was not all that excited about the prospect of the tour. I’ve seen The Cave of Forgotten Dreams. But the experience of Tito Bustillo turned out to be fascinating, not because of the cave -- stalactites and stalagmites just don’t thrill me much -- nor the ancient marks on the walls (some may even be neanderthal, it is now thought), perhaps because of my familiarity with our southwest Anasazi offerings.
What made the experience captivating for me was the story woven by the guide of our small group (only 15 people are allowed in at once), who used her flashlight to good purpose, to recreate for us how it might have been for the original artists. To enter the dark, damp space, the only sound the murmur of the river underneath the floor, the only light the flicker of the tiny fire in the hollowed-out stone in your hand. To not be able to see a whole cavern, but only what your little circle of light illuminates. To take your piece of charcoal, or the red ochre powder from ground-up rock, and from your memory create the representation of a horse, or of a male and female deer facing each other. To follow your predecessors -- because the paintings predate and cover up each other -- and reinterpret their work, or perhaps just add to the decor of the space. To use the curve of a rock face to delineate a neckline, and fill out the rest of the animal form as the wall allows, but perfectly proportioned. The creative experience came alive in my imagination, and it was an experience I will never forget.
