Aitzbitarte (Errenteria, Gipuzkoa)

The Aitzbitarte hill is formed in the bioclastic limestones of the upper Albien of the province of Gipuzkoa, occupying a strategic position over the passage that connects the European Continent with the Iberian Peninsula, in the NW of the Pyrenees. The lower part of the hill is traversed by a tributary stream of the Urumea River, which flows into sea near the city of San Sebastián. The fall in its phreatic level and variation of sedimentation in the caves have allowed the formation of horizontal passages and cave systems on different levels.

Archaeological excavations in Aitzbitarte Hill were first started in 1892 by the local erudite Conde de Lerchundi, in Cave IV which was later visited by important prehistorians at that time, such as H. Breuil, É. Harlé, H. Obermaier and J. Bouyssonie. The first scientific excavations took place from 1960 to 1964 (Barandiarán et al., 1965) and at the same time, further archaeological remains were found in Cave V. Some time later, between 1985 and 2002, J. Altuna excavated the deposit in Cave III (Altuna et al., 2011, 2017). Between 2012 and 2017, D. Garate (project director), J. Ríos-Garaizar and the speleologists of the Felix Ugarte Elkartea and Aizpitarte elkartea groups (the speleologists working in the massif) have located rock art sets in four of the caves of Aitzbitarte (III, IV, V and IX). These include Caves III, V and IX, for containing sets of engravings of Gravettian tradition hitherto unknown in the Cantabrian Cornice, as well as Cave IV, for containing a set of animals engraved and partially modeled in clay, attributable to the Middle Magdalenian.