Navarro IV cave (Málaga, Málaga)

The Pleistocene figurative manifestations preserved in Cueva Navarro IV were discovered within the frame of a speleological explorations program, carried out by the Excursionist Society of Malaga in the estern coast karstic area of the capital during the final part of the 70s of the last century.

Within the Navarro Quarry, which supplied raw material to the La Araña Cement Factory, a total of seven entrances to the underground complex were detected. In the fourth cave, the cavers J. M. Gutiérrez and E. López first noticed the presence of cave paintings in 1980. After communicating the finding to their teammates, they plan an exploration where they make a photographic report and even some direct tracings of the parietal motifs, eliminating several sets of eccentric concretions. Subsequently, the cavers come into contact with J.L. Sanchidrián who, after several field campaigns, obtained enough documentation to firstly publish the cave graphic ensemble of the cave.

The current entrance to the cave is an artificial mouth with a wide section and a low vault. After 70 m of labyrinthine and narrow conduits we can reach the rooms decorated and frequented during the Upper Paleolithic, whose Pleistocene access is today clogged and impractical. As soon as we leave the last crawlway, the right wall contains the first rock art samples. Next, we will continue for about 15 m through a gallery that is 2 m wide and as many high.

We thus pass to the most spacious area of ​​Cueva Navarro, which is called the Sala de las Pinturas or de las Fistulosas, because of the magnificent specimens of this type of concretion that grew there. Its approximate dimensions are 23 m by 16 m and the average height of the vault is 3 m. In some areas the soil is horizontal due to alluvial deposits and stalagmitic mantles. It is one of the areas that offers the greatest activity in lithochemical reconstruction processes, with a great diversity of speleothems, of which the aforementioned fistulae and numerous colonies of eccentrics stand out, which sometimes completely cover prehistoric paintings.
Several galleries depart from the previous room, one of them ascends about 25 m in a southwesterly direction creating what the first visitors called the Anthropomorphic Room. From the east of the Hall of Paintings we can find the Hall of the Broken Stalagmite, which is around ten meters in diameter. The pavement has a sub-horizontal clay filling on which they deposited a slender stalagmite from an adjoining room.

Further to the east there is a room with low ceilings that develops in a southern direction. This place could correspond to the original access to the cavern, currently filled by a cone of debris made up of loose earth and ridges. This mouth would come out a short distance from another cavity (Cueva del Humo) and a few meters from the current coastline. The cave is complemented by countless narrow ducts that do not contain artistic clues but which, apparently, were explored by Paleolithic painters.

With the purpose of preserving the pictorial complex, as well as trying to maintain its original environmental conditions, the artificial entrances to the cavity were hermetically closed by means of several masonry walls using native blocks and without leaving any access; unfortunately, the closure was violated shortly after. However, sponsored by the ownership of the land, the current La Araña Cement Factory FYM Heidelberg Cement Group, and under the technical direction of the archaeologist Ana Mª Márquez-Alcántara, during 2008 the artificial mouths were closed through a system of locks that allow the conservation and environmental stability of the cavity.

Regarding the archaeological context, we can say that, to date, the sedimentary deposits located in the internal rooms of Cueva Navarro remain almost intact, although in the documentation works some lithic pieces (plates and scrapers) and a remainder of malacofauna (shell of Pecten maximus) were found and deposited in the Excursionist Society of Malaga. However, we must point out that the cave in question is inserted in a large karst complex (Smoke Complex), whose cavities preserve important prehistoric sites with powerful Paleolithic sections, in which Mousterian industries have been detected, levels ascribed to the initial Upper Paleolithic, lithic assemblages of the Full and Evolved Solutrean, and layers with tardiglacial technocomplexes.

The graphic record of Cueva Navarro contains 149 differentiated elements, of which 99.3% of the total correspond to different categories of signs (simple, complex / compound / integrated and evidence according to the typologies in use), since in the whole set only identifies a single animal figure (aurochs). Ideomorphs are grouped into different scoring modalities (isolated, double points, vertical and horizontal lines, parallel bands of several lines), straight lines (single lines, paired lines, triple beams, vertical and horizontal parallel rectilinear beams), cruciform or cross , circular or semi-circular motifs, shapeless spots of color and stained natural reliefs (speleothems and rocky edges). The graphic repertoire, which can be framed without greater precision between the final Gravettian and the beginning of the Solutrean, can be monotonous due to its thematic repetition but significant and spectacular in its arrangement, as well as due to the interpretative inferences that may emanate from it.

This cave is included in the new research project “PGI” led by Mª Ángeles Medina-Alcaide.