Looking through past records: The use of historical documents in cave art spatial studies and its application to La Pasiega (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria, Spain).

In the course of the last decades, new cave art discoveries such as La Garma, Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, Le Reseau Clastres in the Niaux Cave, Cosquer and Cussac have allowed researchers to advance in context and spatial studies related to the art. This has been possible because the decorated chambers were intact at the moment of the discovery and, soon after, protocols were put in place to protect these invaluable records. These types of caves are a minority. In the Cantabrian region, most of the discoveries took place at the beginning of the 20th century and, in some cases, a few years after the first studies were published, the caves were greatly modified to prepare them for tourist visits in the 1950s. However, the study of historical documents can provide information regarding the context and the original spatial distribution of the caves. Using the available data from different historical sources such as pictures, descriptions, sketches, plans, etc. available in publications and unpublished materials, we can reconstruct, to a limited extent, the appearance of a cave in the moment of its discovery. The information gathered by the different researchers in the last hundred years to advance in the knowledge of La Pasiega cave in Puente Viesgo (Cantabria) is used to prove the validity of this approach. The results, combining information from the available sources and careful observation in the cave, are positive, allowing us to advance significantly in the understanding of the cave's spatial characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]