Ancient Carvings
© Marbella City Council
The Department of Culture, Education, and Historical Heritage reports the discovery of graphic designs on a stone block that could be more than 200,000 years old, as part of an archaeological excavation at the Coto Correa site in Las Chapas. This area, known in specialized studies for housing the oldest remains in the city, is protected archaeologically, as some stone tools were accidentally discovered in the 1950s, dating back to the early Paleolithic.

The work and its subsequent analysis have provided insight into the geological evolution of the site, as well as the archaeological discovery of a set of stone tools carved into one of its strata. Of this set, discovered in 2022, a block of gabbro stands out, marked with lines, giving it an exceptional character. The significance of this discovery is twofold: on the one hand, it confirms the presence of settlers in Marbella during the Early Middle Paleolithic, a period little known in Spain and unprecedented in the province of Malaga. Furthermore, it provides this unique stone, which contains a set of graphic representations of human origin that could be 100,000 years older than the oldest cave art depictions.

The Department of Culture is currently promoting a study of this unique artistic document, aimed at confirming the relative dating proposed in the geoarchaeological study. The techniques applied for absolute dating consist of quartz analysis of different sediment samples, which will allow for a precise chronology of the samples. In addition, documentation work will be carried out using 3D scanning, which will allow for a high-resolution virtual composite of the set of marks. This will allow the entire surface to be studied in maximum detail, allowing for the identification of working marks and graphic elements. This will provide an indispensable tool for disseminating the results and publishing them in scientific publications.

Funding for this phase of research amounts to 8,000 euros, and beyond the municipal commitment to promoting archaeological research, if the proposed dating is confirmed, Marbella will become a benchmark in Paleolithic studies. Once the commissioned studies are completed, the Department of Culture will announce various activities to present the discovery and its scientific implications in detail.