Una nueva zona de arte rupestre al aire libre en el NW : la península de Barbanza

Abstract

A new área with open air rock carvings in the Iberian NW; the península of Barbanza. Traditionally the research on Galician rock art had focused in the área around Campolameiro (Pontevedra) where the biggest number of sites was reported, whereas other zones to the North were almost unknown in that respect. In this paper we deal with the new finds of petroglyphs in the Barbanza, where intensive survey has multiplied the number of this tipe of sites. The usual motifs are abstract (mainly concentric circles and cupmarks) but also semischematic with representations of deer. The distribution of the art is more dense in the coastal lowlands, though a number of sites is reported in the passes leading into the high sierra and in this área itself. As to the relationship with the roughiy contemporary settiements (lllrd millenium BC), we have observed a definite pattern: cupmarks are sharing the same space with the more densely Inhabited áreas down to the coast and also they are found near to the mounds in the high plateau; animal representations and more complex abstract motifs (concentric circles with or without radius) are sited along small valleys or ridges that link the lowlands and the upper reaches of the Sierra. All this patterning would point out to the role of petrogliphs as a mechanism for defining the most resourceful or symbolic places and the paths leading into them.