Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The caves of Isturits, Oxocelhaya and Erberua, located on the hill of Gaztelu in the valley of the Arberua (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), constitute an exceptional natural complex frequented for about 80,000 years. These cavities, dug by the Arberue River, housed successive human occupations, first by the Neandertalians (Moustarian, around -80 000 years), then by Homo sapiens from the Protoaurignacian (about -45 000 years). The site is particularly famous for its remains of the Upper Paleolithic, including tools, furniture works of art (flutes, harpoons, figurines) and parietal representations such as the engraved pillar of Isturitz, dated from the Middle Magdalenian (about -17,000 years).

The Isturit Cave, the highest of the three, is distinguished by its vast gallery of 120 × 50 m, divided into spaces such as the Saint Martin Hall and the Grande Salle. She delivered a complete stratigraphy covering 70,000 years of history, with traces of continuous occupation up to Neolithic. The excavations, carried out by figures like Édouard Piette or René de Saint-Périer in the late 19th century, revealed more than 33,000 lithic objects, 7,800 bone tools, and hundreds of works of art. The cave of Oxocelhaya, discovered in 1929, and that of Erberua, explored in 1973, complete this whole with their concretions, parietal paintings and intact archaeological soils.

The site played a key role in cultural and biological exchanges during the Upper Paleolithic period, as evidenced by the discovery in 2020 of a 30,000-year-old female genome linked to the Russian Sungir site. This unprecedented descent in Western Europe reinforces the hypothesis of a crossroads between continental Europe and the Iberian peninsula. The caves, classified as historical monuments in 1953 (extended in 1996 to the entire hill of Gaztelu), also house medieval and Gallo-Roman remains, highlighting their continued use throughout the millennia.

The parietal art, although partially accessible (such as the engraved pillar of Isturits representing animals in bas-relief), and the furniture art (bone arrows among the oldest in Europe) illustrate the cultural richness of the site. The collections from the excavations, distributed between the Musée d'archéologie nationale de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the archaeological centre of Hasparren, document various occupations, from the Moustarian to the Middle Ages. The site, a member of ANECAT and ISCA, remains a major testimony of Pyrenean prehistory.

Archaeological discoveries were marked by figures such as José Miguel de Barandiarán, who identified parietal works in the 1950s, or Christian Normand, whose excavations (2000-2010) in the Saint-Martin Hall refined the chronology of occupations. The Erberua Cave, protected by natural siphons, revealed in 1975 Magdalenian paintings and engravings, as well as intact remains of artistic activities. The site, which has been open to tourism since 1912, combines scientific preservation and heritage valuation, while remaining an active place for research on prehistoric migrations and symbolic practices.

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