ABOVE A view of the Tagus River Basin landscape at São Simão site. In the foreground, a prehistoric geometric motif can be seen. This, like most of the visible examples, was carved into the smooth schist on the bank edge.

From landscape to latex: recording rock art in the Tagus River Basin

In the 1970s, prehistoric rock art was found in the Tagus River Basin, just as a dam project was set to raise water levels. In a race against time, archaeologists sought to find a way to record thousands of images before they were submerged. Now the results have been carefully studied using a variety of new technological approaches. Sara Garcês and George Nash tell the remarkable story of one of Europe’s principal rock-art areas.

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World Archaeology

March 21, 2022

The prehistoric rock art of the western Iberian Peninsula has steadily grown in prominence over the past 40 years. Initially, this interest centred on images found in Neolithic dolmens and passage graves, but a new focus appeared during the early 1990s, with the scientific discovery and study of remarkable open-air Upper Palaeolithic rock art in the Côa Valley and its tributaries in north-east Portugal (see CWA 67). But what about rock art elsewhere in this part of the Iberian Peninsula? Over the recent past, successive Portuguese governments have successfully promoted hydroelectric power and, as a result, many of the major river systems in central and northern Portugal

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