At the crossroad: A new approach to the Upper Paleolithic art in the Western Pyrenees

The main corridor that has acted as an entrance to the Iberian Peninsula through the Western Pyrenees was as an important communication route in Western Europe during the Paleolithic. This is an area where, despite having documented intense human occupation during different periods of the Upper Paleolithic, the symbolic activity seems incomprehensibly limited compared to other regions, such as the Cantabrian, the Northern Pyrenees, or Dordogne.The reactivation of research during this last decade, when referring to cave art, leads to a very different model than the one that had been previously posed for this region, mainly due to a series of new discoveries, some of which are worth mentioning, such as Askondo and Lumentxa, or others of lower interest such as Astigarraga, Praile Aitz, and Aitzbitarte IV. The re-examination and revision of previously known representations has also contributed to the development of this new model, especially thanks to the research carried out in sites such as Santimamiñe, Altxerri, Isturitz, Oxocelhaya, Sasiziloaga, Sinhikole, or Sainte Colome, as has the revision of the great amount of portable art, mainly from Isturitz, as well as the discovery of new objects from Antoliña, Ekain, Praile Aitz, Aitzbitarte III, Santa Catalina, Arlanpe, and Bourrouilla. Due to these advances, the image that we have of the artistic activity around the epicentre that was the Gulf of Biscay has substantially varied in a way that allows us to carry out a more detailed approximation to a series of relevant questions such as the chronology of the artistic representations, the variability of their contexts, the technical and formal relations among different neighbouring regions, and their relation to the non-symbolic archaeological record.