From prehistoric times, symbols carved in stone convey to us traces of the thoughts and beliefs of our Western European ancestors. The ancient stones are carved with holes and rings, spirals and other patterns, as well as images of deer, hunters, warriors and weapons.
Paljaso houses in eastern Galicia, descendants of the round houses of the Iron Age.
The age of these stone carvings, called petroglyphs, is difficult to determine. However, in Galicia, in northwestern Spain, there are engraved images of objects whose age is approximately known, such as swords from the Bronze Age. Many of the artifacts are found in the vicinity of Bronze Age settlements, and radiocarbon analysis of foci carved into the stones also points to the Bronze Age. Thus, the images in Galicia are most likely made in the Bronze Age.
Petroglyph with circles and lines, Vigo, Spain. Prehistoric patterns
Petroglyphs have been found all over Europe and our team is planning to visit many of these places. We have already visited Liptsy, near Montenegro, where a steep cliff is decorated with scenes from the life of deer. On it you can see images of female deer and males with protruding antlers, scattered in a natural way, as if seen by a hunter, as well as symbols of the swastika and squares, divided into four parts by a cross. It is believed that the petroglyphs in Liptsy date back to 800 BC, but they have much in common with the Galician ones, which are convincingly dated to the Bronze Age.
Petroglyph in Campo Lameiro. Galicia, Spain
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Part of the cliff in Liptsy, Montenegro, where swastika symbols are visible
Deer and deer in Liptsy, Montenegro
Deer in Liptsy, Montenegro
Many, though not all, images have been found close enough to the sea. Geology is a factor in their distribution because stone art requires flat surfaces that are soft enough to be engraved. The technique used is similar to the one that was widely used on cave walls during the Ice Age. The outline is drawn with sharp quartz and then the lines are deepened into u-shaped grooves with stone hammers. The remains of such tools were found in caves next to the petroglyphs. Sometimes the edges of the carving are smoothed, although it is difficult to determine if this was done on purpose or due to the influence of time and weather.
Petroglyphs have been found throughout Galicia, but the highest density is found along the Atlantic coast. In Campo Lameiro you can visit the well-signposted open-air museum, a mountainous landscape dotted with flat stones. On these stones, our ancestors from the Bronze Age inscribed many different symbols.
Landscape in Campo Lameira - flat stones scattered by nature invite people to paint on them
Geometric patterns found in Galicia have much in common with stone art from other areas along the Atlantic coast - holes, spirals and concentric circles, in some from the center a line is drawn (they are called labyrinths). There are also rounded squares, trellises, zigzags, swastikas, and triskelions (similar to the three-legged symbol on the Isle of Man flag). However, some motifs are found only in Galicia - deer, animals and riders, snakes, boats and weapons.
A snake carved in stone at Castro de Trona: it is not known if it was created in the Iron Age or later
There are images of horses, sometimes with riders, as on "Laxe dos Cabalos", the most famous stone from Campo Lameiro, although the image here is very simple and indistinct. If these images are from the Bronze Age, then they fit well enough with the current theory that bronze processing and horse riding spread across Europe with immigrants whose original origins lie in the lands of the Yamnaya culture, north of the Black Sea.
One of the "labyrinths" in Campo Lameiro, Galicia. Unfortunately, we got there on a cloudy day, and the photo was not as sharp as if the sun was shining, but still not bad for a Bronze Age image!
laziness appears much more often. Sometimes they are drawn by a group, depicting a natural herd. Sometimes a male and a group of females are depicted - an autumn run through the eyes of our ancestor from the Bronze Age. Some images are interpreted as a meeting of a female and a male. The most impressive deer is also depicted in Laxe dos Carballos. He is next to two "labyrinths" and his back is pierced by six lines, clearly representing spears.
Some scenes depict people, such as a stone panel in Nabal de Martinho depicting a man holding a weapon.
There are also weapons, the most striking example is on a wide stone in Auga da Laz near Gondomar. Here, the upward swords and halberds of the Bronze Age are unmistakably determined, and next to them are shields.
Digitized photograph of the outlines of weapons on a stone with petroglyphs in Galicia, Spain
Such images could serve to glorify weapons and hunting, and were created in places where hunters and warriors gather, where they trained and told stories of true bravery, or maybe they retell legends about past battles. It is even possible that these were places for prayer for the success of the hunt and the welfare of the tribe.
In any case, the predominance of men and male activity is obvious here, and these stones tell us very eloquently about the transformation of a matriarchal society (which is characterized by the image of women) into a society of male dominance, which became widespread with the advent of metalworking. At about the same time in Galicia, the worship of goddesses was replaced by the worship of the gods.
Sometimes the images of deer are incomplete and these half-paintings are often associated with cracks in stones, and images of spirals and zigzags. In these cases, we can assume that hallucinogenic mushrooms or poppies were taken here. (The opium poppy heads were found during archaeological excavations near the Portuguese border, so this idea is not so unfounded.)
The geometric patterns on the stones are reminiscent of the internal patterns of our brains released during trance or drug use. Deer can be viewed as messengers between worlds, emerging from the spirit world and disappearing into it.
Circles and labyrinths carved in stone in Galicia, Spain
Some Galician archaeologists believe that these drawings represent the journey of the human spirit into the afterlife. The stone "Outeiro dos Cogoludos" in Campo Lameiro has an image that can be interpreted as animals emerging from a combination of circles, possibly leaving another world.
We cannot be sure of the purpose of the Galician petroglyphs, but there is no doubt about their importance to the Bronze Age society that once flourished here. And as our ancestors touched the world of spirits through the surface of the stone, so we for an elusive moment touched the past through the images they left.