Conservation Of The Côa Valley Rock Art Outcrops: A Question Of Urgency And Priorities - Antiquity Journal

Antiquity Journal

This is a brief article by António Pedro Batarda Fernandes, at the School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth University, and relates to his PhD dissertation, supervised by Professor Timothy Darvill, who in April 2008, was instrumental in the excavations at Stonehenge.

This linked article points out that ways and means of preserving rock art at exposed locations are as yet under-researched and by default, not fully understood, with particular reference to the Côa Valley in north-eastern Portugal; as we see...

The Côa Valley in north-eastern Portugal is one of the most significant prehistoric open-air rock art sites in the world, as its inscription in the World Heritage List demonstrates. The majority of engraved motifs (see Figures 1, 4, 5 & 6) has reliably been dated to the Upper Palaeolithic (Aubry & Sampaio 2008), although imagery from the Neolithic, Iron Age, historical and contemporary periods have also been identified (for an introduction to the Côa rock art see Baptista 1999 or Baptista & Fernandes 2007). Most of the outcrops which contain rock art motifs are located in an area of schist bedrock, scattered along both banks of the final 17km of the river Côa and positioned at the foot of sharply inclined hills (Figures 2, 3 & 4).

The conservation of rock art in caves is a field of expertise that has benefited from extensive research. Similarly, methods to monitor the evolution of weathering patterns in caves with rock art are also well developed. Unfortunately, the same does not apply to monitoring decay on outcrops with open-air rock art; nor is their conservation, especially when located in schist bedrock, well developed.

Therefore, references pertaining to this situation do not abound within rock art studies. The Côa Valley will thus become a 'live' laboratory where pioneering but reliable direct conservation interventions on vertical schist outcrops can be developed and tested together with methods to monitor systematically the evolution of weathering processes. So far we have been developing a conservation programme for the Côa Valley rock art that set the bases for such monitoring and conservation work.

Among the actions already implemented, we should highlight pilot conservation interventions in un-engraved outcrops with weathering and erosion dynamics at work similar to those affecting the engraved ones. These experiments were designed to test the applicability and aging of conservation materials and techniques that might be used in the future to confer stability to fragile rock art outcrops and panels, such as the ones depicted in Figures 4, 5 & 6 (for more detailed information see Fernandes 2007 & 2008).

I imagine this research will be made additionally difficult by the nature of our increasingly unpredictable climate, not to mention difficulties in persuading governments and agencies to fund ongoing research and conservation, especially as there is little that can be done to make such projects financially profitable. However, as the author points out, the cultural value of this irreplaceable gift we have inherited from the depths of the Stone Age cannot be over-estimated...

If this invaluable heritage is to be entrusted in the best possible condition to future generations (Figure 6), it is essential to implement well-planned conservation work that makes the most of the limited available resources. Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect that the outcome of this project may also be of use to conservators and managers elsewhere, thus broadening existing knowledge of open-air rock art conservation.

This area of Portugal is indeed unique, some of whose apsects were touched upon in the excellent BBC Radio series last year, called 'The Drawings On The Wall', with the rest of the series covered in these pages.

N. B. I'm trying to get hold of a paper called 'No Sex Please, We're Auriganicans', by Paul Bahn, and if anyone out there has a copy they'd kindly forward to me via my email link on the profile page, I'd be most grateful.

image :: Canada do Inferno rock 1. The engraved motifs (all from the Upper Palaeolithic) are located on the higher part of the panel, from Antiquity Vol 83 Issue 319 March 2009.