Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley
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How it came to be
In the Côa valley of north-eastern Portugal, horses, cattle, deer and other animals are engraved on the rocks. The oldest date from about 22,000 to 20,000 BC, and in the Magdalenian period carvers picked out horses' manes and the mouths and nostrils of aurochs. Engraving went on through the Iron Age and into the 20th century.
In the early 1990s, while surveying for a dam on the Côa, archaeologist Nelson Rabanda found the engravings. The power company tried to cast doubt on their age so that work could continue, but support for preservation grew in Portugal and abroad. Elections in 1995 brought a new government, and the dam was cancelled.
The Côa Valley Archaeological Park was then created for research and visitors. The site was inscribed in 1998, and in 2010 Siega Verde across the border in Spain was added.
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