Science: Prehistoric City

Where did human society begin? Father Jesus Carballo, 76-year-old priest-archaeologist, believes that it might have had its start near his own parish in Santander, on the north coast of Spain. Father Carballo is chief explorer of Mt. Castillo, a prehistoric cave city where ancient man lived some 12,000 years ago while the glaciers crawled over Europe. After nearly 50 years of work, he has found the heart of the city, deep inside the mountain.

Crowned by a ruined fortress from which it gets its name, Mt. Castillo is 20 miles southwest of Santander in the heart of the Basque country. The rock below the fortress is honeycombed with caves which cross and intertwine. When Father Jesus first came to Santander 48 years ago, none of the caves had been well explored. The young priest, pushing through the dark galleries, found their walls covered with drawings, their floors littered with weapons and tools of paleolithic men. Fired with enthusiasm, he dedicated himself to the task of making those faraway people live again for modern man.

Great Day. For a while Father Jesus got help from foreign archaeologists. But the local government was not interested, and neither was the church. One of his superiors warned him “to devote more time to religion and less to dreams.”

Then one day King Alfonso XIII visited a beach resort near Santander, and Father Jesus appealed to him. The King visited the caves, admired the drawings and heard Father Carballo discourse on their antiquity. In 1924 the King financed a board of archaeological research, with Father Jesus as technical adviser.

“That was the greatest day of my life,” the old priest recalls. Now he had more time for his beloved cave dwellers. Nearly every day, after saying early Mass, he changed into workman’s clothes and took off on his motorcycle for Mt. Castillo. Out of the dirt floors came all the apparatus of the cavemen’s lives: carved scepters, bone pins and needles, harpoons, stone lamps. Father Jesus’ two-room apartment was soon full to overflowing. He appealed to the city for a place to house his collection, and was turned down. Churchmen told him that his motorcycling in layman’s clothes was a scandal. So he went again to the King and hit another royal jackpot: an order creating Santander’s Regional Prehistoric Museum, with himself as curator.

Stick to the Job. By this time Father Jesus was convinced that the, twisting, crossing passages formed a sort of city, perhaps the first in prehistory. He longed to penetrate all its mysteries. Perhaps he would find some central place where the cavemen held the first meetings or ceremonies of human society.

The Spanish Civil War did not bother him. Father Jesus stayed behind when all the other priests fled, and the Loyalists did not molest him. After the war, when a returning priest accused him of fraternizing, Father Jesus retorted: “I merely stuck to my job as priest and scientist. You who flew away were yellow.”

Slowly the collection at the museum grew, and with it grew Father Jesus’ knowledge of the cavemen’s customs. One thing was still lacking: the central meeting place of their social life. This year an assistant who was climbing a face of the mountain found a narrow opening and threw a lighted newspaper into it. Inside was a great cavern.

Birth of Society. Old Father Jesus was lowered into the cave. The nearest chamber was 300 feet wide, with drawings of bison decorating the walls. Behind it was a maze of passages. He pushed into their darkness. About 1,000 feet inside the mountain he found what he had hoped for: in the middle of a chamber stood a polished stone, carved to resemble a bison. At one side was a thronelike seat for a priest or chief. “This was their main sanctuary,” said Father Jesus. “It was their cathedral, the heart of the prehistoric city of Mt. Castillo.”

The exploring priest is sure now that Mt. Castillo is one of the places where human society was born. While the glaciers crunched over northern Europe, men sought shelter in caves, and the connected caves of Mt. Castillo offered room for many of them. Somehow they learned to behave less like animals, more like humans.

Once a community was formed, the city grew rapidly. Tools and weapons were made in quantity—and commerce began. The decisions of the chieftains grew into law. Old men told tales to the younger generation—and history was born. Art began with the drawings of animals sketched on the walls. In this way, says Father Jesus, the cold breath of the glaciers forced men to learn to live together.