Rock art may Memorialize Ancient Contact between Atlantic and Mediterranean

A meeting of the peoples of the European Atlantic coast and the Mediterranean coast may be memorialized in an ancient rock carving of a sailing vessel in the north of Spain. Sailing vessels were native to the Mediterranean, while rowing vessels were used on the Atlantic coast, where the petroglyph is located.

Along the Atlantic coast of northwestern Spain in Galicia, is an unusually high concentration of rock art, according to Dig Ventures. This sailing vessel scratched into a rock surface in the Costa de Castros region is unique in the known Bronze Age rock art of the Atlantic coast, though many boats are depicted in rock art along that coast.

Evidence has been surfacing that contacts between the Mediterranean and Atlantic areas before the Roman era were more intense and occurred earlier than researchers used to think, Dig Ventures says.