How Maria de Sautuola discovered bulls?

One day in 1879 a five-year-old Spanish girl named Maria de Sautuola accompanied her father Marcelino de Sautuola, as he explored the cave of Altamira on his estate in northern Spain. Suddenly Don Marcelino heard her cry out, “Toros! Toros!” (Bulls! Bulls!) He found her staring at the ceiling of the cavern where huge bison, painted in red and black, were drawn so skilfully that they seemed almost alive.

Their eyes bulged in rage and terror; their flanks seemed to heave. Elsewhere in the cave Don Marcelino found pictures of horses, deer and wild boars. He was convinced that the pictures were made by primitive men. Little Maria’s discovery made the cave of Altamira famous, but scientists scoffed at Don Marcelino’s theory. They claimed that the pictures could not have been painted by primitive men, for they were as well done as paintings by modern artists. Furthermore, they maintained that an artist who had visited Don Marcelino probably painted the pictures and that the Spanish nobleman was attempting a deception. Don Marcelino published an account of the discovery at his own expense, but few would believe his story.

In 1895 a French scholar, Emile Riviere, reported the discovery of prehistoric paintings and engravings on the walls of a cave in France. During the next two years, other cave paintings were discovered, and by 1900, scientists generally accepted cave art as the genuine work of primitive men. Don Marcelino had been right all along. The incredibly lifelike and colourful cave paintings at Altamira were at least 20 thousand years old. Many of the discoveries relating to early men are the work of scientists called anthropologists, who study the origin, races, and customs of men, both ancient and modern. Archaeologists, the scientists who specialize in archaeology, a branch of anthropology, are concerned with excavating, classifying, and studying the remains of ancient cultures.