The Paleolithic in Portugal

The Paleolithic encompasses the longest and oldest chapter of prehistory, defined by the crafting of flaked stone tools by nomadic hunter-gatherer communities. In what is now Portugal, this period spans several hundred thousand years, from the appearance of the first human groups until the end of the last glaciation, around twelve thousand years ago. It is a time without writing, known mainly through flaked stones, faunal remains, and rare occurrences of human bones and art.

The First Inhabitants

The oldest evidence of human presence comes from lithic industries associated with the Lower Tagus river terraces, where successive phases of an evolved Acheulean culture have been documented and dated to several hundred thousand years ago. The karst region of the Almonda river springs, in the municipality of Torres Novas, has proven to be one of the richest in Europe: in the Aroeira Cave, a human skull around 400,000 years old was recovered, one of the oldest fossils in the Iberian Peninsula and a key piece for understanding the early occupation of the western peninsula.

These Lower Paleolithic groups produced bifaces and other robust tools, using local raw materials like quartzite and flint. Their mobility followed seasonal resources, along valleys and the coastal strip, which was then farther inland due to fluctuations in sea levels.

Neanderthals and Modern Humans

During the Middle Paleolithic, around 300 to 30 thousand years ago, the territory was inhabited by Neanderthals, creators of Mousterian industries characterized by the Levallois technique. The Furninha Cave, on the Peniche peninsula, is among the westernmost known Neanderthal sites, and numerous caves in Estremadura preserve traces of this long occupation.

The transition to the Upper Paleolithic brought the arrival of anatomically modern humans and the disappearance of Neanderthals. The most famous find from this period is the Lagar Velho shelter in the Lapedo Valley, near Leiria, excavated in 1998 by João Zilhão, Cidália Duarte, and Erik Trinkaus. There, the so-called Lapedo Child was unearthed—a child’s burial with red ochre, dated to around 28,000 years ago.

The Lapedo Child, with its mix of Neanderthal and modern human traits, fueled a decisive debate about hybridization between the two populations—now confirmed by genetics.

Art, Technique, and Legacy

The Upper Paleolithic was also the time of the first artistic expressions in Portuguese territory. The 1994 discovery of the open-air engravings in the Côa Valley revealed the largest known open-air sanctuary of Paleolithic rock art, with thousands of figures of horses, aurochs, and other animals incised into schist. Parietal art is represented in the Escoural Cave in Alentejo, while new clusters of engravings have been identified in the Tagus Valley.

Lithic industries became more specialized—blades, burins, and points crafted with extraordinary finesse—accompanying an increasingly diverse hunting and gathering economy. This long journey is framed within Portuguese archaeology as its deepest foundation and prepares the transition to the Neolithic, when agriculture and sedentism would radically transform the way of life of communities. For a broader view of the figurative expressions of this time, see also prehistoric art in Portugal.