Coming back to Ekain (Deba, Gipuzkoa): a new Upper Palaeolithic graphic ensemble in the Erdibide Passage

Ekain cave (Deba, Gipuzkoa) has been researched for the last five decades and has been kept closed to the general public. This fact has allowed an exceptional preservation of the depictions. The re-study of rock art sites discovered during the 20th century and the improvement of the survey and recording methodologies are allowing significant advances in the Upper Palaeolithic research. In this paper we present a new graphic ensemble in the entrance gallery to Ekain cave, also known as Erdibide. We located several pigment stains, a triangular sign and an incomplete depiction of a bison, all drawn in red. This taxon is not new in the cave: other bison have previously been registered in black, red or even engraved; they are incomplete and, in general, lack internal details. Because of this there is a contrast with the horses, technically and stylistically more elaborated. The style of these bison, ascribed mostly to the Niaux morphotype, allows to associate them to the middle-to-late Magdalenian and would, probably, be culturally synchronic to the horses that characterise the cave.