The Basses del Racó ravine rock art, discovered in 1981 by the Centre d’Estudis Contestans, is the most important ravine in terms of shelters with rock art in La Vall de Gallinera, due to the fact that there are five cave shelters with representations of macro-schematic, schematic and Levantine art and engravings, located on both sides of the ravine.
At the height of the irrigation ditch cut into the stone, on the left is shelter I. Although it is not possible to climb up to it due to the risk involved, it is nevertheless possible to see within this shelter, from the path, a prehistoric engraving made up of “vertical snake-shaped figures and closed geometric shapes executed using the chopping technique” (Hernández; Ferrer; Català, 1988). In the absence of more in-depth studies, we can think of a Neolithic or Bronze Age chronology for the engraving.
The shelter that it is possible to visit is shelter IV, where some excellent and enormous figures belonging to the macro-schematic art, the snake-shaped figures, stand out. In addition to macro-schematic art, there are also samples of schematic art and Levantine art within the shelter. On the eastern side appear some fine lines which, although difficult to see, show the head of a goat and two human figures with pyriform heads in a breastfeeding scene. And the schematic figure that stands out is that of a goat, with incomplete hind legs, two front legs, trunk, a triangular head the two parallel horns curved backwards. The most interesting thing about this shelter and what makes it very important is the fact that in one of the serpentine motifs corresponding to the macro-schematic art there is a gap where fine lines belonging to the Levantine art were then made. This shows, according to scholars, that macro-schematic art is older than Levantine art.
Macro-schematic art is a style of rock art exclusive to the area of the mountains of the Marina Alta, Comtat and Alcoy regions, and only nineteen shelters with macro-schematic art are known to exist. The paint is dark red, dense and pasty in appearance, and the motifs are large and are painted with thick strokes. Human figures and geometric motifs are the main themes represented. Macro-schematic art is characterised by its parallels with the portable art of the ancient Neolithic, and especially with the cardium pottery decorations.
The figures observed in La Vall de Gallinera have been related by some authors to the ears of wheat brought by the first Neolithic settlers to these lands, who were already farmers and had cattle back in the 5th millennium BC, and who probably began right here in this area the colonisation of the Iberian Peninsula.
The technical description of the cave shelter can be read in the books published by the Centre d’Estudis Contestans:
A set of vertical snake-shaped figures and various X-shaped motifs or human figures, some with one or two perpendicular bars in the upper angle. All the snake forms, of different sizes and thicknesses, display extended superior ends with small lines like four or five fingers. It is not possible to determine whether the snake-shaped figures join together at the lower ends.
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