Las tres vidas de Altamira y el futuro

Abstract

Between 2012 and 2014 the Incipit (Institute of Heritage Sciences), part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), carried out a study entitled ‘The Social Value of Altamira’ as part of the Research Programme for the Preventive Conservation and Access Regime for the Cave of Altamira, promoted by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport and directed by Gaël de Guichen (ICCROM). This research provided us with a set of data which has made it possible for us to propose certain ideas for an alternative model of management for at-risk heritage sites. These ideas shall be presented in this text. Our main line of argument is that the heritagization of a site such as Altamira is accompanied by totally different conditions to those which existed beforehand, leading to new possibilities and risks. Our proposal is that only by accepting that the site will have a new type of existence (a “third life”), which has little to do with its previous stages can a suitable model of management and protection of the site be formulated. Furthermore, we aim to prove that this model must be based on prospective studies of the new risks and the management thereof. In other words, the assessments of the risks must be renewed in order to include not only the effects of the social use of the sites on their conservation but also the contrary: the social effects of the conservation itself.