Mlong before cities, agriculture and roads, Europe was a patchwork of forests, caves and uncertain paths. In that remote world, exploration was not an exceptional activity but a daily necessity. Moving meant knowing the territory, finding shelter, sensing dangers. And it’s right inside one of these in-between spaces, a cave in Liguriawhich takes shape as a surprisingly familiar story: that of a human group advancing in the dark together with their dog.
A cave as an archive of time
There Bàsura Cavein the karst complex of Toirano, in the Savona area, is not just a natural cavity, but a place that has managed to retain the passage of time. For over 14,000 years it has kept footprints, hands and pawstraces left during the Upper Paleolithic, the last phase of the long history of hunter-gatherers, from a group of people who pushed inside it and, moving in the darkness, he marked the ground with his own gestures and his own paths. But, to make the cave truly special, it’s not just the quantity of human footprintsknown to scholars since the 1950s, but the way in which these intertwine with those of a domestic dog. Not bone remains or burials, but signs left as humans and animals acted together. A moment of everyday life left imprinted in the mud.
Humans and dogs: love comes from afar
Bàsura’s canine footprints are neither random nor isolated. They overlap with human ones and, in turn, are trampled. This entanglement, defined by scholars as “double interference”, indicates a simultaneous presence: men and dog moved together at the same time. Through the comparative study of the footprints, however, it was possible to establish that all the footprints belong to a single animal. A large dog, about seventy centimeters tall at the withers and with an estimated weight of around forty kilograms. Not an occasional wolf, but an animal already fully integrated into human life.
In the Bàsura Cave, footprints of humans and dogs tell a real-life episode from the Upper Paleolithic (Ansa)
The footprints that speak of a long coexistence
The arrangement of the footprints tells an immediate dynamic to imagine. Human steps follow fairly linear paths, while dog steps move back and forth. He advances, explores, returns to the group, then leaves again. A behavior that today we would define as curious, alert, participatory. This was not a utilitarian expedition. The cave is uncomfortable, narrow, poor in resources. It is likely that the entrance had an exploratory or symbolic purpose. Perhaps a test of courage, perhaps a shared experience to strengthen social bonds. In any case, the dog was there not as a tool, but as an active companion.
A family in the dark
Human footprints reveal the presence of multiple individuals: two adults, a teenager, a pre-teen and a very young childabout three years old. A heterogeneous group that suggests a family structure. Some traces, due to size and proportions, have been interpreted as feminine, furthermore questioning the stereotyped images of Prehistory. In this context, in fact, women and children do not appear as passive or marginal figuresbut they participate in a complex and potentially risky activity. The cave thus becomes a place that it also tells of a more inclusive and dynamic society than is often imagined.
The value of an ally
The presence of a large dog inside the cave was not at all obvious. In an economy based on hunting and gathering, every resource had a cost and, maintaining an animal of around forty kilograms meant having to feed it regularly, even in periods of scarcity. His presence, It therefore demonstrates that the dog was not a simple companion, but an element considered indispensable. Its value lay in the concrete benefits it offered to the group. It could aid in hunting, signal dangers, explore unknown environments, and provide a form of protection. Taking it with you to a difficult and not very useful place in terms of resources, such as a cave, indicates that it was a full part of daily life and shared activities.
A story still open
There scene preserved in the Bàsura Cave therefore shows an already stable relationship: the dog is not an animal tolerated on the margins, but an ally integrated into the human group, present even in complex and potentially risky contexts. The research in the cave is not concluded. In the innermost rooms, for example, traces of proto-art have just been identified on the walls, signs that could add a further level of meaning to the exploration. The Bàsura not only provides scientific data, it provides living scenes: a family moving forward in the darkness, a child following the adults, a dog exploring and returning. A very distant moment in time, yet surprisingly close in the way it talks about companionship, trust and the desire to go further.