They started to look for caves in the area, and it was the housewife at the Sastarrain farmhouse that led them to a shelter measuring just 13 metres. On 8 June, they began looking for evidence of human occupation in the space. Rafael felt a gust of cool air coming from a hole. They removed a few blocks of stone that were in the way and they were able to crawl through a narrow tunnel. When they stood up, the crunching sound under their feet told them they were stepping on untouched ground. Around 60 metres from the entrance, they found themselves facing the Great Panel of Horses, a pictorial group described by French ethnologist, archaeologist and historian André Leroi-Gourhan as “the most perfect group of horses in Quaternary art”.

That very day, they reported their finding to the members of the Prehistory section of the Aranzadi Science Society. José Miguel Barandiaran and Jesús Altuna went to what is now called Ekain 1 cave the very next day. On studying the works of cave art on the walls, they established that they were painted 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic – specifically, in the cultural period known as the Upper Magdalenian.
That was the moment when the initiative to protect the Ekain cave and its paintings began. After many complex discussions with different authorities and institutions, Ekain closed in June 1969. This allowed the researchers time to investigate the images and the archaeological findings.

Since the cave’s discovery, numerous documentary records have been written. Visit the Ekain bibliography.