Tito Bustillo Cave is situated in the town of Ribadesella. Open in the Ardines Massif, it forms part of a karst complex situated at the mouth of the River Sella, which boasts other caverns such as La Lloseta and Biesca Cave.
Discovered in 1968, it comprises a single gallery of 700 metres in length, which opens onto adjoining chambers. The collection of cave art is organized into 11 sets (some making up a number of panels), bringing together more than one hundred engravings and painted representations corresponding to two phases, one Pre-Magdalenian (signs in red and scant animal figuration) and the other Magdalenian, boasting several animal figures and different techniques.
The cave paintings in Tito Bustillo Cave vary according to their time frame and overlap each other, depending on the preferences of those who inhabited the cave between 22,000 and 10,000 BC.
The examples of horses and reindeer stand out, achieving an extraordinarily strong sensation of polychromy thanks to the use of different pigments and scratched outlines. Mention should also be made of the Gallery of Horses, the Chamber of Vulvas and the recently discovered Gallery of Anthropomorphs.
A complementary visit can also be made to the adjoining Ardines Cave (which was inhabited after Tito Bustillo Cave). It has an extensive central chamber and can be visited throughout the year. Also nearby is the Tito Bustillo Centre of Rock and Cave Art, an avant-garde building which offers an overall view of Asturian prehistory, providing information and items of archaeological interest, particularly from the cave itself, with unique mock-ups.
