We all rely on maps, be they the sat nav in your car or a traditional A-Z, and archaeologists have found our ancient ancestors were no different.

They have unearthed what they believe to be the oldest map in Western Europe, in a Spanish cave steeped in legend.

The complex etchings were engraved on a hand-sized rock 13,660 years ago, probably by Magdalenian hunter-gatherers.

The Journal of Human Evolution has released pictures of what Spanish scientists say is a map etched in stone dating back some 13,660 years

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A team led by Pilar Utrilla from the University of Zaragoza in Spain, discovered the rock in 1994 but it has taken them 15 years to disentangle the mess of etched lines.

They appear to show a prominent peak nearby as well as rivers, ponds and scrubland. There are also recognisable sketches of animals including reindeer, a stag and some ibex.

'All of these engravings could be a sketch or a simple map of the area around the cave. It could represent the plan for a coming hunt or perhaps a narrative story of one that had already happened,' they wrote in the Journal of Human Evolution.

They discovered the sandstone rock in the cave of Abauntz Lamizulo, which was traditionally thought to be the home of  the 'lamias' or mythological bird-footed nymphs.

It would have been a strategic position for ancient hunters, as it dominates the canyon beneath, where animals would have grazed in the valley.

'The engraving seems to reproduce the meandering course of a river crossing the upper part of side A of the block, joined by two tributaries near two mountains,' they wrote.

'One of these is identical to the mountain that can be seen from the cave (San Gregorio), with herds of ibex depicted on its hillsides, on both sides of the gorge in front of which the cave of Abauntz is strategically located.'

The complex carvings were found on a small rock just a few inches across, and it took scientists 15 years to unravel the complex lines (see below)

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The team speculated that circles represented flat zones which flooded with water.

The study has excited prehistoric archaeologists such as Lawrence Straus from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

'This is a pretty spectacular find,' he told the New Scientist.

'It may give us a glimpse into the ways in which people navigated and explained their territories.'

The slab was etched at a time of great activity in the Navarre region of Spain. Humans were pushing northwards and having to co-operate and perhaps divide up land, following the ice age just 3,000 years before. This would give maps great importance.

'They had to live by their wits and what the landscape provided,' Strauss said.

However, other experts disagree with the map interpretation. Jill Cook, head of the prehistory division at the British Museum said it was a 'brave' theory but it was unlikely hunters would need maps during this period.

'Multiple lines positioned over animal figures is not unusual in slabs of this period,' she told the New Scientist.

'We haven't traditionally considered them to be maps. Their intimacy and knowledge of the landscape, including the location of individual trees and plants, would be such that maps would be less vital to them.'

Only one older map has been found in Europe in Pavlov in the Czech Republic. This 25,000-year-old rock depicts a mountain, river and valleys from the region.

It was not until 600BC that the first known city map was drawn of Babylon on clay. It was found in Sippar, southern Iraq.