09/08/2024
I love prehistoric cave art.
WHAT WE'VE LEARNED ABOUT CAVE ART - Part Two: Evidence suggests that some, maybe most, cave art was made by women. The ever-present handprints near many of the paintings turn out to be mostly those of women (generally, on women the ring and index fingers are similar lengths, whereas for men, the ring finger is longer - works about 70% of the time). So, that increases the odds that the nearby paintings of horses and bison were made by women as well.
In her fascinating book, The First Signs, Von Petzinger demonstrates that there are 32 symbols that are used repeatedly in caves all over the world. The similarities of the symbols, from Europe to Australia to the Americas, are striking. But what was the use? Bacon et al, (2023) made a good case that groups of lines or dots on many of the animal paintings (pictured) indicate the number of lunar months from the start of spring until they give birth or pass through the area. Inasmuch as this is valuable hunting info, the symbols are considered the first ever proto writing.
What's NOT in cave art is also instructive. Curtis's The Cave Painters mentions fish, insects, rodents, reptiles, birds, bats and hyenas as being rare or absent in the paintings, although all were common, close associates of the humans. It's clear the prehistoric artists portrayed animals that their people highly valued or which had a special place in their culture. Also not shown are landscape elements: trees, flowers, rivers, lakes or caves. There are few images, if any, of stars, the moon, or sun, which I find very puzzling. Human figures are rare in European paleo art, but they comprise most of the figures in ancient Australian art (BTW, more than 100,000 significant rock art sites have been identified in Australia)!
This paleo art can be immensely moving, even to people of our age jaded by constant visual bombardment. Everyone in my group visiting Lascaux - people from all walks of life - came out of that cave just stunned. Viewed by flickering torchlight, the images would have had an enormous emotional impact on our early human ancestors.
