Paleolithic art, an introduction

Replica of the painting from the Chauvet cave (Anthropos museum,

Brno)
Replica of the painting from the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in southern France (Anthropos museum,
Brno)

The oldest art: ornamentation

Humans make art. We do this for many reasons and with whatever
technologies are available to us. Extremely old, non-representational
ornamentation has been found across Africa. The oldest firmly-dated
example is a collection of 82,000 year old Nassarius snail shells found in
Morocco that are pierced and covered with red ochre. Wear patterns
suggest that they may have been strung beads. Nassarius shell beads
found in Israel may be more than 100,000 years old and in the Blombos
cave in South Africa, pierced shells and small pieces of ochre (red
Haematite) etched with simple geometric patterns have been found in a
75,000-year-old layer of sediment.

The oldest representational art

The oldest known representational imagery comes from the Aurignacian
culture of the Upper Paleolithic period (Paleolithic means old stone age).
Archeological discoveries across a broad swath of Europe (especially
Southern France, Northern Spain, and Swabia, in Germany) include over
two hundred caves with spectacular Aurignacian paintings, drawings and
sculpture that are among the earliest undisputed examples of
representational image-making. The oldest of these is a 2.4-inch tall
female figure carved out of mammoth ivory that was found in six
fragments in the Hohle Fels cave near Schelklingen in southern
Germany. It dates to 35,000 B.C.E.

The caves
The caves at Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, Lascaux, Pech Merle, and Altamira
contain the best known examples of pre-historic painting and drawing.
Here are remarkably evocative renderings of animals and some humans
that employ a complex mix of naturalism and abstraction. Archeologists
that study Paleolithic era humans, believe that the paintings discovered in
1994, in the cave at Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc in the Ardéche valley in France,
are more than 30,000 years old. The images found at Lascaux and
Altamira are more recent, dating to approximately 15,000 B.C.E. The
paintings at Pech Merle date to both 25,000 and 15,000 B.C.E.

Questions
What can we really know about the creators of these paintings and what
the images originally meant? These are questions that are difficult
enough when we study art made only 500 years ago. It is much more
perilous to assert meaning for the art of people who shared our anatomy
but had not yet developed the cultures or linguistic structures that shaped
who we have become. Do the tools of art history even apply? Here is
evidence of a visual language that collapses the more than 1,000
generations that separate us, but we must be cautious. This is especially
so if we want to understand the people that made this art as a way to
understand ourselves. The desire to speculate based on what we see and
the physical evidence of the caves is wildly seductive.

Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc
The cave at Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc is over 1,000 feet in length with two
large chambers. Carbon samples date the charcoal used to depict the two
head-to-head Rhinoceroses (see the image above, bottom right) to
between 30,340 and 32,410 years before 1995 when the samples were
taken. The cave's drawings depict other large animals including horses,
mammoths, musk ox, ibex, reindeer, aurochs, megaloceros deer, panther,
and owl (scholars note that these animals were not then a normal part of
people's diet). Photographs show that the drawing shown above is very
carefully rendered but may be misleading. We see a group of horses,
rhinos and bison and we see them as a group, overlapping and skewed in
scale. But the photograph distorts the way these animal figures would
have been originally seen. The bright electric lights used by the
photographer create a broad flat scope of vision; how different to see
each animal emerge from the dark under the flickering light cast by a
flame.

A word of caution
In a 2009 presentation at UC San Diego, Dr. Randell White, Professor of
Anthropology at NYU, suggested that the overlapping horses pictured
above might represent the same horse over time, running, eating,
sleeping, etc. Perhaps these are far more sophisticated representations
than we have imagined. There is another drawing at Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc
that cautions us against ready assumptions. It has been interpreted as
depicting the thighs and genitals of a woman but there is also a drawing
of a bison and a lion and the images are nearly intertwined. In addition to
the drawings, the cave is littered with the skulls and bones of cave bear
and the track of a wolf. There is also a foot print thought to have been
made by an eight-year-old boy.

Essay by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Origins of rock art in Africa

Quartzite slabs depicting animals, Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia. Image

courtesy of State Museum of Namibia
Quartzite slabs depicting animals, Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, c. 25,500–25,300 B.C.E. Image courtesy of
State Museum of Namibia.

Rock art and the origins of art in Africa

The oldest scientifically-dated rock art in Africa dates from around
26,000-28,000 years ago and is found in Namibia.
Between 1969 and 1972, German archaeologist, W.E. Wendt,
researching in an area known locally as "Goachanas," unearthed several
painted slabs in a cave he named Apollo 11, after NASA’s successful
moon landing mission.

Seven painted stone slabs of brown-grey quartzite, depicting a variety of

animals painted in charcoal, ochre and white, were located in a Middle
Stone Age deposit (100,000–60,000 years ago). These images are not
easily identifiable to species level, but have been interpreted variously as
felines and/or bovids; one in particular has been observed to be either a
zebra, giraffe or ostrich, demonstrating the ambiguous nature of the
depictions.

Art and our modern mind

While the Apollo 11 plaques may be the oldest discovered
representational art in Africa, this is not the beginning of the story of art.
It is now well-established, through genetic and fossil evidence, that
anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) developed in
Africa more than 100,000 years ago; of these, a small group left the
Continent around 60,000-80,000 years ago and spread throughout the rest
of the world.

Recently discovered examples of patterned stone, ochre and ostrich

eggshell, as well as evidence of personal ornamentation emerging from
Middle Stone Age Africa, have demonstrated that "art" is not only a
much older phenomenon than previously thought, but that it has its roots
in the African continent. Africa is where we share a common humanity.
The first examples of what we might term "art" in Africa, dating from
between 100,000–60,000 years ago, emerge in two very distinct forms:
personal adornment in the form of perforated seashells suspended on
twine, and incised and engraved stone, ochre and ostrich eggshell.
Despite some sites being 8,000km and 40,000 years apart, an intriguing
feature of the earliest art is that these first forays appear remarkably
similar. It is worth noting here that the term "art" in this context is highly
problematic, in that we cannot assume that humans living 100,000 years
ago, or even 10,000 years ago, had a concept of art in the same way that
we do, particularly in the modern Western sense. However, it remains a
useful umbrella term for our purposes here.

Pattern and design

Incised ochre from Blombos Cave, South Africa. Photo by Chris. S.

Henshilwood © Chris. S. Henshilwood
Incised ochre from Blombos Cave, South Africa. Photo by Chris. S. Henshilwood © Chris. S.
Henshilwood

The practice of engraving or incising, which emerges around 12,000

years ago in Saharan rock art, has its antecedents much earlier, up to
100,000 years ago. Incised and engraved stone, bone, ochre and ostrich
eggshell have been found at sites in southern Africa. These marked
objects share features in the expression of design, exhibiting patterns that
have been classified as cross-hatching.

One of the most iconic and well-publicised sites that have yielded cross-
hatch incised patterning on ochre is Blombos Cave, on the southern Cape
shore of South Africa. Of the more than 8,500 fragments of ochre
deriving from the MSA (Middle Stone Age) levels, 15 fragments show
evidence of engraving. Two of these, dated to 77,000 years ago, have
received the most attention for the design of cross-hatch pattern.

For many archaeologists, the incised pieces of ochre at Blombos are the
most complex and best-formed evidence for early abstract
representations, and are unequivocal evidence for symbolic thought and
language. The debate about when we became a symbolic species and
acquired fully syntactical language – what archaeologists term ‘modern
human behaviour’ – is both complex and contested. It has been proposed
that these cross-hatch patterns are clear evidence of thinking
symbolically, because the motifs are not representational and as such are
culturally constructed and arbitrary. Moreover, in order for the meaning
of this motif to be conveyed to others, language is a prerequisite.

The Blombos engravings are not isolated occurrences, since the presence
of such designs occur at more than half a dozen other sites in South
Africa, suggesting that this pattern is indeed important in some way, and
not the result of idiosyncratic behaviour. It is worth noting, however, that
for some scholars, the premise that the pattern is symbolic is not so
certain. The patterns may indeed have a meaning, but it is how that
meaning is associated, either by resemblance (iconic) or correlation
(indexical), that is important for our understanding of human cognition.
 Fragments of engraved ostrich eggshells from the Howiesons Poort of
Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape, South Africa, dated to 60,000
BP. Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Texier, Diepkloof project. © Jean-Pierre
Texier
Fragments of engraved ostrich eggshells from the Howiesons Poort of Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western
Cape, South Africa, dated to 60,000 BP. Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Texier, Diepkloof project. © Jean-
Pierre Texier

Personal ornamentation and engraved designs are the earliest evidence of

art in Africa, and are inextricably tied up with the development of human
cognition. For tens of thousands of years, there has been not only a
capacity for, but a motivation to adorn and to inscribe, to make visual
that which is important. The interesting and pertinent issue in the context
of this project is that the rock art we are cataloguing, describing and
researching comes from a tradition that goes far back into African
prehistory. The techniques and subject matter resonate over the
millennia.
Apollo 11 Stones
Essay by Natalie Hager.

Apollo 11 Cave Stones, Namibia, quartzite, c. 25,500–25,300 B.C.E.

Apollo 11 Cave Stones, Namibia, quartzite, c. 25,500–25,300 B.C.E. Image courtesy of State Museum
of Namibia.

A significant discovery
Approximately 25,000 years ago, in a rock shelter in the Huns Mountains
of Namibia on the southwest coast of Africa (today part of the Ai-Ais
Richtersveld Transfrontier Park), an animal was drawn in charcoal on a
hand-sized slab of stone. The stone was left behind, over time becoming
buried on the floor of the cave by layers of sediment and debris until
1969 when a team led by German archaeologist W.E. Wendt excavated
the rock shelter and found the first fragment (above, left). Wendt named
the cave "Apollo 11" upon hearing on his shortwave radio of NASA’s
successful space mission to the moon. It was more than three years later
however, after a subsequent excavation, when Wendt discovered the
matching fragment (above, right), that archaeologists and art historians
began to understand the significance of the find.

Indirect dating techniques

In total seven stone fragments of brown-grey quartzite, some of them
depicting traces of animal figures drawn in charcoal, ocher, and white,
were found buried in a concentrated area of the cave floor less than two
meters square. While it is not possible to learn the actual date of the
fragments, it is possible to estimate when the rocks were buried by
radiocarbon dating the archaeological layer in which they were found.
Archaeologists estimate that the cave stones were buried between 25,500
and 25,300 years ago during the Middle Stone Age period in southern
Africa making them, at the time of their discovery, the oldest dated art
known on the African continent and among the earliest evidence of
human artistic expression worldwide.
[What was the Middle Stone Age?]
 Location of the Huns Mountains of Namibia, © Map Data Google
Location of the Huns Mountains of Namibia, © Map Data Google

While more recent discoveries of much older human artistic endeavors

have corrected our understanding (consider the 2008 discovery of a
100,000-year-old paint workshop in the Blombos Cave on the southern
coast of Africa), the stones remain the oldest examples of figurative art
from the African continent. Their discovery contributes to our conception
of early humanity’s creative attempts, before the invention of formal
writing, to express their thoughts about the world around them.
The origins of art?
Genetic and fossil evidence tells us that Homo sapiens (anatomically
modern humans who evolved from an earlier species of hominids)
developed on the continent of Africa more than 100,000 years ago and
spread throughout the world. But what we do not know—what we have
only been able to assume—is that art too began in Africa. Is Africa,
where humanity originated, home to the world’s oldest art? If so, can we
say that art began in Africa?

100,000 years of human occupation

View across Fish River Canyon toward the Huns Mountains, /Ai-/Ais –
Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, southern Namibia (photo: Thomas
Schooch, CC-BY-SA-3.00
View across Fish River Canyon toward the Huns Mountains, /Ai-/Ais – Richtersveld Transfrontier Park,
southern Namibia (photo: Thomas Schooch, CC-BY-SA-3.00

The Apollo 11 rock shelter overlooks a dry gorge, sitting twenty meters
above what was once a river that ran along the valley floor. The cave
entrance is wide, about twenty-eight meters across, and the cave itself is
deep: eleven meters from front to back. While today a person can stand
upright only in the front section of the cave, during the Middle Stone
Age, as well as in the periods before and after, the rock shelter was an
active site of ongoing human settlement.

Inside the cave, above and below the layer where the Apollo 11 cave
stones were found, archaeologists unearthed a sequence of cultural layers
representing over 100,000 years of human occupation. In these layers
stone artifacts, typical of the Middle Stone Age period—such as blades,
pointed flakes, and scraper—were found in raw materials not native to
the region, signaling stone tool technology transported over long
distances. Among the remnants of hearths, ostrich eggshell fragments
bearing traces of red color were also found—either remnants of
ornamental painting or evidence that the eggshells were used as
containers for pigment.
 Excavation site of the Apollo 11 stones (photo: Jutta Vogel Stiftung
Excavation site of the Apollo 11 stones (photo: Jutta Vogel Stiftung)

On the cave walls, belonging to the Later Stone Age period, rock
paintings were discovered depicting white and red zigzags, two
handprints, three geometric images, and traces of color. And on the
banks of the riverbed just upstream from the cave, engravings of a
variety of animals, some with zigzag lines leading upwards, were found
and dated to less than 2000 years ago.

The Apollo 11 Cave Stones

But the most well-known of the rock shelter’s finds, and the most
enigmatic, remain the Apollo 11 cave stones (image above). On the
cleavage face of what was once a complete slab, an unidentified animal
form was drawn resembling a feline in appearance but with human hind
legs that were probably added later. Barely visible on the head of the
animal are two slightly-curved horns likely belonging to an Oryx, a large
grazing antelope; on the animal’s underbelly, possibly the sexual organ
of a bovid.
[What is a bovid?]

Perhaps we have some kind of supernatural creature—a therianthrope,

part human and part animal? If so, this may suggest a complex system of
shamanistic belief. Taken together with the later rock paintings and the
engravings, Apollo 11 becomes more than just a cave offering shelter
from the elements. It becomes a site of ritual significance used by many
over thousands of years.

The global origins of art

In the Middle Stone Age period in southern Africa prehistoric man was a
hunter-gatherer, moving from place to place in search of food and
shelter. But this modern human also drew an animal form with
charcoal—a form as much imagined as it was observed. This is what
makes the Apollo 11 cave stones find so interesting: the stones offer
evidence that Homo sapiens in the Middle Stone Age—us, some 25,000
years ago—were not only anatomically modern, but behaviorally modern
as well. That is to say, these early humans possessed the new and unique
capacity for modern symbolic thought, “the human capacity,” long
before what was previously understood.

The cave stones are what archaeologists term art mobilier —small-scale
prehistoric art that is moveable. But mobile art, and rock art generally, is
not unique to Africa. Rock art is a global phenomenon that can be found
across the World—in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North and South
America. While we cannot know for certain what these early humans
intended by the things that they made, by focusing on art as the product
of humanity’s creativity and imagination we can begin to explore where,
and hypothesize why, art began.
Venus of Willendorf

Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high

(Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna)
Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high (Naturhistorisches Museum,
Vienna)

Can a 25,000-year-old object be a work of art?

The artifact known as the Venus of Willendorf dates to between 24,000-
22,000 B.C.E., making it one of the oldest and most famous surviving
works of art. But what does it mean to be a work of art?

The Oxford English Dictionary, perhaps the authority on the English

language, defines the word "art" as

the application of skill to the arts of imitation and design, painting,

engraving, sculpture, architecture; the cultivation of these in its
principles, practice, and results; the skillful production of the beautiful in
visible forms.

Some of the words and phrases that stand out within this definition
include “application of skill,” “imitation,” and “beautiful.” By this
definition, the concept of “art” involves the use of skill to create an
object that contains some appreciation of aesthetics. The object is not
only made, it is made with an attempt of creating something that contains
elements of beauty.

In contrast, the same Oxford English Dictionary defines the word

"artifact" as, “anything made by human art and workmanship; an
artificial product. In Archaeology applied to the rude products of
aboriginal workmanship as distinguished from natural remains.” Again,
some key words and phrases are important: “anything made by human
art,” and “rude products.” Clearly, an artifact is any object created by
humankind regardless of the "skill" of its creator or the absence of
"beauty."
 Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high
(Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna)
Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high (Naturhistorisches Museum,
Vienna)

Artifact, then, is anything created by humankind, and art is a particular

kind of artifact, a group of objects under the broad umbrella of artifact, in
which beauty has been achieved through the application of skills. Think
of the average plastic spoon: a uniform white color, mass produced, and
unremarkable in just about every way. While it serves a function—say,
for example, to stir your hot chocolate—the person who designed it
likely did so without any real dedication or commitment to making this
utilitarian object beautiful. You have likely never lovingly gazed at a
plastic spoon and remarked, “Wow! Now that’s a beautiful spoon!” This
is in contrast to a silver spoon you might purchase at Tiffany & Co.
While their spoon could just as well stir cream into your morning coffee,
it was skillfully designed by a person who attempted to make it
aesthetically pleasing; note the elegant bend of the handle, the gentle
luster of the metal, the graceful slope of the bowl.

These terms are important to bear in mind when analyzing prehistoric art.
While it is unlikely people from the Upper Paleolithic period cared to
conceptualize what it meant to make art or to be an artist, it cannot be
denied that the objects they created were made with skill, were often
made as a way of imitating the world around them, and were made with a
particular care to create something beautiful. They likely represent, for
the Paleolithic peoples who created them, objects made with great
competence and with a particular interest in aesthetics.
[Explain Upper Paleolithic]
Caves and pockets
Two main types of Upper Paleolithic art have survived. The first we can
classify as permanently located works found on the walls within caves.
Mostly unknown prior to the final decades of the nineteenth century,
many such sites have now been discovered throughout much of southern
Europe and have provided historians and archaeologists new insights into
humankind millennia prior to the creation of writing. The subjects of
these works vary: we may observe a variety of geometric motifs, many
types of flora and fauna, and the occasional human figure. They also
fluctuate in size; ranging from several inches to large-scale compositions
that span many feet in length.

The second category of Paleolithic art may be called portable since these
works are generally of a small-scale—a logical size given the nomadic
nature of Paleolithic peoples. Despite their often diminutive size, the
creation of these portable objects signifies a remarkable allocation of
time and effort. As such, these figurines were significant enough to take
along during the nomadic wanderings of their Paleolithic creators.
 Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high
(Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna)
Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high (Naturhistorisches Museum,
Vienna)
The Venus of Willendorf is a perfect example of this. Josef Szombathy,
an Austro-Hungarian archaeologist, discovered this work in 1908 outside
the small Austrian village of Willendorf. Although generally projected in
art history classrooms to be several feet tall, this limestone figurine is
petite in size. She measures just under 4½” high, and could fit
comfortably in the palm of your hand. This small scale was very
deliberate and allowed whoever carved (or, perhaps owned) this figurine
to carry it during their nearly daily nomadic travels in search of food.

Naming and dating

Clearly, the Paleolithic sculptor who made this small figurine would
never have named it the Venus of Willendorf. Venus was the name of the
Roman goddess of love and ideal beauty. When discovered outside the
Austrian village of Willendorf, scholars mistakenly assumed that this
figure was likewise a goddess of love and beauty. There is absolutely no
evidence though that the Venus of Willendorf shared a function similar to
its classically inspired namesake. However incorrect the name may be, it
has endured, and tells us more about those who found her than those who
made her.

Dating too can be a problem, especially since Prehistoric art, by

definition, has no written record. In fact, the definition of the word
prehistoric is that written language did not yet exist, so the creator of
the Venus of Willendorf could not have incised “Bob made this in the
year 24,000 B.C.E.” on the back. In addition, stone artifacts present a
special problem since we are interested in the date that the stone was
carved, not the date of the material itself. Despite these hurdles, art
historians and archaeologist attempt to establish dates for prehistoric
finds through two processes. The first is called relative dating and the
second involves an examination of the stratification of an object’s
discovery.

Relative dating is an easily understood process that involves stylistically

comparing an object whose date is uncertain to other objects whose dates
have been firmly established. By correctly fitting the unknown object
into this stylistic chronology, scholars can find a very general
chronological date for an object. A simple example can illustrate this
method. The first Chevrolet Corvette was sold during the 1953 model
year, and this particular car has gone through numerous iterations up to
its most recent version. If presented with pictures of the Corvette’s
development from every five years to establish the stylistic development
from its earliest model to the most recent (for example, images from the
1953, 1958, 1963, and all the way to the current model), you would have
a general idea of the changes the car underwent over time. If then given a
picture of a Corvette from an unknown year, you could, on the basis of
stylistic analysis, generally place it within the visual chronology of this
car with some accuracy. The Corvette is a convenient example, but the
same exercise could be applied to iPods, Coca-Cola bottles, suits, or any
other object that changes over time.
 Plan of the excavation at Willendorf I in 1908 with the position of the
figurine.
Plan of the excavation at Willendorf I in 1908 with the position of the figurine.

The second way scholars that date the Venus of Willendorf is through an
analysis of where it was found. Generally, the deeper an object is
recovered from the earth, the longer that object has been buried. Imagine
a penny jar that has had coins added to it for hundreds of years. It is a
good bet that the coins at the bottom of that jar are the oldest whereas
those at the top are the newest. The same applies to Paleolithic objects.
Because of the depth at which these objects are found, we can infer that
they are very old indeed.

What did it mean?

In the absence of writing, art historians rely on the objects themselves to
learn about ancient peoples. The form of the Venus of Willendorf—that
is, what it looks like—may very well inform what it originally meant.
The most conspicuous elements of her anatomy are those that deal with
the process of reproduction and child rearing. The artist took particular
care to emphasize her breasts, which some scholars suggest indicates that
she is able to nurse a child. The artist also brought deliberate attention to
her pubic region. Traces of a pigment—red ochre—can still be seen on
parts of the figurine.
Detail, Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm
high (Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna)
Detail, Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E., limestone 11.1 cm high (Naturhistorisches
Museum, Vienna)

In contrast, the sculptor placed scant attention on the non-reproductive

parts of her body. This is particularly noticeable in the figure's limbs,
where there is little emphasis placed on musculature or anatomical
accuracy. We may infer from the small size of her feet that she was not
meant to be free standing, and was either meant to be carried or placed
lying down. The artist carved the figure’s upper arms along her upper
torso, and her lower arms are only barely visible resting upon the top of
her breasts. As enigmatic as the lack of attention to her limbs is, the
absence of attention to the face is even more striking. No eyes, nose,
ears, or mouth remain visible. Instead, our attention is drawn to seven
horizontal bands that wrap in concentric circles from the crown of her
head. Some scholars have suggested her head is obscured by a knit cap
pulled downward, others suggest that these forms may represent braided
or beaded hair and that her face, perhaps once painted, is angled
downward.
If the face was purposefully obscured, the Paleolithic sculptor may have
created, not a portrait of a particular person, but rather a representation of
the reproductive and child rearing aspects of a woman. In combination
with the emphasis on the breasts and pubic area, it seems likely that
the Venus of Willendorf had a function that related to fertility.

Without doubt, we can learn much more from the Venus of

Willendorf than its diminutive size might at first suggest. We learn about
relative dating and stratification. We learn that these nomadic people
living almost 25,000 years ago cared about making objects beautiful.
And we can learn that these Paleolithic people had an awareness of the
importance of the women.

The Venus of Willendorf is only one example of dozens of paleolithic

figures we believe may have been associated with fertility. Nevertheless,
it retains a place of prominence within the history of human art.

Essay by Dr. Bryan Zygmont

Lascaux
Essay by Dr. Mary Beth Looney.

We are as likely to communicate using easily interpretable pictures as we

are text. Portable handheld devices enable us to tell others via social
media what we are doing and thinking. Approximately 15,000 years ago,
we also communicated in pictures—but with no written language.

Map of France showing the location of Lascaux

Map showing the location of three well-known prehistoric cave painting sites in France and Spain.

The cave of Lascaux, France is one of almost 350 similar sites that are
known to exist—most are isolated to a region of southern France and
northern Spain. Both Neanderthals (named after the site in which their
bones were first discovered—the Neander Valley in Germany) and
Modern Humans (early Homo Sapiens Sapiens) coexisted in this region
30,000 years ago. Life was short and very difficult; resources were scarce
and the climate was very cold.
Location, location, location!
Approximately 15,000 years later in the valley of Vèzére, in
southwestern France, modern humans lived and witnessed the migratory
patterns of a vast range of wildlife. They discovered a cave in a tall hill
overlooking the valley. Inside, an unknown number of these people drew
and painted images that, once discovered in 1940, have excited the
imaginations of both researchers and the general public.

After struggling through small openings and narrow passages to access

the larger rooms beyond, prehistoric people discovered that the cave wall
surfaces functioned as the perfect, blank "canvas" upon which to draw
and paint. White calcite, roofed by nonporous rock, provides a uniquely
dry place to feature art. To paint, these early artists used charcoal and
ochre (a kind of pigmented, earthen material, that is soft and can be
mixed with liquids, and comes in a range of colors like brown, red,
yellow and white). We find images of horses, deer, bison, elk, a few
lions, a rhinoceros and a bear—almost as an encyclopedia of the area’s
large prehistoric wildlife. Among these images are abstract marks—dots
and lines in a variety of configurations. In one image, a humanoid figure
plays a mysterious role.

How did they do it?

The animals are rendered in what has come to be called "twisted
perspective," in which their bodies are depicted in profile while we see
the horns from a more frontal viewpoint. The images are sometimes
entirely linear—line drawn to define the animal's contour. In many other
cases, the animals are described in solid and blended colors blown by
mouth onto the wall. In other portions of the Lascaux cave, artists carved
lines into the soft calcite surface. Some of these are infilled with color—
others are not.

The cave spaces range widely in size and ease of access. The famous
Hall of Bulls (below) is large enough to hold some fifty people. Other
"rooms" and "halls" are extraordinarily narrow and tall.

Archaeologists have found hundreds of stone tools, they have also

identified holes in some walls that may have supported tree-limb
scaffolding that would have elevated an artist high enough to reach the
upper surfaces. Fossilized pollen has been found. These grains were
inadvertently brought into the cave by early visitors and are helping
scientists understand the world outside.

Hall of Bulls
 Left wall of the Hall of Bulls, Lascaux II (replica of the original cave,
which is closed to the public). Original cave: c. 16,000-14,000 B.C.E., 11
feet 6 inches long
Left wall of the Hall of Bulls, Lascaux II (replica of the original cave, which is closed to the public).
Original cave: c. 16,000-14,000 B.C.E., 11 feet 6 inches long

Given the large scale of many of the animal images, we can presume that
the artists worked deliberately—carefully plotting out a particular form
before completing outlines and adding color. Some researchers believe
that "master" artists enlisted the help of assistants who mixed pigments
and held animal fat lamps to illuminate the space. Alternatively, in the
case of the "rooms" containing mostly engraved and overlapping forms,
it seems that the pure process of drawing and repetitive re-drawing held
serious (perhaps ritual) significance for the makers.

Why did they do it?

Many scholars have speculated about why prehistoric people painted and
engraved the walls at Lascaux and other caves like it. Perhaps the most
famous theory was put forth by a priest named Henri Breuil. Breuil spent
considerable time in many of the caves, meticulously recording the
images in drawings when the paintings were too challenging to
photograph. Relying primarily on a field of study known as ethnography,
Breuil believed that the images played a role in "hunting magic." The
theory suggests that the prehistoric people who used the cave may have
believed that a way to overpower their prey involved creating images of
it during rituals designed to ensure a successful hunt. This seems
plausible when we remember that survival was entirely dependent on
successful foraging and hunting though it is also important to remember
how little we actually know about these people.

Another theory suggests that the images communicate narratives

(stories). While a number of the depictions can be seen to do this, one
particular image in Lascaux more directly supports this theory. A bison,
drawn in strong, black lines, bristles with energy, as the fur on the back
of its neck stands up and the head is radically turned to face us (below).

Disemboweled bison and bird-headed human figure? Cave at Lascaux, c.

16,000-14,000 B.C.E.
Disemboweled bison and bird-headed human figure? Cave at Lascaux, c. 16,000-14,000 B.C.E.

A form drawn under the bison’s abdomen is interpreted as internal

organs, spilling out from a wound. A more crudely drawn form
positioned below and to the left of the bison may represent a humanoid
figure with the head of a bird. Nearby, a thin line is topped with another
bird and there is also an arrow with barbs. Further below and to the far
left the partial outline of a rhinoceros can be identified.
Interpreters of this image tend to agree that some sort of interaction has
taken place among these animals and the bird-headed human figure—in
which the bison has sustained injury either from a weapon or from the
horn of the rhinoceros. Why the person in the image has the rudimentary
head of a bird, and why a bird form sits atop a stick very close to him is a
mystery. Some suggest that the person is a shaman—a kind of priest or
healer with powers involving the ability to communicate with spirits of
other worlds. Regardless, this riveting image appears to depict action and
reaction, although many aspects of it are difficult to piece together.

Preservation for future study

The Caves of Lascaux are the most famous of all of the known caves in
the region. In fact, their popularity has permanently endangered them.
From 1940 to 1963, the numbers of visitors and their impact on the
delicately balanced environment of the cave—which supported the
preservation of the cave images for so long—necessitated the cave’s
closure to the public. A replica called Lascaux II was created about 200
yards away from the site. The original Lascaux cave is now a designated
UNESCO World Heritage Site. Lascaux will require constant vigilance
and upkeep to preserve it for future generations.

Many mysteries continue to surround Lascaux, but there is one certainty.

The very human need to communicate in the form of pictures—for
whatever purpose—has persisted since our earliest beginnings.

Essay by Mary Beth Looney