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Global History and Geography I-Mrs. Ammirato and Mrs. Awutey
The First Painters
READING 1
The cave paintings by the Cro-Magnon
people provide us with a fascinating
picture of the way they lived—most
notably, the animals they hunted
and the weapons they used. The excerpt
below describes how the Cro-Magnons
created these paintings and offers some
explanations of why they produced these
artworks. As you read the excerpt,
ask yourself why these paintings are
important to our understanding of
Source: elixirofknowledge.com
prehistoric times
.
The first flowering [of painting] can be seen in . . . ancient European caves. The men who lived
there ventured deep into the black holes that lead from the back of many of them, finding their
way by the feeble flickering light of stone lamps filled with animal fat.
There, in some of the most remote parts of the caverns, sometimes in passages and
chambers that could only be reached after hours of crawling, they painted designs on the walls.
For pigments they used the red, brown, and yellow ochres of iron, and black from charcoal and
manganese ore. For brushes, they used sticks burred [roughened] at the end, their fingers, and
sometimes blew paint on to the rock, probably from the mouth. Sometimes the designs are
engraved with a flint tool and there are a few examples of carving in the round, and modeling in
clay. Their subjects were almost always the animals they hunted—mammoth, deer, horse, wild
cattle, bison, and rhinoceros. Often they are superimposed, one on top of the other. There are no
landscapes and only very rarely human figures. In one or two caves, the people left a particularly
evocative [emotionally stirring] symbol of their visit, the image of their hands made by blowing
paint over them so that the outline is left stenciled on the rock. Scattered among the animals,
there are abstract designs—parallel lines, squares, grids and rows of dots, curves . . . [and]
chevrons that might be arrows. . . .
1. What were the usual subjects of the cave paintings?
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Even now, we do not know why these people painted. Perhaps the designs were part of a
religious ritual—if the chevrons [V-shaped figures] surrounding a great bull represent arrows,
then maybe they were drawn to bring success in hunting; if the cattle shown with swollen sides
are intended to appear pregnant, then maybe they were made during increase [reproductive]
rituals to ensure the fertility of the herds. Maybe their function was less complicated and the
people painted simply because they enjoyed doing so, taking pleasure in art for art’s sake.
Perhaps it is a mistake to seek a single universal explanation. The most ancient of the paintings is
thought to be about 30,000 years old*, the youngest maybe 10,000. The interval between these
two dates is about six times the length of the entire history of western civilization, so there is no
more reason to suppose that the same motives lay behind all these paintings than there is to
believe that background music saturating a modern hotel serves the same function as a [religious]
chant.
2. Why does the author think that it is a mistake to seek a single universal explanation of
the cave
paintings?
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But whether they were directed at the gods, at young initiates or appreciative members of the
community, they were certainly communications. And they still retain their power to
communicate today. Even if we are baffled by their precise meaning, we cannot fail to respond to
the perceptiveness and . . . sensitivity with which these artists captured the significant outlines of
a mammoth, the cocked heads of a herd of antlered deer or the looming bulk of a bison.
3. What explanations does the author give for why the Cro-Magnon people painted?
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4. Why do you think early people created the cave paintings? Explain your answer.
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*Older drawings have been discovered since Attenborough’s book was published.
From Life on Earth: A Natural History by David Attenborough. Copyright © 1979 by
David Attenborough Productions Ltd.