Hands Cave
and Pinturas River Canyon..
An amazing display of cave art in Patagonia
Hands Cave and Pinturas river canyon is located in Patagonia, Argentina - Santa Cruz province - 163
km. south of the town Perito Moreno, within the boundaries of Francisco P. Moreno National
Park.
The main cave measures 24 meters in depth, with an entrance 15 meters wide and initially 10
meters high.
Its named after the stencilled outline of human hands in the cave (more than 890 of them),
combined with hunting scenes and pictures of animals such as guanacos and pumas, still
common in the region.
The hands occur as both positive and negative form, in varied colors: from red, violet, white, black
and yellow, to orange, ochre and green.
Hand Cave at Pinturas River Canyon - © Secretariat of Tourism Buenos Aires
The Hands cave (Cueva de las Manos) and Pinturas river (rio Pinturas) Have You Been to the Hands
was declared World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1999, not only
Cave?..Recommend a must-see
for its artistic magnificence but as one of the main testimonies of
Argentina tourist attraction
prehistoric hunters that occupied the area 10.000 years ago.
It was a sacred sited for the Tehuelches, who inhabited Patagonia before the arrival of European
settlers in 17th. century.
They were exterminated, but they have left a legacy for the humanity's patrimony...
Cave Art at Hands Cave- © Secretariat of Tourism Buenos Aires
Share Your Argentina Holidays
How to Get There
To reach Hands Cave and Pinturas river canyon you can travel to the town of Perito Moreno
through a regional flight from El Calafate or Rio Gallegos, if you happen to be in Patagonia
exploring Glaciers National Park or on your way to Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia.
For more info on airlines and airports, please visit Argentina airports.
By car: Heading south from the town of Perito Moreno on the legendary Route 40, drive 118 km.
until you reach Prov. Route 97. Turn left at the intersection and follow it for 46 km.
Alternatively, you can book an excursion through local tour operators.
Ancient Rock & Cave Art
April 15th 2009 01:39
Paintings on the faces of rocks and cave walls are the oldest form of human artistic expression believed to date
back over 50,000 years and can be found from different cultures all over the world. In some cases who
created the artwork, why and its significance is not known. Below are some images of both rock carvings
(Petroglyphs) and paintings (Pictographs) from all over the globe. Images sourced from msnbc.com here.
The famed Lascaux caves in France have been shuttered since 1963, when green algae and mosses began to
cover the 15,000- to 17,000 year-old murals of bulls, horses, and other creatures. The deterioration was
blamed on chemical reactions with visitors' breath. As a consolation, the government built a replica
cavern nearby, which remains a top tourist draw. But the spread of fungus in the original cave hasn't
stopped, thanks in part to global warming, researchers said at a recent meeting about the artwork. Ideas
to fight the fungus include the use of biocides and an elaborate climate control system.
The world's earliest known oil paintings are found in a series of intact – albeit weather-beaten and looter-ravaged
– caves in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley. Archaeologists dated the paintings to the mid-seventh century,
which is several hundred years before the painting technique emerged in Europe. The murals depict
Buddhas and mythical creatures and were made with what appear to be walnut and poppy-seed oils,
scientists say. The site of the paintings is perhaps more infamously known as where the Taliban blew up
two giant stone Buddha statues in 2001.
Painted walls and overhangs in South Africa are helping scholars piece together the millennia-long history of the
San, a group of hunter-gatherers who became extinct after European colonization in the 19th century.
More than 40,000 paintings in 500 rock shelters have been discovered. They depict animals such as the
eland – a type of spiral-horned antelope – and hunters and are thought to represent religious beliefs of
the San. Researchers hope that by firmly dating the paintings, they can see how the people changed over
time.
The star symbol right of center in this rock carving may represent the fiery death of an ancient star in the year
1006. If so, it would be the first North American representation of a celestial event, previously known from
astronomers' records in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The supernova of 1006 was likely as bright as
the quarter moon, according to computer simulations. This piece of rock art was discovered in the White
Tank Regional Park outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
The more than 10,000 carvings and paintings of bulls, sheep, hunters, the hunted, warriors and wildlife all etched
and stroked onto the cliff walls along Utah's Nine Mile Canyon make up what is known as the world's
longest art gallery. The rock art dates to between A.D. 700 and 1300 and archaeologists believe it is the
creation of the Fremont people, who were the ancestors of modern-day Utes. But the rock isn't the only
draw to the remote stretch of Utah: It's also rich in oil and gas. A rush to exploit the natural resources has
raised concerns that dust kicked up by industrial truck traffic could harm the artwork.
New Technology For Dating Ancient Rock Paintings
ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — A new dating method finally is allowing archaeologists to incorporate rock
paintings — some of the most mysterious and personalized remnants of ancient cultures — into the
tapestry of evidence used to study life in prehistoric times.
See Also:
Matter & Energy
Organic Chemistry
Fossils & Ruins
Ancient Civilizations
Lost Treasures
Fossils
Reference
Cave painting
Carbon-14
Radiocarbon dating
Lascaux
In the study, Marvin W. Rowe points out that rock paintings, or pictographs, are among the most difficult
archaeological artifacts to date. They lack the high levels of organic material needed to assess a
pictograph's age using radiocarbon dating, the standard archaeological technique for more than a halfcentury.
Rowe describes a new, highly sensitive dating method, called accelerator mass spectrometry, that requires only
0.05 milligrams of carbon (the weight of 50 specks of dust). That's much less than the several grams of
carbon needed with radiocarbon dating.
The research included analyzing pictographs from numerous countries over a span of 15 years. It validates the
method and allows rock painting to join bones, pottery and other artifacts that tell secrets of ancient
societies, Rowe said. "Because of the prior lack of methods for dating rock art, archaeologists had almost
completely ignored it before the 1990s," he explained. "But with the ability to obtain reliable radiocarbon
dates on pictographs, archaeologists have now begun to incorporate rock art into a broader study that
includes other cultural remains."
Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
| More
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by
American Chemical Society.
Journal Reference:
1.
Marvin W. Rowe. Radiocarbon Dating of Ancient Rock Paintings. Analytical Chemistry, 2009,
81 (5), pp 1728%u20131735, Online February 9, 2009 DOI: 10.1021/ac802555g
Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:
APA
MLA
American Chemical Society (2009, March 16). New Technology For Dating Ancient Rock Paintings. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved October 16, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2009/03/090316093629.htm
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
enlarge
Cave painting by the San people depicting an elephant hunt in South Africa. (Credit: iStockphoto/Gary Bedell)
Through spending a lot of time in South Africa I have developed an interest in African art in general and also in the cave
paintings of the San bushmen.
I have tried to use features of these cave paintings to produce decorative paintings on canvas which has been textured to
simulate a natural rock surface. It is an attempt to show how these rock paintings would look if modern materials
such as acrylic paint were used.
The Cave images are naive but they were highly symbolic to the bushmen. The Eland featured prominently as it was treated
with some reverence and also many of the hunter figures were depicted with animal heads. These are known as
therianthropes (part animal, part human) and were believed to represent transformations to harness the power of the
animal. I haven’t attempted to accurately convey these messages but have just tried to create decorative art which is
a little unusual.
The paintings are intended to be hung without frames to enhance the appearance of being a slab of rock.
Other paintings shown are also on similarly textured canvas and are in a more contemporary African style. Many depicting
the Maasai people and in a semi abstract style which is common to much modern African art.
I make no excuses for using ideas I have got from these African artists as I hope it will increase awareness of the wealth of
talent which goes unrewarded in the country. Treat them as pure decoration and buy them if they match your
curtains!
I have also painted similar scenes on ceramic floor tiles which have a rock like finish. These have been utilised as a
decorative frieze on the wall of the stoep of the house in South Africa and can be painted in any style to order.
Paintings are priced around £60 – £120 dependent on size and/or any exhibition expenses. All negotiable.
Tiles would be priced depending on quantities and basic tile costs.
Contact stuart.floyd1@ntlworld.com Tel. 01332 663122
APRIL 4, 2006
Did Teens Create Prehistoric Cave Art?
From Liz comes the following story nicked from Discovery Channel News that suggests that teens created most of
the prehistoric cave art.
<>
Cave Art: Prehistoric Teen Graffiti?
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
March 31, 2006— Testosterone-fueled boys created most prehistoric cave art, according to a recently published
book by one of the world's leading authorities on cave art.
The theory contradicts the idea that adult, tribal shaman spiritual leaders and healers produced virtually all cave
art.
It also explains why many of the images drawn in caves during the Pleistocene, between 10,000 and 35,000
years ago, somewhat mirror today's artwork and graffiti that are produced by adolescent males.
"Today, boys draw the testosterone subjects of a hot automobile, fighter jet, Jedi armor, sports, direct missile hit,
etc.— all of the things they associate with the Adrenalin of success," said R. Dale Guthrie, author of "The
Nature of Paleolithic Art."
Guthrie, who is a professor emeritus in the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, added,
"I think the full larder (of) success of the excitement and danger of killing a giant bison or auroch in the
Pleistocene was the equivalent of the testosterone art today."
He explained to Discovery News that many of the cave art images of animals are rather graphic, showing, for
example, speared animals with blood pouring out of their mouths and noses.
Hunting and animals were not the only things on the cave artists' minds. Guthrie has also noticed that males were
drawn sort of like a Ken Barbie doll, with no defined sexual parts save for a simple line designating the
penis. Few men were even represented, but the images of women in caves tell a different story.
"Female images dominate and are nude, almost every one full-figured above and below," said Guthrie. "Unlike the
other animals, the sculpted, engraved and painted human females and female parts are sometimes done
schematically, distilling and inflating the primary and secondary sex characters."
Guthrie also determined that several cave art images are incomplete, overlapping, brief and rudimentary, as
though people who were still learning how to draw created them.
This type of sketching dominates cave walls, which also display a handful of works that appear to have been
drawn by well-practiced artists, who probably were adults.
Perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence for the new theory consists of 200 handprints that were left in the
caves next to the art. These prints were produced by individuals who chewed ochre, held up a hand, and
then spit the colorful orange-yellow spew all over the hand, leaving a wall imprint.
Guthrie analyzed the handprints and then compared the results with earlier research on male and female hands.
The hand lengths, palm widths and the finger widths and lengths mostly match hands that would have
belonged to boys aged nine to 17.
Some teen female handprints were identified in the caves, but young male prints were found more often.
Other handprints resulting unintentionally from people leaning against muddy cave walls, as well as footprints,
also suggest that young boys were creating the cave art, according to Guthrie.
Paul Martin, professor of quaternary biogeography at the University of Arizona, told Discovery News that he is
inclined to agree with the new theory and findings.
"(Guthrie) has an extraordinary knowledge of wild animal ecology globally, and especially in the Northern
Hemisphere," Martin said. "In addition, he brings detailed knowledge of late Pleistocene fossils to his
study of cave art. Finally, like many zoologists, especially those with children of their own, he is an astute
observer of human behavior."
Martin added, "If he finds that much cave art reflects teenage or preteen preoccupations, I am prepared to believe
him."
Reproduction of prehistoric Saharan rock art
(approx. 6,000 years old) by Thomas Baker
oil on plaster-textured wood panel
36 X 40 inches
This painting is available for purchase - $6500
Prints of this painting are available--click here for prices and ordering info
Contact Thomas Baker
Go to Thomas Baker Paintings Home Page
Scenes of everyday life in a vanished world
prehistoric humans progressed from being hunters of wild animals to domesticating them. In the Lascaux cave painting also reproduced by
mas Baker, the bison dominates the man, while in this African painting, done perhaps fifteen thousand years later, the situation is
ersed--men (and women) are now in charge of the animals, a much better strategy for survival. Surprisingly, these rock paintings in the
ren Tassili ni'Ajjer mountains of the Sahara Desert show that the vast desert of today was once a lush land of forests and flowing rivers (s
e info on Saharan rock art). The unknown people who lived there left records of their daily lives painted on stone. This painting is a section
uch larger panorama of prehistoric life, and shows a herd of cattle tethered to a rope staked to the ground. The man in the center appe
e choosing one. Children (the small figures in front of him) seem to be taking instructions from him, while behind him a seated woman
ks on.
ent artistic convention, seen also in the art of ancient Egypt and the Middle East, that the most important people in a group are shown a
largest, and so it appears to be here. The central man and woman are probably the leaders of the family or social group around them.
ve this central group we see a man holding hands with a woman who appears to be speaking to another woman (could their halos of whit
nt represent speech?). Three other seated women converse at the bottom, while a boy pours a bucket of water on one of the three
terious rings on the right side of the painting. The silhouettes of both the animals and people are remarkably natural and lifelike, showin
ellent anatomical detail. The mineral pigments and method of painting are nearly identical to those used by the cave painters of Europe
ny thousands of years before.
Return to Prehistoric Painting Reproductions
Go to Thomas Baker Paintings Home Page
Original paintings by Thomas Baker Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 4
Portraits | Old Masters copies | Ancient civilizations reproductions | Prehistoric reproductions
Art lessons
About the Artist | Contact Thomas Baker
Interpreting Cave Art
Submitted by MalcolmJ on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 13:23
Mindless Doodling?
The first explanation for cave paintings was the most simple: they were merely the mindless doodling of
Paleolithic men and women with too much time on their hands – the ancient equivalent of the same
graffiti that covers modern towns and cities today.
This theory didn’t last long. Patterns and themes began to become apparent at different sites from different
periods, which suggested that certain common beliefs, urges or systems of thought were influencing
individual artists. Additionally, it became increasingly clear that the images were not always applied to the
most obviously accessible surfaces – some could be crammed into tight nooks and crannies, others could
be on the upper reaches of cave walls, or even on the ceilings.
It’s hard to imagine that Paleolithic cave artists at Lascaux, France would have gone so far as to erect a scaffold
to complete their work (as holes in the walls would seem to suggest they did) out of sheer boredom, or
that the ancient people responsible for the Astuvansalmi rock paintings above lake Saimaa, Finland
would have boarded a boat every day in order to create their paintings simply because they didn’t have
anything better to do. Surely something more complex must have motivated them?
Animal Magic
Was there an inextricable link between hunting and religious ritual in ancient cave art such as this scene from
Lascaux Cave in France? Or was it just Paleolithic graffitti?
Linking practically every example of cave and rock art discovered to date is the representation of animals – all
from bulls and aurochs to deer, horses, lions, bison, fish and birds. Were ancient artists documenting the
wonders of nature out of sheer fascination, like ancient David Attenboroughs? Or – as hunter gatherer
societies – were they perhaps drawing with their appetites?
Ice Age Australian aborigines were said to perform ceremonies in order to multiply the numbers of animals living
around them, and for this purpose they painted likenesses of these species on rocks. This idea inspired
European academics in the early 20th century to compare these primitive users of stone tools with
Europeans at the end of the Ice Age, and postulate that the same purpose lay behind the art of both
cultures.
Another popular theory linked this idea specifically to a belief in fertility magic – the hope that, by drawing pictures
of animals, humans could somehow cause better reproduction among animals and thus enjoy a steadier
source of food. Some scholars have suggested that cave art was created in a ritual of renewal and that
redrawing a picture each year, sometimes directly on top of an old drawing, was intended to ensure the
return of that species each spring. Some paintings at Altamira are thought to have been added to and
refreshed over a span of no less than 20,000 years.
“Ritual Breakage”
Spears and other hunting weapons were occasionally superimposed over or near animals, and some clay
sculptures seem to have been the physical target of sharp objects. This has given rise to a theory called
“ritual breakage” – the idea that the cave artists would paint representations of their prey and then attack
them in the hope of somehow provoking better fortunes in their hunting.
A weakness in this idea is the fact that the type of bones found scattered around cave floors often did not always
come from the same animals depicted in cave paintings. Additionally, this idea doesn’t explain why
Paleolithic artists painted predators like lions and bears, such as at Chauvet in particular. Clearly these
fierce beasts weren’t a source of food to Paleolithic man (quite the reverse in fact).
Humans
Drawings of humans were fairly rare in cave art. If they were shown, it was usually in a more schematic fashion
than the more naturalistic animal subjects, and often in hunting scenes. One explanation for this is that
realistically painting the human form was forbidden by powerful religious taboos.
An exception to the rule is the paintings of the ancient San Bushmen in the Drakensburg Mountains, South Africa.
Human figures are much more common in African than in European rock art. As well as hunting scenes,
many of the rock scenes would depict – in quite complex detail – the rituals and hallucinations of
shamans (who still dominate the San culture today). Evocative images include those believed to
represent shamans deep in trance: an antelope-headed man surrounded by imaginary beasts, for
instance, or an insect-like humanoid covered with wild decorations.
African cave art - such as this picture from Brandenburg in South Africa - much more commonly depicted
humans than European examples.
Shamans
David Lewis-Williams, a South African scholar, has developed a theory broadly based on ethnographic studies of
contemporary hunter-gatherer societies which posits that many cave paintings were actually made by
shamans themselves.
A shaman is an individual who acts as a link between the real world and the spirit world, a task usually performed
by means of dances and symbolic trances. Animals in cave art might therefore be “spirit animals,” rather
than more literal representations of the real things. The idea is that the shaman would retreat into the
darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some
notion of extracting power from the cave walls themselves.
This idea would seem to fit with the Astuvansalmi rock paintings in Finland, since they could have a link to the
Siberian and North European shamanistic tradition, where the sun was thought to be a deer or elk
running through the sky. The theory may also go some way to explaining the remoteness and weird
location of some paintings, and the fact that only rarely does it seem that people actually lived in the
caves where they created their art.
“Casual and Earthy Themes”
R. Dale Guthrie, a paleobiologist from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, makes a rather less fantastical reading
of cave art. By studying not only the most artistic and publicised paintings but also a variety of lower
quality art and figurines, he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists, and points out that
“all ages and both sexes were making art, not just senior male shamans.”
His adds that cave paintings don’t always bear the “obvious imprint of ritual and magic but,” but more often
“express more casual and earthy themes.” Prevalent among these “casual and earthy themes” were
powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and erotic representations of women – in other words, creations of
the over-active and over-sexed imaginations of adolescent males, who comprised a big part of the human
population in the Paleolithic period.
Young men killing time and indulging their fantasies in casual art? Maybe some cave painting was just ancient
graffiti after all.
Lascaux cave painting (top) by Aadava; Brandenburg cave painting (bottom) by Mark H Turner. All rights
reserved.
Lascaux Cave, France
Containing some 600 paintings, Lascaux Cave in France's Dordogne River Valley is home to perhaps the world's
most incredible array of Upper Paleolithic art. Prehistoric artists created the depictions of bulls and other
animals on the cave's calcite walls more than 17,000 years ago. The cave—and its artwork—was
discovered by a group of teenagers in 1940.
Photograph by Sisse Brimberg
The Dordogne is an unspoilt area of outstanding natural beauty with lovely wooded hillsides, winding rivers,
spectacular towns and villages and 1001 chateaux. You will be spoilt for interesting places to go in this,
the most beautiful region of France.
Your holiday cottage in the Dordogne is beautifully situated for visiting the region and a few of the interesting
places to see are shown here.
Bergerac. Visit the old town and take a boat trip on the Dordogne from the old port. There is an open market on
Saturdays until midday.
Bordeaux. This is worth the 90 minutes drive for the magnificent architecture and the shopping.
Sarlat La Caneda. It's easy to drive around the town and think there is nothing to see here. But when you park
the car and enter the pedestrianised old town you'll discover the beautiful medieval town.
Beynac, above, is just one of many dramatic and spectacular towns and villages on the Dordogne river. Climb the
steep streets to the chateau for some lovely river views.
A little further up river is another beautiful and interesting village, La Rocque Gageac, where you can take a boat
ride for a different view of the river.
Visit Limeuil, a pretty village where you can picnic and swim at the confluence of the Vezere and the Dordogne.
There are many cave systems in the region. In the Vezere valley is the Lascaux cave, known as the 'Birthplace
of Art' where prehistoric cave paintings were discovered in 1940. Since the Lascaux Cave is closed to the
public, a replica has been created at Montignac, 200 metres from the original cave, where two of the
galleries have been reproduced, the 'Great Hall of the Bulls' and the 'Painted Gallery'.
There are many 'Bastide Towns' in the Dordogne. These are fortified towns, built in medieval France starting
around 1230. They have a grid layout and a central market square with a covered weighing and
measuring area. Lalinde, 6 kms from the cottage was the first bastide town, but others include
Beaumont, Monpazier, Moliere and Cadouin.
The Chateaux of the region are too numerous to mention, but it is always exciting to round a bend in the road and
be confronted by an architectural work of art.
Most of the local towns have their market day. Those at Lalinde, on a Thursday, and Le Bugue, on a Tuesday,
are worth a visit.
We have only scraped the surface here of all the places of interest in the Dordogne. You are welcome to come
and see them all.
The June 19, 2006 issue of Time magazine had an interesting and frightening article that immediately arrested my attention.
Not the lurid cover story with the big red “X” drawn through the face of al-Zarquai (which I won’t even go into).
No, the subject of the article that caused a lump in my throat and a twisting in my stomach was the article regarding the
delicate condition of the cave paintings at Lascaux. The hundreds of beautiful depictions of Paleolithic horses, bulls
and deer in this cave are suffering serious damage and are in very great danger of deteriorating beyond redemption.
They survived, these marvelous paintings at Lascaux, intact, unseen and untouched for millennia. Then, in the 1940s they
were accidentally rediscovered by some young men blundering into a hole revealed by a fallen tree. The care of this
treasure over the past 60 years, it sometimes seems, has been handled in the same blundering manner as its
discovery.
The causes of the destruction are myriad and run the gamut from the well-meaning but misdirected, to the stupid and
blundering. The latest plague -- a white fungus that has just about covered every inch of some of the decorated stone
chambers “like snow” -- was most likely caused by altering the natural air flow in the cave with a new climate
control system. The worst damage has been caused by mere human presence – the carbon dioxide exhaled by the
thousands of visitors, researchers and preservationists that have paraded through over the years since its rediscovery.
The article concentrates mainly on the political and cultural aspects of how such a travesty came about – is it the monolith of
bureaucracy, the misguided belief that modern equipment can improve nature’s preservation system, or just plain
stupidity? The author of the article seems to demonstrate that there’s plenty of blame to spread around evenly and I
don’t really want – or need – to rehash his article.
What I really want to talk about is my visceral reaction to the thought of those paintings being lost forever. It literally made
my head swim. The article states that “Bruno Desplat… one of the cave’s caretakers… who lives next to Lascaux
and has devoted more than 15 years to its care, says that when he saw the luxuriant bloom, he became physically
ill.” And who can blame him? I felt exactly the same, thinking that something like this might disappear:
The paintings at Lascaux are more than 17,000 years old by anyone’s best scientific estimate. Which does not even make
them the oldest of the known cave art galleries. The paintings at Altamira, Spain are 20,000 years old. At the
moment the oldest known cave paintings belongs to the caves at Chauvet, also in France, which are carbon dated at
32,000 years old and may have been in continuous use for about 6,000 years! These extraordinary paintings go back
to the very beginnings of our dominance as a species. They may even mark the moment that we finally arrived as
homo sapiens sapiens.
Although the first of the great caves was discovered in the 1860s, it took another 40 years for our modern scholars to accept
these works as real. As being the work of our early human ancestors. Today, we realize that these are the great
works of our first communicators. Our first reporters, our first accountants, our first story tellers, our first shamans,
our first… Artists. These early human Artists were Us. And we are them. Their heirs, their descendents, their means
of continued expression.
Humans are, first and foremost, visual animals. A picture is worth a thousand words, is one of our most expressed truisms.
Even our alphabets arose from pictograms. Take, for a quick example, the letter “D.” Our modern letter can trace its
form backwards through history to the earliest Roman alphabet (approx. 7th c. b.c.e.* ). Before that, back to the
Greek letter, delta (in the alphabet developed between 13th c. b.c.e. and 9th c. b.c.e.). And before that, the humble,
yet resilient letter D can be traced to the Semitic Phoenician symbol (14th c.b.c.e.) for a doorway or entrance. The
writing system of the Egyptians was based on pictures, today the Chinese and Japanese, to name just two, continue
to use a writing system based on pictograms. We still depend on pictograms on our traffic signals, rest rooms and
even on highway signs. The rise of a written alphabet came late, late in our history. Before that, and to this day, were
the pictures, always the pictures.
The first time I saw a depiction of the cave paintings, I had to be about 10 or 11. I happened to stumble on The Picture
History of Painting: From Cave Art to Modern Times*. On the introductory page was a picture -- small, grainy and
in black and white -- of one of the horses from the caves at Altamira, Spain. The next pages hold pictures of buffalo
and a wild boar, and a abstract hunter, bow in hand. And at the top of the next page, the kneeling bison. This was the
image that gripped me hard. Wounded? Sleeping? Praying to the bison god? I was captivated and enthralled by these
powerful images. There was something in these representations, some recognition of a narrative symbol, a
commonality with that ancient artist, that went straight to the emotional center of my brain and burned itself there.
That first chapter is titled: The Magic Pictures of the Cavemen. ** The authors are quite straightforward in their assertions
that these are the pictures or representations of a primitive and uneducated people who wanted nothing more than to
get the gods – in whatever form they understood them – to send them more food.
But I have to disagree. There is nothing at all “primitive” about any cave paintings. They are not the stumbling, awkward,
first efforts of children. Where that Art is -- our first untutored efforts at creating pictures -- is still a mystery. They
may be buried or lost forever. But they won't be found in the cave paintings. Although many images are layered one
over the other, they are perfect. They are as representational, as proportionate, as beautiful – if not more so -- as any
Renaissance painting or Greek statue. They are as expressive as anything by Hockney or Picasso.**** They are as
fresh as any work by any artist starting today who will be the next Klimt or Rembrandt or Pollack. They are fully
formed Art.
So then, what was their purpose? Were they religious representations, magical charms to bring a good hunting season as the
authors aver? Some sort of adulthood rite of passage, as Joseph Campbell has speculated? Stories about the tribe’s
past hunting season? Speculation on future ones? A description of history? A sort of drawing contest? There’s even
a book by a leading cave expert claiming it was the work of young graffiti artists. Or were they, in actuality, simply,
fully, gloriously Art? No religious significance, no mystical attachments. Only an expression of human creativity.
Art for art's sake.
The debate over their meaning has raged since their first modern discovery, and we will most likely never have the complete
answer. In light of the vast time period over which they were painted (approximately 20,000 years overall), the
physical distance they cover (to date, in Europe alone, England , France, Spain, Portugal and Italy with more being
found all the time) and the sophistication of the colors and tools the artists used, there is currently an intense reevaluation of cave paintings and their meanings.
Such early and sophisticated paintings are found all over the world. On every continent (except Antartica, and there may be
some spelunker right now, carving pictures of penguins into the rock base beneath the ice) there are drawings,
etchings, scratchings, carvings and paintings in caves. Where there are no caves, Art appears on the bare rocks.
In Australia:
In Thailand:
In Baja California:
In India:
And, of course, cave paintings are still speaking to us today. Loud and clear. Their messages and beauty travel down the vast
corridor of years to find us, the artist. To speak to us, the ordinary every day person. But we are not so “ordinary” as
all that. Something in a cave painting connects us to our ancestors, who were extraordinary in themselves. Google
“cave painting” and you’ll get a lot of sites referring to each of the caves and places I’ve mentioned. But you’ll also
get this at the DeLorean Mailing News Site:
“Cave Painting”: aka Writing done inside the doors at the Factory . With samples like this:
Or you’ll find artists like James Seibert, bringing old images to new life.
Or the images of young artists at the Eastchester Middle School:
Today, most of the great caves and their paintings are closed to the general public. There is a bitter reason for this. When a
cave is 'opened', and the conditions which enabled paintings to survive are altered, deterioration can be rapid. The
paintings described as "superb" that were found at Bédeilhac in the Pyrenees during the First World War
disappeared completely within six months of the cave's discovery. Today only the unique molded clay reliefs are
still visible, there are no known photographs of the paintings. At cave sites, visitors are shuffled off to
“reproductions” and “cave historical sites.” Even scholars have a difficult time getting into places like Altamira or
Lascaux. The caves and their beautiful works have been loved nearly to death.
The loss of even a portion of these great paintings should upset and sicken everyone of us who counts themselves as human
beings. Yet, who can blame us for wanting to see these paintings? They represent creative humankind at its
flowering – the best and brightest evidence we have of when the idea of Art first burst forth and had real expression.
No matter what destruction we’ve wrought as a species, what great monuments have fallen, what things of beauty
we blow up, these paintings represent something about human creativity that still speaks to us down the centuries.
Something that touches the common human core in all of us.
======================
Footnotes:
*Period designations are “b.c.e.” – Before the Common Era and “c.e.” – the Common Era.
**I will be writng a great deal more about this book – a major artistic influence -- at another time.
***Please keep in mind this book was published in 1957. There has been a great deal more research since then. Now, at least,
researchers can mostly agree that they don't know.
****Upon exiting from the caves at Lascaux, Picasso is reported to have said, "We invented nothing."
Posted by B. Lynch Black on July 14, 2006 2:01 PM
Prehistoric European Artifacts
Anthropologists conjecture, not without dispute, that the first man appeared in Africa and migrated
North into Europe and East into the Middle East and from there to India and China and
over a land bridge into Alaska and the Americas. This happened quite early, maybe 500
centuries before Christ. No one knows how many migrations took place or in what order
they occurred.
But some of the oldest artifacts come from Europe, starting 250 centuries before Christ, and some
are clearly art. Prehistoric European artifacts share little with the prehistoric traditions
found in Mid-Eastern artifacts.
Art is generally thought of as a human artifact made for pleasure, not for use. This is a rough
definition because religious art is usually made for some kind of use, but nevertheless it is
usually categorized as art. Some tools are made so beautifully that they qualify as an art
object, but yet they were obviously made to be used.
Many artifacts have survived from prehistoric Europe. Some are clearly art. For example: the
carving of a mammoth ivory tusk into the form of a horse; which has been dated at 280
centuries BC. Or the Willendorf "Venus" (found in prehistoric site in Austria in 1908)
which is a stone carving dated around 250 centuries BC. These are accomplished works of art for
such an early period and with the crude tools assumed to be available.
Climate and Cultural Development in Europe
The global temperature has cycled in a 10 degrees C. range for the last 4,000 centuries. The cause
of the temperature change is not completely understood, nor why the variations occur in
each cycle.
It is difficult to conceive of time cycles in this large range. But if you look on the chart above you
can see a little mark next to the 20c AD line. That is year 1 AD; so the 20 centuries since
Christ are that little segment.
This next chart may give a better perspective. It covers only the most recent ice age and the period
following it. Note on this scale man has been around since 3,000c BC, so only the last
warming period is a relatively recent occurrence. And the modern cultural period is a
speck compared with the time man has been on the earth.
On the other side of the coin, few humans existed for those 300,000 years; it was not until
agriculture provided enough food resources that the human population began to explode.
This pattern of temperature fluctuation does not give the whole story. It does not describe local
temperature variations that may have occurred during the period. In fact climate variation
according to the latest evidence is highly variable; for example around 120c BC there was
a dramatic 7 C. warming within 50 years. Also in 1,200c BC, in the middle of a long warm
period, the climate cooled 10 C. for several centuries. More detailed evidence may show
even wilder variations on a year-to-year basis. It appears that we are living in an unusual
period of relatively long-term temperature stability
Note that the Willendorf "Venus" is dated about the onset of the last ice advance. Clay objects,
antler carvings, and cave drawings also come from that period. Essentially nothing of
artistic significance comes from before this era.
The dates in the above chart for the historical era, bronze and iron ages are based on when
something happened somewhere in the world. This is a bit misleading most of these
innovations occurred in the Middle East first, and it was tens of centuries later before these
technologies had spread to Europe. The emphasis on climate is also a little misleading, for
the humans in the Mideast were far less affected by the cold periods than their northern
brothers.
It is clear looking at the data that global warming was happening with or without the presence of
man. It is also clear that if the climate is about to change the recent warming trends are just
a continuation of a historical pattern; and the real worry is the onset of another period of
intense cold.
It is also clear that all the chest beating about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, while important,
will probably not change things significatly. In general it is a good idea not to polute the
environment and everyone ought to embrace and act on it, that is a moral judgement, but
in terms of global warming it will probably not have much of an effect.
Paleolithic Cave Art
European Paleolithic man used caves during the periods of global cooling, at least for ceremonial
events; evidence for this comes from many areas which contain cave encampments in
which the remains of burnt wood can be carbon dated to the last global cooling period.
But there is not enough evidence of long-term occupation to believe that caves are
where man spent the cold spells.
No art has been traced to a cool period beyond the most recent one which indicates that the human
settlement of Europe occurred 150c to 200c BC.
Some of the most famous Paleolithic cave art locations are Lascaux, discovered in 1940; Altamira,
discovered in 1879 and explored in the 1950s; Chauvet discovered in 1994, and the
underwater cave Cosquer, discovered in 1991 near Marseilles. New European caves with
Paleolithic art are probably still yet to be found.
The Lascaux cave is the most well explored network of caves and Paleolithic art ever discovered. A
duplicate of it has been made for the Tourist trade and to protect the original. Janson's
"History of Art" contains a map of the cave, an artist's version made compatible with the
web is presented here.
Ceiling
Painted Gallery
Lascaux
Shaft of the Dead Man
Lascaux
[detail - Bull]
[detail - dead man]
The painted caves do not seem to be dwelling places over long periods of time. The paintings are
usually done in fairly inaccessible and uncomfortable places. This leads one to believe that
they were symbolic, probably part of some ritual ceremony. A guess is they were part of
the coming of age ritual, one of the secrets that you were granted when a youth became a
hunter in his own right. It was probably a men-only ritual.
Probably the best Paleolithic art so far discovered is the most recently discovered: Chauvet. There
is an excellent book produced by the discoverer with wonderful pictures. To find out about
Chauvet visit the French ministry of Culture website (click here).
Cave Drawings from Chauvet
There are still legal wrangles over the value of the land at Chauvet and the legality of the discovery.
If you are interested in the gossip a bit of web surfing should find it. However the
sophistication and quality of the drawing at Chauvet is still amazing, despite any modern
bickering about ownership.
One must never forget that the intelligence of man has not changed, as far as we know, from those
early days. This is after all very late in the evolution of man. So much so these people are
really indistinguishable from us. So people had just as much going on in their head as we
do, they just didn't have the technology or resources we do. So one should not think of
these early brothers as less, except perhaps a bit poorer in technology.
Stone Circles and Stone Monuments
Neolithic stone circles and land markings occur throughout the UK and Europe. They are of a much
later date. They occur well after the historical era about 20c to 10c BC, and well after
early-man in England had settled down and begun to grow food rather than be nomadic
hunters. Stonehenge here is classified as prehistoric art of the United Kingdom; however it
should be realized that the pyramids in Egypt predate it, 25c, and they are from "historical"
times. However Stonehenge is probably the most impressive Neolithic stone monument in
Europe, and as far as we know, the people who built it did not have a written language.
Select the image below to learn more about Stonehenge.
Stoneage England
Ancient art
2005-10-14
©2011 Novastock Photo and World of Stock. Unlicensed Use Prohibited
More Info
Keywords: stock photo photos prints image images pics photography
Ancient Civilization, Ancient Civilizations, Animal,
Animals, Art, Arts, Assorted, Assortment, Assortments, Background,
Backgrounds, Basic, Brown, Cave, Cave Painting, Chronicle, Chronicles,
Communication, Conservation, Creativity, Depicting, Design, Designs,
Detail, Detailed, Details, Drawing, Etched, Etching, Fundamental,
Heritage, Historic, Historical, History, Horizontal, Landmark,
Landmarks, Many, Message, Messages, Numerous, Old Fashioned,
Paintings, Pattern, Patterns, People, Preservation, Primitive,
Rudimentary, Shape, Sight, Simple, Simply, Symbol, Symbolic, Symbols,
Tour, Touring, Tourism, Tourist Attraction,
Tourist Attractions
Variety Of Cave Paintings And Primitive Art Depicting People Animals And A Wheel. Stock Photo
Cave Art Angry Mammoth
This funny, Cave Art, Cave People, Angry Mammoth graphic design is available for t-shirts, tank
tops, jersey, sweatshirts, hoodies, other apparel, coffee mugs, mousepads, stickers,
buttons and magnets.
Stock Photo:
cave art
Image ID: 49057759
Release information: N/A
Copyright: Dean Gah
Keywords:
ancient, animal, antique, arrow, art, background, cave, cow, cult, culture, decoration, deer, design, drawing,
elements, european, fire, geometric, goat, graphic, historic, horse, hunt, icon, illustrate, men, native,
north, old, organic, ornament, painting, pattern, pencil, people, pottery, relics, rock, shape, sign,
silhouette, sketch, stone, style, symbol
Similar Images Preview
reproduction of a prehistoric...
a reconstruction of a cave...
the painting on stone wall be...
famous prehistoric rock...
famous prehistoric rock...
famous prehistoric rock...
prehistoric petroglyphssingle
rock...beam from the sun that...
The Cave of the Mind
March 10th, 2011
by Lindsay Lawson
Inhale. As you exhale your body relaxes. Exhale moving into a deep quiet place inside you… You can see off in
the distance what appears to be a cave. As you approach the cave you see that there is a large opening.
Enter the cave…
About 32,000 years ago, humans inhabited the Chauvet Cave in what is now southern France and covered the
walls with art. Predatory animals like lions, bears, rhinos, and hyenas are etched into the smoothed wall
surfaces next to a chimerical half-human-half-animal figure, abstract lines and dots, and a few
unidentifiable winged things. Experts believe that the paintings had some kind of shamanistic purpose for
those Aurignacian cave people. Some of what they were painting clearly came from within the mind,
rather than what was running around, pouncing, and attacking cave people in the physical world.
32,000 year old painting in Chauvet Cave. Photo by Jean Clottes/Chauvet Cave Scientific Team.
A distinctly separate inhabitation of the Chauvet Cave occurred during the Gravettian era about 3,000 years later.
Most of the paintings covering the cave walls were made during the earlier Aurignacian period, so these
later cave dwellers would have been confronted with the physical marks of memory, the traces of an
earlier people. Perhaps the Gravettian cave people were not of artistic and ritualistic inclination, or did not
value the act of mark-making for posterity, since they left only charred remains, smoke residue, and a
single child’s footprints. That cavechild was likely the last human to look upon the paintings until three
speleologists rediscovered the cave in 1994. For about 25,000 years, a cave full of pictures sat unnoticed
in France, a country with a rich history in painting, but those pictures afford a glimpse into the imagination
of the prehistoric mind.
Ceramic skull container and alien cookie jar.
In almost anything one might read about the mind, the language of space is often used to describe theories
explaining the conditions and processes of memory, imagination, and consciousness. Memory is
compared to a storage warehouse of information, while theories diverge about how exactly that data is
stored and then retrieved and which parts of the brain are involved in the process. Mental contents –
thoughts, concepts, memories, emotions, perceptions, intentions – are things described as being inside
the mind, its key distinguishing feature being that “it is a private sphere to which no one but the owner has
access.” Although many scientists and philosophers do not consider consciousness to exist in a unitary
place in the brain, proponents of the electromagnetic theory of consciousness suggest that the brain’s
electromagnetic field is consciousness itself. This literal brainstorm of firing neurons that might be
consciousness is housed inside a single space, the skull cavity, while the skull, skin, and cerebrospinal
fluid protect the brain’s electromagnetic field from external EM interference.
You’re going deeper into your cave…
Caves are popular destinations for guided visualizations and meditations. They are secluded, beautiful, winding,
mysterious spaces that are perfect for mental journeys. Practitioners who spelunk their mental caves
understand, at least intuitively, the connection between the mind and caves. Each has the quality of being
elusive and difficult to map. Cave systems are awarded superlatives including the qualifier “known” (i.e.
Deepest Known Cave) because it is assumed that there is usually more cave that has yet to be explored,
while the mind is a philosophical, psychological, and scientific labyrinth of yet to be understood
connections. Parts of the mind are subconscious, while the cave is subterranean. The contents of both
can be dreamlike and surreal. Even the plate-like bones of the skull bear a similar physical appearance to
cave walls. The recesses of the mind can be dark and mysterious places, while both the physical brain
cavity and cave systems are literally dark spaces, devoid of light.
Plato uses light as a metaphor in his Allegory of the Cave (from The Republic ca. 380 BC) to elucidate his Theory
of Forms relating to knowledge and reality. In Plato’s parable, the cave dwellers are literally prisoners
(they are physically chained), but they are also prisoners in their own minds as they watch a continuous
shadow play on a cave wall before them, never seeing the real objects which cast the shadows. Their
dark world is a mere reflection of reality.
Neo holding a copy of Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation" in the movie "The Matrix."
The skull is a cave is a movie theater. The image Plato conjures in his myth is very close to that of the cinema:
prisoners/spectators gaze at a light show upon a wall/screen that mimics reality, at least temporarily. The
dark, sometimes dank, movie theater is where we go to experience a kind of reproduction of or divorce
from reality. At the very least, it is a translation of reality onto the surface of a flat screen.
In addition to being metaphorical spaces, caves are also at times replicate, enhanced, and virtual spaces. The
cave-space of the cinema occasionally features the caves themselves as the settings and subjects of
movies. 1,000,000 Years B.C., Clan of the Cave Bear, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Raiders of the
Lost Ark, Dune, Batman Begins, and (kind of ) 127 Hours are just a few. It follows that there might be a
few lingering “stage caves” on some unused back lot somewhere in Hollywood. Show caves, like Cave
Without A Name, are natural caves equipped with lighting design, hand rails, and guided tours to enhance
the visitor’s experience. Perhaps most ambitious are the replica caves such as Altamira in Spain and
Lascaux II in France. Much like Chauvet, Lascaux is a cave system in southern France famous for its
prehistoric cave paintings. It was discovered by four teenagers and a dog named Robot in 1940, only to
be closed to the public in 1963 to prevent further damage to the paintings cause by the carbon dioxide
exhaled by numerous daily visitors. In 1983, Lascaux II, a replica of part of the cave system, was opened
200 meters away form the original.
But the ultimate meta-cave is Werner Herzog’s 2010 3D documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. If the cavecinema system of the theater also describes the internal mental projection of the mind’s eye, then
watching one of Herzog’s documentaries is like being inside his weird brain, if his brain matter, in the
case of this film, was made of cave rock formations. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a 3D film exploring
Chauvet Cave, which has been closed to the public, secured with a solid door and alarm system as well
as permanent audio/visual surveillance. Herzog sweet-talked his way into 6 days of access to film,
thereby creating the ultimate “known” mental cave. The viewer is able to explore the 3D virtual cave
space via the edited film’s time-space that inherently mimics the disjointed time-space of the mind all from
within the cave-space of the theater.
In any proper guided meditation, the practitioner should exit the visualized space the same way he or she entered
or else risk feeling unbalanced afterwards. Moviegoers, except for the (clearly unbalanced) cheaters who
cut directly to the parking lot, enter and exit the theater through the same doors that lead to the lobby. To
ease the audience safely out of the film, the lobby is a buffer between cinema world and the harsh mall,
street, or parking lot world. Many large cave systems demand that spelunkers enter and exit through the
same known passages, since alternate routes may be unexplored and therefore extremely dangerous.
The cave of the mind asks this as well; we must exit states of consciousness the same way we entered,
unless we are going somewhere entirely new.
It is now time to say goodbye. Return through the cave and come back to the meadow. Gently being your
attention back to your body and when you’re ready open your eyes…
Stock Vector Illustration:
Cave painting on a white background. Vector art-illustration.
Image ID: 38240194
Release information: N/A
Copyright: tanik
Keywords:
ancient, animal, arrow, art, background, bow, cave, cave painting, cult, culture, decoration, design, drawing,
elephant, era, figures, food, foot, graphic, hand, historic, history, hunt, hunter, icon, illustration, image,
men, national, native, old, painting, past, person, prehistoric, rhinoceros, silhouette, symbol, tattoo, tribal,
tribe, vector, wild animal, women, work
Similar Images Preview
vintage background with a...
fashion shopping girls...
original oil painting on...
face
girls in night club the grange watercolor female...
young beautiful woman dancing...
pop art comic 1 love vector...
581. Nsangwini Rock Art
1960s Photographer: Rev. Forrester
Photo Source: Swaziland Digital Archives
This is a Bushman painting in a cave above the Komati River at Nsangwini. There are two lines of figures
that are dancing around a fire, the top figures have stone spear heads in their hands, these are gaining
power in a ritual dance to enhance their effectiveness in the hunt. The bottom two figures have human
bodies, birds wings and probably praying mantis heads. These combination figures are only found in the
power world which is entered into in a trance. Nsangwini Rock Art site is open to the public, there are
signs from the Maguga Dam road and they can be contacted by phone at 637 3767.
Art of Prehistory
Paleolithic Period
(30,000-10,000 B.C.E.)
The most famous cave paintings are those found within the Lascaux caves of France. Painted with earth
pigments of red and yellow ochre and charcoal mixed with animal fat, they are extraordinary examples of
the artistic capabilities of prehistoric men. The images combine their creator's understanding of the animal
forms, an elegant sense of line, and vigorous gesture. It is a widely held belief among anthropologists that
these paintings had a magical purpose for the tribal societies that created them. Painted deep within the
caves, these caverns were sacred spaces. It is very possible that, within this earthly womb, the tribes
performed magic rituals related to the hunt.
Carbon dating reveals that the Lascaux cave paintings were created sometime between 15,000 - 10,000
B.C.E (before the common era). For many years, scientists believed that these were some of the first
artworks created by humankind. In 1994, however, paintings were discovered in another cave in France
known as the Chauvet cave. These paintings date back to around 30,000 B.C.E, pushing back the history
of art by several thousand years. It could be possible that some artworks were created even earlier than
this. Anything that may have been created with less permanent materials are lost. The only way we can
know anything about the earliest humans comes from study of their paintings, carvings, and tools. The
carving at right looks like a lion's head combined with a human body. We can only guess what
significance this may have had. Perhaps early man recognized that other animals were more powerful
than they were, and wished to possess that power themselves.
Venus of Willendorf
Venus of Laussel
Prehistoric carvings which have inspired much speculation are those of women, known as "venus" figures. Above
are two of the most famous examples, though hundreds of similar figures have been discovered
throughout Europe.. The term actually has nothing to do with the goddess of love, but is used to identify
these feminine figurines- which all exaggerate the reproductive features of large breasts, hips, and
abdomen. It is unclear exactly what their significance was for early peoples. Very few,if any, figures were
found in the shape of men, so we know that the choice of gender is significant. We can only guess that
they may have served as a charm for bringing fertility. Most of them are very small (only several inches in
height), and were possibly carried. The Laussel Venus is an exception, carved on a cliff site. The horn
which she holds in her right hand suggests the idea of the "horn of plenty"... perhaps suggesting the
bountiful reproduction not only of their own species, but of all things necessary for survival.
Many of the best artifacts of early humans exist in
western Europe. The Lascaux, Chauvet,
and many other cave paintings exist in
southern and central France. Another
well-known cave is the Altamira in
northern Spain.
The Venus of Willendorf was found in Austria, and
the Laussel Venus is close to the caves of
Lascaux.
Stonehenge is located on the Salisbury Plain, in
England. Many other similar structures
have been found in that continent.
248 881 1186austen