WHO PAINTED THE MAMMOTHS?

Kapova.

www.donsmaps.com.

Public domain.

Mammoth, Public domain.

From the very beginning of cave art studies we have assumed that all cave paintings were made by Paleolithic Homo Sapiens. The splendid paintings of horses, aurochs, deer, and mammoths must have all been made by our ancestors living back at that time. But no one seems to have asked the question "could these have been painted by someone other than us?" Now, in his 2012 book Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution, David Rothenberg has given us a direct - and unexpected - answer. It turns out that very presentable pictures of elephants can be painted by elephants, and I must therefore assume that very presentable pictures of mammoths and mastodons could have been painted by mammoths and mastodons.

Elephant painting.

www.mnn.com.

Public domain.

Elephant painting.

Public domain.

No less an investigator than Desmond Morris, the great naturalist, has delved into this subject for the Daily Mail. Morris visited an elephant sanctuary in Thailand where he observed elephants painting pictures of elephants, flowers, and trees. These pictures are eagerly snatched up by tourists and the proceeds of the sale help support the elephant sanctuary. These elephants hold a paintbrush in their trunk and, dipping it into paint, then create the image on paper held on a heavy easel, but it could just as easily be painted onto a rock surface.

Paya painting and elephant.

Public domain.

www.i.dailymail.co.uk.

Public domain.

Now it may be that many of the images of mammoths and mastodons found in caves are in locations that elephants could not have gotten to because of small, narrow passages, low ceilings, etc., and in those instances we can credit homo sapiens with the images. However, if the access was otherwise unimpeded I believe that we have to allow for the possibility of non-human creativity in these cave paintings, at least on April Fool's Day. 

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the originals at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Morris, Desmond,

2009    Can Jumbo Elephants Really Paint?, 21 February 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/articcle-1151283/Can-jumbo-elephants-really-paint-indtrigued-stories-naturalist-Desmond-Morris-set-truth.html.

Rothenberg, David

2012    Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution, Bloomsbury Pub., London.