How many times have you experienced an emotional response to rock art? It can range from the simple joy of finding a panel that you have been searching for to the sense of awe experienced in front of a magnificent panel, but, whether we are aware of it or not, the viewing of rock art can be wrapped in emotional response.
For me, one example of the simple joy of finding rock art was finally seeing the “She who watches” petroglyph over Washington’s Columbia River. Another would be a hike through Vermillion Canyon, observing numerous petroglyphs along the way, and finally reaching the main “Thunderstud” panel.
Examples of rock art that produced a much stronger feeling like awe would include the Grand Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands, Utah; the 3-Kings panel at McConkey Ranch outside of Vernal Utah; and the Dinwoody Lakes rock art in Wyoming. In each instance I felt humbled thinking that centuries or millennia ago someone had purposely created these grand images.
But what other emotions could we expect rock art to elucidate. How about fear? Some researchers speculate that the magnificent painted caves in Europe were the sites of coming of age ceremonies wherein the flickering lights on the images, and accompanying sounds, served to frighten the participants. “Similarly, visual images that are dark and/or obscure typically elicit emotions of anxiety and fear. This is because an impeded visual field is disadvantageous for a human to be able to defend itself.” (Wikipedia) Or again, if some rock art is a territorial marker as some researchers contend, I might be expected to react with a certain level of fear if I see a rock art panel that tells me I have entered the territory of a hostile group. It might signify personal danger.
Mammoth, Rouffignac, France. Internet image, public domain.
But these cases are examples of the reaction of a
viewer to the rock art, what about rock art purposely created to express
emotion? A 2020 paper in the journal Time
and Mind by Eyal Halfon and Ran Barkai postulates the emotion of longing in
much of the rock art of Europe’s Paleolithic art. They wrote “Mammoths appear in many cave drawings in
Upper Paleolithic Europe. Twenty eight percent of the cave drawings are devoted
to horses, 21 percent of bison, 10 percent to mammoths, and another 10 percent
to wild goats (Paillet and Wolf 2018). An extensive review of 150 caves with
cave drawings in France and Spain showed that out of 4,000 artistic
representations of animals, ca. 350 are of mammoths (Sauvet and Wlodarczyk
[2000] 2001). In the Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian culture (17,000 – 12,000
years ago), the number of artistic representations of mammoths surpassed that
of other animals, including horses and bison. The mammoth was prevalent mainly
in cave drawings in the Perigord region, where they were usually drawn in red
or black outline, and in a number of instances shaped in yellow clay (Paillet
and Wolf 2018). These authors also note that, with the exception of a few
pieces of ivory, teeth, and bone, there is very little evidence of actual
mammoth remains at sites attributed to the Magdelanian. The faunal record
actually indicates that the wolly mammoth was already extinct or no longer
present in the region where the artistic representations are most prevalent (Paillet
and Wolf 2018).” (Halfon and Barkai 2020:13-14)
Halfon and Barkai also cite excavations of an Upper
Paleolithic Magdelanian site in the heart of Germany’s Rhine Valley at the
village of Gonnersdorf. Excavations there yielded 61 engravings of mammoths on
46 different stone plates, but faunal remains revealed no significant presence
of mammoths (Bosinski and Fischer 1974), and they suggest that what few remains
of mammoths were present were collected from the environment as sub-fossils for
use as raw materials (Joris, Street, and Turner 2011).
“Dated
mammoth remains from Gonnersdorf and Oelknitz are considerably older than dates
obtained from the bones of other species present at the sites. At Gonnersdorf,
a series of radiocarbon dates of animal bones places its occupation at between
12.9 and 12.7 kaBP (Hedges et al., 1998). The dates for the mammoth remains are
more than 1.5 kaBP older (Stuart et al., 2002). It is likely that the human
occupants of the sites deliberately searched for and collected fossil mammoth
remains in the region.” (Gaudzinski 2005:187)
It is supposed that these relict mammoth remains were
collected as raw material for the creation of tools or other practical uses.
“Even
more mysterious than the representations of extinct mammoths at Gonnersdorf is
the artistic presence of seals at the site. In general, seals are among the
less frequent animals found at Upper Paleolithic sites, both in faunal
assemblages and in their basic ‘artistic’ form. Overall, 17 creative
representation of seals have been identified, mostly in Spain, France, and Germany.
This number is especially low in light ot the thousands of animal
representations dating to the Magdalenian culture (Cleyet-Merle and Madelaine
1995). At Upper Paleolithic sties with depictions of seals there are at most
one or two such depictions. However, at Gonnersdorf nine representations of
seals were discovered, despite it being 450 kilometers from the nearest coast
(Hansen 2006).” (Halfon and Barkai 2020:13-14)
The authors also point out that the seal images at
Gonnersdorf reveal different styles and levels of artistic ability. The range
of images and various styles suggests that more than one artist was involved in
their creation. (Halfon and Barkai 2020:13-14)
“Several
scenarios have been proposed – and refuted – to explain the images: migration
of seals in the Rhine; lakes that housed seal populations; drastic climate
change, and more. However, the most plausible explanation for the drawings of
the seals is that the humans who drew them had seen seals and remembered them
(Hansen2006). This explanation was first proposed by the site excavators, who
postulated that the inland artists had visited the distant coast and knew those
animals very well. They were thus able to draw them with confidence and
accuracy (Bosinski and Bosinski 1997). Thus, the seals of Gonnersdorf and the
mammoths of Perigord might represent a residual memory of longing and yearning,
much in the same way that writers write vividly about events that took place
long ago or artists paint familiar landscapes from memory.”
(Halfon and Barkai 2020:13-14)
“At
Gonnersdorf the seal depictions are found in all four concentrations, clustered
inside or in the immediate vicinity of the house/tent-like structures, thus
they can be ascribed (to) the habitation phases of the respective houses/tents.
This means that the seals were depicted during at least two different
habitation phases, and maybe during three or more. Therefore, the seals were a
part of people’s imagery over a long period of time, indicating either repeated
visits of seals, or astoundingly accurate mnemonics, spanning generations.”
(Hanson 2006:95)
As to the question of visits of seals swimming up the
Rhine, Hanson (2006:94) points out that “Gonnersdorf
was situated more than 450 km from the sea which represents a very long distance
for seals to migrate.”
So, at the site of Gonnersdorf in Germany we have
concentrations of images of mammoths apparently created some time after the
disappearance of mammoths in the area, and seals in a place that is very
unlikely for seals to be found. Halfon and Barkai (2020:14) attribute this to
the emotions of “longing and yearning.” Longing and yearning certainly
represent emotion in Paleolithic Art if they are right. It is perhaps analogous
to looking back to a previous Golden Age that we humans are so prone to do.
What other emotions might we find in a deep analysis of the motives of
the creation of rock art?
NOTE: Some 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 original
reports at the sites listed below.
PRIMARY
REFERENCES:
Gaudzinski,
S., et al., 2005, The use of Proboscidean remains in
every-day Palaeolithic life, Quaternary
International 126-128, pp. 179-194.
Halfon,
Eyal and Ran Barkai, 2020, The
material and mental effects of animal disappearance on indigenous
hunter-gatherers, past and present, Time and Mind (journal),
DOI:10.1080/1751696X.2020.1718309
Hansen,
M. C. 2006. “Beyond
seals. The representation of seals on Engraved Slate Plaquettes from the
Magdalenian site Gönnersdorf (Central Rhineland, Germany).” Thesis in
Archeology, University of Trømso, 134.
Wikipedia, Art and Emotion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_and_emotion. Accessed on 25 January, 2022.
SECONDARY
REFERENCES:
Bosinski,
G., and H. Bosinski. 1997. “Robliendarstellungen Vim
Gonnersdorf, Sonderveroffentlichungsn.”
Geologisches Der Universitat Zu Koln 82: 81–87.
Bosinski,
G., and G. Fischer. 1974. Die Menschendarstellungen von
Gönnersdorf der Ausgrabung 1968 (Der
Magdalénien-Fundplatz Gönnersdorf 1). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag
Cleyet-Merle,
J., and S. Madelaine. 1995. “Inland Evidence of Human Sea Coast
Exploitation in Palaeolithic France.” in Man
and Sea in the Mesolithic, edited by A. Fischer, 303–308. Oxford: Oxbow
Books
Hedges,
R.E.M., Pettitt, P.B., Bronk Ramsey, C., van Klinken, G.J., 1998,
Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS
system: archaeometry datelist 25, Archaeometry 40, 227-239.
Paillet,
P., and S. Wolf. 2018. “Le
mammouth dans l’art paléolithique.” L’Anthropologie 122 (3): 522–545.
doi:10.1016/j.anthro.2017.11.004.
Sauvet,
G., and A. Wlodarczyk. [2000] 2001. “L’art pariétal, miroir des sociétés paléolithiques.” Zephyrus:
Revista de Prehistoria y Arqueología 53–54: 217–240.
Stuart,
A.J., Sulerzhitsky, L.D., Orlova, L.A., Kuzmin, Y.V., Lister, A.M.,
2002, The latest wooly mammoths
(Mammuthus primigenius Blumanbach) in Europe and Asia: a review of the current
evidence, Quaternary Science Reviews 21, 1559-1569.
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