PORTABLE X-RAY FLUORESCENCE ANALYSIS OF PIGMENTS IN CAVE PAINTINGS:

Entrance to Font du Gaume cave, France. Photograph by Don Hitchcock, Donsmaps.com.

An important development in the potential dating of European cave art has been made by the use of portable x-ray fluorescence equipment to analyze the pigments used in the paintings. If the black paint is based on Manganese dioxide there is no possibility of radiocarbon dating it, however, if black paint is based on charcoal can be identified, then the possibility of radiocarbon dating does exist. The scientific team carried this analysis out in Font de Gaume Cave in France.

A variety of photographic techniques were used to enhance variations in black pigments in the paintings. These small variations were assumed to be perhaps related to the use of different black pigments which could then be analyzed with the portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF), and micro-raman spectroscopy.

Painted bison, Font du Gaume, France. From Leroi Gourhan.

“From a technical and a stylistic perspective, two types of animal representations can be distinguished. On the one hand, we have lifelike painted bison treated with bi- or polychromy, where painting and engraving are associated with the relief effects of the wall for an exceptional rendering. Different shades can be observed, ranging from black to brown and from red to yellow as well as the designs being mainly done in black and red. The archetype of “hyperbison” is found in many of these individuals. There are also drawn naturalist bison with black lines. On the other hand, there are graphical entities of different animals as well (bison, horse, deer) that are drawn and exhibit a more schematic style. Capitan et al. hypothesized at least two different styles of representations right after the discovery of the cave art in Font-de-Gaume. Leroi-Gourhan also stated that at least two creation steps are noticeable from the outset in the Font de Gaume cave. Evidence of different creation steps of the ornamentations have also been provided for the Bull Rotunda in the Lascaux cave and Pech-Merle, Lot, France–Henri Moissan, a French Nobel prize winner, identified in 1902 Fe and Mn oxides in the coloring matter samples from the Font-de-Gaume decor. Today, this UNESCO world heritage site is protected and sampling is only allowed by authorities in highly exceptional cases. The awareness of the fragility of decorated cave sites has led to a transition from micro-sampling to non-invasive analyses, carried out in-situ. Scientific imaging was used to record figures and panels of the Font-de-Gaume cave. Areas of interest could be selected for in-situ point analyses by portable X-ray fluorescence analyses (pXRF) and micro-Raman spectroscopy.” (Reiche et al. 2023:1-2)

Figures photographed in different spectra of visible light. Font du Gaume, France. Photographs by A. Maigret.

Along with the pXRS and micro-Raman spectroscopy, the rock art was photographed with a range of color filters which also helped enhance the analysis of some pigment differences. “Photographic imaging allows observing coloring matters at the scale of the panels and figures in the cave. The points for chemical analyses by pXRF and for mineralogical analyses by portable micro-Raman Spectroscopy can be judiciously chosen. This also limits the number of analyses required per figure and allows extrapolating the results of the physico-chemical analyses to the whole figure or at least the remaining visible part of it. The results of the analysis can therefore be read and discussed in the prehistoric context at the scale of a figure, a panel or even an area in the cave.” (Reiche et al. 2023)

“Portable XRF analyses were conducted in-situ in the cave with the portable ELIO device of the brand XG-Lab/Bruker® of the C2RMF fixed on a tripod with two axial translations (forward and backwards as well as left to right) and three rotation axes. This standardized device holds a 50 kV X-ray tube with a Rh anode that can deliver a power of 4 W. The detector is a 17 mm2 SDD whit an energy resolution of 140 eV at the Mn Kα line. It is also equipped with a collimator able to focus the beam into a 1 mm spot, two lasers, a positioning system and a tripod. The distance between the measuring head and the wall is 5 mm. It also benefits of a camera for the observation of the measurement spot. The experimental conditions were 600 s of acquisition time with 40 kV and 40 μA delivered by the X-ray tube.” (Reiche et al. 2023) The first known use of pXRF equipment to analyze pictographs was by Bonita Newman and Lawrence Loendorf in 2005. (Newman and Loendorf 2005)

Font du Gaume reindeer, France. Image from Pinterest.

“The mobile Raman measuring device used was developed by Jobin–Yvon HORIBA and consists of components that can be easily moved during a measurement campaign. The device is equipped with a “Superhead SH 532” measuring head with an Olympus “long working distance” objective. In-situ Raman measurements require an arrangement with high flexibility and high stability at the same time. A working distance of 10 mm between the head and the wall guarantees the safety of the painted wall.” (Reiche et al. 2023) Raman spectroscopy detects the vibrational frequency of molecules, and since the molecules of each element vibrate at different frequencies the various elements can be distinguished. Micro-raman spectroscopy is raman spectroscopy through a microscope so a very small area can be analyzed, like a painted line or dot.

These studies determined that some black lines, dots, and areas were created using charcoal as the black pigment meaning that these could also be dated using radiocarbon (C¹⁴) dating. These techniques could be reasonably expected to be reliable in other instances of painted pictographs as well.

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.

REFERENCES:

Baum, Stephanie, 2023, First discovery of carbon-based cave art in France's Dordogne region could pave way for precise radiocarbon dating, 18 December 2023, https://phys.org/news/2023-12-discovery-carbon-based-cave-art-france.html. Accessed online 29 December 2023.

Reiche, Ina, Yvan Coquinot, Antoine Trosseau and Anne Maigret, 2023, First discovery of charcoal based prehistoric cave art in Dordogne, 14 December 2023, Nature Portfolio, Scientific Reports, 13:22235, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-47652-1. Accessed online 29 December 2023.

SECONDARY REFERENCE:

Newman, Bonita, and Lawrence Loendorf, 2005, “Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis of Rock Art Pigments.” Plains Anthropologist, vol. 50, no. 195, pp. 277–83. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25670828. Accessed 9 Sept. 2024.

CANARY ISLAND ROCK ART AND LITHOPHONES:

 

Canary islands. Graphic - M. HersherScience; Data - Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I have written about lithophones, as well as music and rock art, in previous columns (please check the cloud index at the bottom of the blog to see those articles). In this column I am going to discuss the relationship of lithophones to rock art panels on the Canary Islands.

El Hierro Petroglyphs ,Rock Art on the Canary Islands, Spain.

In a study of the rock art and lithophones of the Canary Islands, lead author Marco Merlini explained “Rock carvings are one of the most significant expressions of Guanches, the aboriginal stone age population that disembarked at the Canary archipelago during the first millennium BCE. It was formed by Paleo-Berbers with roots in the Mediterranean North African koine and with close links to the Libyan-Punic milieu.” (Merlini 2019:1) In linguistics, a koine or koine language or dialect is a standard or common dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two or more mutually intelligible varieties of the same language. (Wikipedia) Lithophones have been found all over the world and from a great many cultures, both ancient and modern. These musical rocks consist of many different minerals from limestone, lavas and granites to jade and stalactites.

Petroglyph rock on the Canary Islands. Online image, public domain.

In the Canary Islands “lithophones are located alongside petroglyphs, drawings and inscriptions incised into rocks of archaeological sites that are often astronomically significant. The sound rock sites and their use from prehistorical times until recent times are recalled by oral tradition too. In several instances, we know only the toponyms of the lithophonic sites, their location, and a generic oral memory emphasizing their special (and sometimes reputed magic) sonorous effects. The collective, although feeble, reminiscence maintained in the Canary Islands generation after generation represents the fundamental base of the investigation on the music of the stones. It includes: explication of toponyms; association of the lithophones with the ancestral meaning of rock carvings, channels, cup-marks, and other types of rock art in the surrounding areas; their relationship with engraved texts; connections of the ringing stones with legends and related traditions as places of worship, and/or of performing special rituals, and/or of supernatural interest and consecration.” (Merlini 2019:246) The authors included no actual factual evidence of astronomic significance of either petroglyphs or lithophones, but the possibility is not out of the question.

“Canary Archipelago possesses an atout (asset) for our chances to understand the pre-historical exploitation of rock art sites for music-making. If we get to know that a natural “rock gong” produces sounds on a musical scale, then the subsequent question is to understand how it was used in the past, and even if it was actually in use. Association with musical instruments, petroglyphs, cave paintings and archaeological remains give only partial hints. The lithophones of the Canary Islands were alive in the troglodyte pre-Hispanic period and sometimes even after it. Part of the question concerning their exploitation is therefore solvable thanks to oral traditions or legends about their role in ceremonies or in creating an alert. The Canary Islanders, descendants from the Guanches, keep memory about certain stones and rock surfaces that were in use even in historical times to produce a peculiar metallic sound when being struck, and their peculiar association with rock art engravings.” (Merlini 2019)

Petroglyph rock on the Canary Islands. Online image, public domain.

Robert Bednarik (2010) wrote about lithophones being useful for long distance communication. “Judging from the few recorded instances it seems the utilitarian role of lithophones or rock gongs relates primarily to the communicating or carrying ability of the produced sound, and the metallic sound of effective lithophones can carry over distances of several kilometres. as mentioned above, in one report it serves to communicate with ancestors.” (Bednarik 2010:117)

Rocking lithophone on Canary Islands, Image from tenerifeweekly.com.

The government has sponsored a study of Canary Island lithophones. “Through the work promoted by the General Directorage of Cultural Heritage in Tenerife, La Gomera and El Hierro, three types of lithophones have been documented: percussion, aerophones and rocking. The latter has only been found on the island of El Hierro and, as its name suggests, the sound is produced by rocking.” (Europa Press 2022) Someone standing on the top stone with one foot on each side can, by shifting weight, start a rocking motion on the top stone. The friction between the shifting top stone and the rock beneath causes the vibration that makes the sound. I wonder if the top stone would also ring if just struck like the other lithophones?

Canary island lithophones showing striking points. Online image, public domain.

“Sometimes Guanches shaped the acoustic space. In certain cases, they arranged the stone blocks to empower their sonority. For example, lithophones have been oriented to empower the sounding board effect of the surrounding space. In other cases, the natural sound of the rocks was accentuated by artificial layout and configuration of the place (Ulbrich 2003). 

Lithophones are located alongside petroglyphs, drawings and inscriptions incised into rocks of archaeological sites that are often astronomically significant. The sound rock sites and their use from prehistorical times until recent times are recalled by oral tradition too. In several instances, we know only the toponyms of the lithophonic sites, their location, and a generic oral memory emphasizing their special (and sometimes reputed magic) sonorous effects. The collective, although feeble, reminiscence maintained in the Canary Islands generation after generation represents the fundamental base of the investigation on the music of the stones. It includes: explication of toponyms; association of the lithophones with the ancestral meaning of rock carvings, channels, cup-marks, and other types of rock art in the surrounding areas; their relationship with engraved texts; connections of the ringing stones with legends and related traditions as places of worship, and/or of performing special rituals, and/or of supernatural interest and consecration. However, still nowadays the ancestral sonorous rocks are affected by suspicions that chains them to "pagan culture and spirituality". Lithophones have a diversity of forms, structures, geological frames and sounds, but they share a gloomy common denominator: most of them have been vandalized, plundered, but never Christianized, i.e. reformulated and taken under control by the Catholic Church and its liturgy. Contrariwise, the lithophones had a social and cultural solid place in the Canary native world.”  (Merlini 2019)

Lithophone playing in the Canary Islands. Online image, public domain.

In the statement by Bednarik above (2010) he speculates that the primary utilization of lithophones is for communication. This generalization seems based on the fact that any form of sound produced and then heard is, in some sense, communication. “Most likely, their ancient function was multiple, taking advantage of their sonority and the exceptional loudness that benefit the sites in which they are embedded. Prehistoric and protohistoric manifestations firstly inserted the lithophones among the natural sites that anchored animism and attested the magic-ritual features of the sound of the volcanic stones. Music had not only a playful character, but also ceremonial in association with crops, cures, and offerings to divinities and deceased. Spanish conquerors and their chroniclers inform about rites of the ancient Canarians, mainly hinged on the request for rain. They included fasting of the entire village, processions with their livestock to certain elevated places or to the ocean, lamenting invocations by humans and even cattle and flocks (that Europeans misunderstood as yelling and barking), round dances, beating the ocean with sticks, sink palms and branches into the sea to make them weep, etc. Lithophones offered support for rhythmic or a-rhythmic sound production within the proscenium for the sacred acts aimed to gain the divinities’ pity (Ulbrich 2003).” (Merlini 2019) Again, the purpose is assumed to be communication, in this case with the divinities.

Of course tapping or pounding a boulder with another rock will eventually make marks, especially since reportedly many of the lithophonic boulders make different notes what struck in different locations. The question then should be are these marks also petroglyphs although they are a result of making a sound, not an image? Unfortunately, Merlini’s paper (2019) neglects to establish any relationship between the lithophones and certain petroglyphs, although a few may be discerned from illustrations.

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.

REFERENCES:

Bednarik, R. G., 2010. About lithophones. In R. Querejazu Lewis and R. G. Bednarik (eds), Mysterious cup marks: proceedings of the First International Cupule Conference, pp. 115-118, BAR International Series 2073, Archaeopress, Oxford. Accessed online 18 June 2024.

Europa Press, 2022, Documented a new typology of lithophones in El Hierro, 15 June 2022, Tenerife Weekly, https://tenerifeweekly.com. Accessed online 11 February 2024.

Merlini, Marco, 2019, The Sound of Rock Art: Canary Lithophones, https://www.academia.edu. Accessed online 17 June 2024.

Wikipedia, Koine language, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/koine_language. Accessed online 16 September 2024.

SECONDARY REFERENCE:

Ulbrich, H. J., 2003, Frequenzanalyse eines Lithophons auf Lanzarote (Kanarische Inseln), Almogaren XXXIV, Wien, p. 331-346.

IS THERE A WOOLY RHINOCEROS PETROGLYPH IN THE GRAND CANYON?

Wolly rhinoceros. Online image, public domain.

On 10 January 2015 I published a column on RockArtBlog about the Doheny Expedition to the Grand Canyon to record petroglyphs of dinosaurs. In this column I wrote “This expedition was led by Samuel Hubbard, director of the expedition and an honorary curator of archaeology at the Museum (The Oakland Museum, Oakland, California), and accompanied by Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the United States National Museum. The report on this expedition was written by Hubbard and published on January 26, 1925.” (Faris 2015) I tend to be quite critical of creationists and all of their claims such as ‘dinosaurs and humans living together in history.’ In order for there to be a petroglyph of a dinosaur most people would expect that dinosaurs had to be alive at the same time that there was a human artist to record it. Although there is the possibility that the petroglyph could have been the result of a prehistoric interpretation of fossil remains, that strikes me as unlikely.

The Moab petroglyph, Doheny expedition report, p. 27. Photo by Mr. Kelly of Grand Junction, Colorado, 1925.

The Moab petroglyph as seen today showing re-pecking. Photograph Dell Crandall, 2004.

Then, I continued “On page 27 of the report is the astonishing claim that the petroglyph found along the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, and often called the “Moab Mastodon” is really the picture of a wooly rhinoceros. Hubbard wrote: ‘A PREHISTORIC GAME TRAIL: From the Grand Canyon in southern Utah comes another remarkable petroglyph. This was photographed and sent to me by Mr. George Kelly of Grand Junction, Colorado. The outline of the figure was so faint that he was obliged to chalk it in to secure a satisfactory photograph. There is not the slightest question in my mind that this was intended to represent a rhinoceros. All the ‘rhino’ character is present. The menacing horn; the prehensile upper lip; the short tail; the heavy body and short legs, all suggest a ‘rhino’ about to charge. This is the first time it has ever been known that prehistoric man in America was contemporary with the rhinoceros. I have before me an outline of a wooly rhinoceros sketched by an artist-hunter on the limestone wall of the Cavern of Les Combarelles in France. The difference between the two is that the Cro-Magnon hunter shows the ears of his ‘rhino’ erect and pointed forward, while the American artist shows the ears turned over. I venture the prediction that there was that difference in the two animals.’ The photograph illustrating this claim shows the “Moab Mastodon” as it was prior to 1925. How much prior we cannot know because Hubbard does not reveal when he actually received the photo from Mr. Kelly of Grand Junction, Colorado. What I find very interesting is that this early photo allows us to compare with the same petroglyph as it is presently found. The first time I visited the “Moab Mastodon” I suspected that the figure had been seriously re-pecked as the patina across its torso seemed to me to show a suspicious variability. Indeed, comparing a new photo of that image with the pre-1925 photo suggests that the torso has indeed seen a major episode of touchup. This could possibly be a relic of the conditions under which it was originally photographed, so I cannot claim this to be any kind of definitive proof. The other major problem that I found with the “Moab Mastodon” was that it shows definite toes or claws. Checking those features in the 1925 photo they seem to be even slenderer and more defined. These are definitely not the feet of either an elephant or a rhinoceros.” (Faris 2015) I have elsewhere stated that while I do not believe we will ever be sure, I think that the so-called ‘Moab Mastodon’ is likely a bear with a large fish in its mouth.

So-called Wooly rhinoceros petroglyph in the Grand Canyon. Photograph by Jennifer Hatcher.

Now we have another report of a petroglyph of a wooly rhinoceros, this one actually from the Grand Canyon. In 2020 Ray Urbaniak wrote in Pleistocene Coalition News: “Jennifer Hatcher is a high stamina Grand Canyon, Arizona, rock art photographer whose pictures of rarely-depicted animals I have featured in two earlier articles, with what resembled a saiga antelope and with what resembled a peccary. Jennifer recently sent me a couple of new photos also taken in the Grand Canyon. One photo, which she described as a ‘bison,’ caught my attention right away. However, it didn’t strike me as a bison but I wasn’t sure what else it could be until I noticed what appeared to be a small horn near the middle of what is the presumed ‘head.’ I then thought it looked strikingly like a wooly rhinoceros – and extinct animal known for one long horn on the snout and a smaller horn farther back.” (Urbaniak 2020) The photograph in question shows what appears to be a quadrupedal animal of some sort although quite crudely done as no legs are shown. In the area presumed to be the head on the right there are two projections; a large curled on at the end, and a smaller one a little way in from the right end. I assume Hatcher called it a bison thinking the larger projection was a horn and the smaller an ear.

Wooly rhinoceros from Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

Another Wooly rhinoceros from Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

We now have one major problem in this identification. All of the references I could I could find agree that the wooly rhinoceros never lived in the Americas. “By the end of the Riss glaciations about 130,000 years ago, the woolly rhinoceros lived throughout northern Eurasia, spanning most of Europe, the Russian Plain, Siberia, and the Mongolian Plateau, ranging to extremes of 72˚to 33˚ N. Fossils have been found as far north as the New Siberian Islands. Even during the very warm Eemian interglacial, the range of the woolly rhinoceros extended into temperate regions such as Poland. It had the widest range of any rhinoceros species. It seemingly did not cross the Bering land bridge during the last ice age (which connected Asia to North America), with its easterly-most occurrence at the Chukotka Peninsula, probably due to the low grass density and lack of suitable habitat in the Yukon combined with competition from other large herbivores on the frigid land bridge.” (Wikipedia)

Wooly rhinoceros image from Les Combarelles Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

So, it would seem that we are faced with two possibilities; either there were wooly rhinoceroses in the Americas and we have just not found the fossil evidence yet, or this is another misidentification of a Grand Canyon petroglyph. For the first possibility, if there were actually wooly rhinoceroses in the Americas people would have arrived before their disappearance so they would have been able to see them, but, lacking any fossil evidence to back that up, I have to assume that this just is another case of misidentification. I will add another possibility to the mix, perhaps, as in the case of the Moab Mastodon, this is also meant to be a bear eating a fish and the smaller projection is meant to be an ear. All in all, it is an interesting question, but I am pretty sure it would not be accepted as proven in a court of law.

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.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2015, Is There a Wooly Rhinoceros Petroglyph Near Moab, Utah?, 10 January 2015, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com.

Urbaniak, Ray, 2020, Possible Wooly Rhinoceros Petroglyph, Pleistocene Coalition News, edited by John Feliks, Volume 12, Issue 6, November/December 2020. Accessed online 30 September 2024.

Wikipedia, Wooly Rhinoceros, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooly_rhinoceros. Accessed online 30 September 2024.

PREHISTORIC SPECIES IDENTIFICATION FROM CAVE IMAGERY:

European Steppe Bison. Illustratuon by Constantine Fierow, 1989, from Pinterest.

I have written previously in RockArtBlog that rock art in general, and cave art in particular, might provide insights into extinct animals that otherwise are only known from fossils. Of course, in the past decade or so, DNA analysis has reached the point that quite an amazing amount of knowledge can be gleaned from those fossils. However, I believe that having good art showing a subject can also help in the understanding of the real creature. A paper published in 2016 by a team of researchers led by Julien Soubrier of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide described the DNA discovery of a new species of bison, only to find it already pictured on the painted cave walls in Europe.

Aurochs. Internet image, public domain.

In 2016 Soubrier wrote that “the two living species of bison (European and American) are among the few terrestrial megafauna to have survived the late Pleistocene extinctions. Despite the extensive bovid fossil record in Eurasia, the evolutionary history of the European bison (or wisent, Bison bonasus) before the Holocene (<11.7 thousand years ago (kya)) remains a mystery. We use complete ancient mitochondrial genomes and genome-wide nuclear DNA surveys to reveal that the wisent is the product of hybridization between the extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus) and ancestors of modern cattle (aurochs, Bos primigenius) before 120 kya, and contains up to 10% aurochs genomic ancestry. Although undetected within the fossil record, ancestors of the wisent have alternated ecological dominance with steppe bison in association with major environmental shifts since at least 55 kya. Early cave artists recorded distinct morphological forms consistent with these replacement events, around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ~21–18 kya).” (Soubrier et al. 2016:1)

Wisent, the product of hybridization between the extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus) and aurochs, (Bos primigenius). Internet image, public domain.

Over the millennia that early humans inhabited Europe there were swings in climate between glacial and non-glacial which affected the biome. These early humans recorded some of those changes in the images they created.

Painted aurochs from Lascaux Cave. Internet image, public domain.

‘More than 30,000 years ago, early cave artists in what is now southwestern France ventured deep underground into limestone caves, where they painted elaborate and detailed frescoes of the huge animals that dominated their lives. The accuracy of the depictions was remarkable – far better than most of us could manage crouched under a sloping damp wall under the flickering light cast by flaming bundles of vegetation and fat. The paintings record a world of cave lions, mammoth, bison and horses, which we are only just beginning to unravel using the combined technologies of ancient DNA and radiocarbon dating. The results show that despite studying cave art for hundreds of years, we have been blind to some of the important stories the artists were telling.” (Cooper and Soubrier 2016) This is, of course, due to the modern jingoistic assumption that these Paleolithic peoples were primitive and unsophisticated, an assumption that we are finally beginning to understand as seriously wrong.

Painted wisent, Altamira Cave, Spain. Image from newworldencyclopedia.org, public domain

“Our research is a case in point. We have used ancient DNA from fossil bones to deduce the existence of a newly discovered bison species – only to discover that it was already recorded on the walls of caves across Europe, such as in Niaux Cave in southwestern France 17,000 years ago.” (Cooper and Soubrier 2016)

Cave painting of a Steppe Bison from Niaux Cave, France. Image from Bradshaw Foundation.

“Since the DNA from our ancient bones was neither Steppe bison nor wisent, we appeared to have found a new species - or had we? We started referring to it as the “Higgs bison”, because – just like the elusive Higgs boson which physicists spent decades tracking down – we had surmised the existence of something without knowing what it looked like.” (Cooper and Soubrier 2016) This would appear to be the result of a kind of compartmentalization in scholarship, the idea that only we know the truth about whatever it is we are studying. While art historians knew of the differences in the images of bison we did not actually know the cause, while the scientists had hints of the cause but had no idea that the images existed.

Comparative morphology of Steppe bison and Wisent. Image from Soubriere et al., 2016, page 2.

Once the research was made more public other data began to come in that would help clarify the situation. “Dutch colleagues reported that among the many Steppe bison and Aurochs bones dredged from the North Sea they had noticed another, less common, smaller animal. Meanwhile, French cave art researchers replied that they had noticed that among the cave drawings were two distinct forms of bison: a wedge-shaped one with big horns, rather like a modern American bison; and a more evenly shaped animal with smaller horns, like a modern wisent.” (Cooper and Soubrier 2016) In other words, putting the genetic evidence together with the differences in stylistic representation of bison in the caves of southern France and northern Spain the researchers discovered that pictures of the different species actually existed and could be studied.

Cave painting of Wisent, Font-de Gaume Cave, France.

Image from musee prehistoire-eyzies.fr.

The DNA studies of fossil bison from the Paleolithic period indicated that steppe bison and aurochs had interbred and led to the hybrid species of bison and the ancestor of the wisent. “Combined evidence from genomic data, paleoenvironmental reconstructions and cave paintings strongly suggest that the hybridization of steppe bison with an ancient aurochs lineage during the late Pleistocene led to a morphologically and ecologically distinct form, which maintained its integrity and survived environmental changes on the European landscape until modern times. Although further analyses of deeper ancient genome sequencing will be necessary to characterize the phenotypic consequences of such hybridization, this adds to recent evidence of the importance of hybridization as a mechanism for speciation and adaptation of mammals as is already accepted for plants. Lastly, the paraphyly of Bos with respect to Bison, and the evidence of meaningful hybridization between aurochs and bison, support the argument that both groups should be combined under the genus Bos.” (Soubrier et al. 2016:1) The new bison species, a result of hybridization of had been noticed by cave art researchers as a different body shape and horn length. Their question of whether it was a different animal, or a different style of portrayal, was answered by the DNA studies confirming a new bison. In this way both fields, genetics and art history, combined to confirm each other’s findings. How great is that?

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.

REFERENCES:

Cooper, Alan, and Julien Soubrier, 2016, How we disovered the ‘Higgs bison’, hiding in plain sight in ancient cave art, 18 October 2016, https://theconversation.com. Accessed online 7 September 2024.

Soubrier, Julien et al., 2016, Early cave art and ancient DNA record of the origin of European bison, 18 October 2016, Nature Communications, DOI:10.1038/ncomms13158, www.nature.com/naturecommunications.