A few months ago I received a very interesting paper from Canada by a researcher with the name of Vazrick Nazari. Nazari discussed the possibility of some Upper Paleolithic imagery representing Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Having written about other insects in RockArtBlog (bees, spiders, centipedes, earwigs – see cloud index below) I have found this a compelling subject and am now ready to tackle it.
Nazari set the scene in this way. “A succession of cultures in the Upper Paleolithic are recognized, mainly based on their stone tools. The earliest, the Aurignacian in Europe, lasted roughly from 45,000–28,000 BP (Wood 2011). The hunter-gatherer Aurignacian culture also included artists who created the magnificent decorations at Chauvet cave in the Ardéche Valley of France, one of the earliest known painted caves in Europe. Several Aurignacian sites with parietal art have been identified in France, Spain, Italy, and Eastern Europe. Subsequent Gravettian (30,000–22,000 BP), Solutrean (22,000–17,000 BP) and Magdalenian (17,000–12,000 BP) tool cultures followed the artistic traditions of Chauvet painters. Before the discovery of Chauvet in 1994, Lascaux (18,000 BP) was thought for a long time as the high point of artistic expression in the Paleolithic. Chauvet also upset the notion that representational effectiveness in art gradually improved over time from the early Paleolithic to the end of last Ice Age.” (Nazari 2021:66) The time span, and the range of cultures is immense by our historical standard of a few thousand years.
Nazari then described the tradition and nature of Paleolithic art. “For an art that lasted more than 20,000 years and over vast distances, it would be naive to expect a solid unity or a linear progression: No precise correlations exist between a culture’s technology and its art, and the age and style of Paleolithic art do not always coincide. Nevertheless, many characteristics are common through all Paleolithic cultures that produced cave art. Artists mostly represented animals and abstract geometric designs. Humans were seldom depicted and when they were, they appeared deliberately sketchy or caricatural, possibly because they did not play the same role as the animals in the myths and religious practices of the time.” (Nazari 2021:66) In this assumption, Nazari is assigning the motive of cave art images to their importance in spiritual beliefs of the culture that created the images. This would suggest that if they did not produce images of butterflies or moths, they must have not had any spiritual significance. It is hard to imagine that the beauty of some butterflies did not provoke some sort of spiritual connections though.
He then continued with some examples of insect portrayal in ancient art. “The oldest unambiguous depiction of a lepidopteran in rock art is Neolithic (~7,000 BP) (Schimitschek 1978) (Fig 3f). The conspicuous absence of Lepidoptera in Paleolithic art maybe explained by the difficulties associated with interpretation of the geometric symbols by which the Paleolithic people may have tried to represent butterflies or moths in their art. Among the many categories of geometric symbols in Paleolithic caves, some of the “aviforms” (motifs resembling birds) and “tectiforms” (motifs made up of straight lines, such as rectangular shapes) seem to resemble schematic insects with two or four wings, similar to moths Antenna in resting position. Züchner (2000) assigned several of these signs to “butterfly-or-bird-type” symbols.” (Nazari 2021: 67-69) Here, we find that Nazari is assuming that there are portrayals of Lepidoptera, we just have not recognized them.
Nazari cited Zuchner (2000) who wrote about butterfly or birdlike signs in Chauvet “these signs of Grotte Chauvet have no exact parallel in other caves. But anyway they are unique. Most similar are the breastlike sign of Le Portel (Ariege), the reliefs in the Roc de Vezac Cave (Dordogne) and the ivory pendants of the Gravettian site of Dolni Vestonice (Moravia). At least one of Chauvet’s signs has much in common with the red drawings of La Pasiega in northern Spain. The ‘butterflies’ of Chauvet may be the realistic predecessors of the varied family of so-called ‘signes en accolade’ (bracket signs) or of ‘Le Placard type’. Excavations at Le Placard proved them to be Solutrean. But there are firm arguments to assume an earlier origin of the type. (Figure 4).” (Zuchner 2000). It seems hard here to tell if Zuchner is finding some relationship or connection between butterflies and women’s breasts, or just pointing out the similarity. In either case Zuchner is now beginning the process of noticing butterfly-like symbols.
Nazari sees some of these as butterfly symbols as well. “The reniform symbols in Roc de Vezac may be interpreted as two butterflies in the midst of a mating dance. The tectiform sign in Bernifal may depict a mating pair of Amata moths. These moths and butterflies are still present in Dordogne today. The Paleolithic people would have observed these critters individually and in copula. These early humans, with the same cognitive capacity as us, would have known what the mating pair were doing. For them, this simple act would have represented fertility, generation of new life, and the magic of procreation.” (Nazari 2021:71) What sense does it make to portray a butterfly or moth underground in a cave? I have to wrestle with this question while I write on this subject. Of course, one reason is preservation. The caves are where the images are preserved the best. But then I ran across a paper about species of moths that live in caves in Korea (Kim et al. 2018) If some of them can live in caves, then it would make more sense to portray them there.
North American First Nations peoples had symbols for butterflies and moths that were used in their art.
And I have photographed one petroglyphs at the Three Rivers Petroglyph site in New Mexico that might represent a moth based upon the antenna.
Finally, I found a beautifully portrayed butterfly from India. “The first evidence of butterfly on rock painting is reported here from Central India along with a total of 48 species of butterflies photographed in Putka Hills, Korba district of Chhattisgarh, India. General analysis, including consultation with experts and comparative studies with known butterfly taxa, indicates that the depicted butterfly corresponds to the family Papilionidae. The size and shape of the butterfly in the rock painting are extremely comparable to the Papilionidae butterflies that are still seen in the region today. We noticed that butterflies of family Papilionidae are abundant and most visible in the area. Their abundance and the remarkable beauty, combined with their ease of sight, most certainly drew the attention of ancient humans, motivating them to include these butterflies into their rock art as a form of artistic expression.” (Tandan et al. 2026)
So, are all of these actually meant to be butterflies and/or moths? Probably not, but some are apparently accurate purposeful renditions of lepidopterae. And the whole subject adds a new area of interest in rock art altogether, and something new to look out for when in the field. See you out there.
NOTE: Some images in this column 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:
Kim, Do Sung, Soeng Joon Park, Sang Hoon Han, Don Won Choi, Young Gun Choi, Hyun Jung Kim, Dong Gun Kim, Hoonbok Yi, 2018, Ecological characteristics of a cave-dwelling moth species, Thiphosa dubitata (Lepidoptera: Geometridae), in Baram and Ssang caves in Gwanwon Province, Korea, https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-5967.12254. Accessed online 5 January 2026/
Nazari, Vazrick, 2021, Lepidoptera in Upper Paleolithic Art, pp. 66-72, Antenna 2021: 45 (2), pp. 66-72.
Tandan, Hit Narayan, Ashok Pradhan, Nidgi Singh, Dinesh Kumar, Avinash Yadav, Ravi Naidu and Swati Tandan, 2026, Lemru Elephant Reserve Found First Butterfly Depiction in Rock Painting: A Remarkable Discovery From Korba, Chhattisgarh, Indian Journal of Entomology 88:111-113. doi://10.55446/IJE.2025.2005. Accessed online 5 January 2026.
Züchner, C., 2000, Grotte Chauvet archaeologically dated. Accessed online at: Tracce Rock Art Bulletin, p. 12. http://www.rupestre.net/tracce/?p=2812.
SECONDARY REFERENCE:
Schimitschek, E., 1978, Ein Schmetterlingsidol im Val Camonica aus dem Neolithikum. Anzeiger
für Schädlingskunde Pflanzenschutz Umweltschutz 51: 113–115.
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