ORGANIZING PATTERNS IN CAVE PAINTING?

Horse, bison and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

From the discovery of the painted caves of Europe (and the eventual acceptance of their authenticity) people have been trying to reason out a meaning for these images. Of course, one of the first theories posited to explain them was hunting magic, the idea that creating the image of a game animal would improve one’s chances of success in the hunt. Another way of looking at this art was to attempt organizational analysis, what would be called ‘design’ in art history.

In ‘The Hunters of Prehistory’, in 1989, Andre Leroi-Gourhan wrote “it is certain that the men of the Upper Paleolithic had a highly developed system of beliefs, expressed in symbolic images related to the world of hunting. It was long believed that the animals represented prey, whose portrait was ‘killed’, and so, by magic, the animal itself. The detailed study of some one hundred ornamented caves in France and Spain revealed that, although the caves don’t follow the rules of modern composition and perspective, the positions of the images could not be explained solely by chance.” (Leroi-Gourhan 1989:137-138)

Horses and bison, Ekain, Spain. Image from Leroi-Gourhan, 1989, page 139. Image clarified by chatGPT.

When interest turned to the design of the painted panels (their patterning) relationships between various species have been posited and expressed. “The list of animals represented on walls is shorter than for those depicted on bone artifacts. On walls horse-bison plus ibex is the most widely distributed assemblage. Horse and bison (or auroch) make up the basic formula, but examples of just these two species are rare. In ond case, the figures are located face to face on two walls.” (Leroi-Gourhan 1989:140) So here is posited a relationship between animal imagery that leads to design decisions on placement.

Horse, auroch, lion and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

Other species are assigned places in these assumed relationships as well. “The most dangerous animals – bear, large felines and rhinoceros – have positions at the edge of the engraved panels (Les Trois-Freres), in the grouping farthest away from the entrance (Lascaux), or simply at the end of the grouping (Labastide).” (Leroi-Gourhan 1989:140) In this he is leaning on a much shakier assumption, indeed, perhaps the bear, large feline and rhinoceros are the important groupings, and the other animals grouped somewhere away from them.

What seems to have been missing in these analyses is any indication of the painting style of individual animals. In some cases the hand of the artist is recognizable in a group of animals, but in other instances animals in close proximity may have been done by different hands at different times. This would make it somewhat harder to state a certain relationship between animals. Different minds and different artists may not see the supposed rules quite the same way. In other words, I might paint the bison here just because I want the bison here, irrespective of other animals in its vicinity.

Horses, aurochs, and reindeer, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

A new study, and statistical analysis, of painted caves in France, Spain, and Italy has come out with conclusions that re-open the arguments about intentional groupings of painted subjects.

“Taken together, the network-based results support the existence of an underlying organizational grammar governing the combination and distribution of themes in Magdalenian cave art. This structure operates at multiple, interrelated levels: through recurrent thematic associations within panels; through hierarchical differentiation, whereby certain motifs occupy structurally central positions; and through spatial patterning, expressed in the uneven distribution and reiteration of motifs across compositional units. Within this framework, large herbivores—particularly bison, horse, and ibex—emerge as key organizing themes, while other motifs appear to fulfill more contextual or articulatory roles.” (Intxaurbe 2026)

“These findings are consistent with long-standing structural interpretations of Upper Paleolithic parietal art and extend them by demonstrating their statistical robustness within an expanded, systematically documented, and partly unpublished corpus. The minimum spanning tree analysis further refines this picture by identifying bison as the primary structuring node of the thematic hierarchy. This configuration closely matches patterns previously described for both Cantabrian and Pyrenean contexts and gains particular significance in the Basque region, which occupies an intermediate geographical and cultural position between these areas. However, sensitivity analyses indicate that the precise hierarchical ordering may vary depending on the inclusion or exclusion of specific categories or assemblages, with ibex or horse occasionally occupying the most central position. This variability does not undermine the overall structure; rather, it suggests the existence of a stable triadic core—bison, horse, and ibex—whose internal ordering remains flexible. The recurrence of this triadic configuration across analytical variants supports the hypothesis of partially shared organizational principles operating within interconnected Magdalenian symbolic networks, while the shifting prominence of each element points to complementary rather than strictly hierarchical thematic roles.” (Intxaurbe 2026) This analysis has a renewed reference to Leroi-Gourhan’s bison, horse and ibex centrality.

Horses, aurochs, lion and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

“Beyond these substantive results, this study highlights the methodological importance of grounding statistical analyses of Paleolithic art in empirically controlled and taphonomically assessed datasets. By integrating geoarcheological evaluation, detailed spatial documentation, and an open, reproducible computational workflow, the approach aims to minimize interpretative biases previously identified in the reuse of fragmentary or insufficiently contextualised corpora. At the same time, we deliberately refrain from advancing speculative interpretations concerning symbolic meaning or narrative content. While the analyses demonstrate structured organization and relational regularities, they do not—and cannot—provide direct access to the social meanings or underlying symbolic intentions.” (Intxaurbe 2026) The organizational and relational regularities mentioned may be as much an artifact of the viewer than the creator. ‘I will keep looking until I find what I want to see.’ So Intxaurbe may have covered more aspects of the subject than I am aware of. For instance, has he considered things like ratios of size of images to distances apart? Or, did he look at colors in his relational analysis?

Horses, aurochs and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

With an admirable lack of hubris, Intxaurbe offers his work as a tool or an approach to aid others. He is not claiming to have solved everything.

“Rather than offering definitive interpretations, this work should be understood as a methodological contribution and an invitation to further comparative research. More broadly, the approach offers a formal tool for investigating the internal organization of symbolic systems and is therefore potentially relevant to adjacent fields such as epigraphy, paleography, or historical linguistics, where co-occurrence and combinatorial structure play a central role. The accumulation of comparable, well-documented datasets and the adoption of shared analytical frameworks represent the most promising path toward refining our understanding of Paleolithic graphic systems.” (Intxaurbe 2026) There is, indeed, much truth to this. There are great portions of the paper by Intxaurbe that are based upon mathematics and statistical analysis, and I confess that I cannot understand much of that. An education in traditional art history does not include any of these concepts. I point this out to say that he may cover certain aspects of this subject that my reading of his study did not give me insight to.

I will not argue with these findings because, to a certain extent, I can believe that this may be true for certain cave artists, at certain times and in a certain place. My objection is the old one that having found something that works in interpreting or analyzing an example of rock art it becomes the only explanation considered. I have also frequently referred to my skepticism about analyses proven by statistics, especially when the data has to be massaged to get to the end result sought for – ‘I want to find this so I will keep massaging the data until I do.’ This is, to me, analogous to Laurenty Beria’s answer to Joseph Stalin, “show me the person and I will find the crime.”

Horses, aurochs, reindeer and rhinoceros, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

As someone who has studied art history for sixty years I am just unable to accept any ‘one answer fits all’ theory. I see no reason not to assume that one artist painted a horse on the cave wall, and fifteen years later another artist wanted to paint a bison and found a convenient spot. In such a case it would be hard for me to agree that they are there in a mutual relationship. Intxaurbe has, however, produced a piece of work that deserves serious consideration. Read his paper, and who knows, you may agree with him.

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 this you should read the original report listed below.

REFERENCES:

Intxaurbe, Iñaki, 2026, Mapping the Symbolic Structure of Palaeolithic Rock Art Using Co‑occurrence Network Analysis, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 33:4. doi:10.1007/s10816-026-09796-y. Accessed online 12 August 2026.

Leroi-Gourhan, Andre, 1989, The Hunters of Prehistory, translated byClaire Jacobson, Atheneum, New York.

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.

CAVE ART AS A REPOSITORY FOR THE SPIRITS OF HUNTED ANIMALS:

Animal frieze from Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

An approach that turns the old idea of cave art as ‘hunting magic’ on its head imagining the art after the fact instead of before the hunt.

“During the first half of the twentieth century Abbé Breuil’s interpretation of cave paintings as simple hunting magic prevailed. His idea was that the paintings tried to bewitch the animals to ensure success in hunting. According to French archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan, this idea originated from some extremely rare paintings depicting wounded or speared animals in European caves. Some prehistorians believed that the depicted animals were painted to encourage fertility of the game.” (Ijäs 2017:72)

Horses and rhinoceros, Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

Many groups of indigenous hunters feel that the animals they harvest are willingly sacrificing themselves to the hunter to provide food and raw materials for his well-being, and they have customs of thanking the animal for giving itself up. For instance there are records of Inuit hunters not only thanking the dead game animal for sacrificing itself, but also pouring a little water in its mouth to give it a drink. “When Inuit kill an animal in the traditional way, they give it a drink of water or, if there is no water, they melt snow with their mouths.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:210) This act is a way of giving back to the animal who gave itself up to the Inuit hunter.

Such an act of giving back illustrates the attitude of honor, respect, even kinship that an indigenous hunter feels toward his quarry. “For hunter-gatherers, occupying environments where animal protein is essential to subsist, the hunt is an act of necessity. Such events, however destructive and aggressive as they tend to be, are commonly associated not with the hunter’s sense of malice, disdain, or even casual disinterest, but an abiding sense of respect and honor for his prey.” (Buckner 2020)

Horses, Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

“Respect for animals was organized by many rules that varied for each animal. Some basic principles applied to all animals. An animal should not be abused, or ridiculed. Unnecessary suffering should be avoided.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:66) They did not need a local chapter of the SPCA, basic human decency was apparently enough.

Among indigenous cultures, hunting is more than just a way to procure meat. Hunting also has deeply meaningful cultural and spiritual significance governing the relationships of the hunter to the animals he is pursuing.

Horse, Axial Gallery, Lascaux, Image from Lewis-Williams, 2002, The Mind in the Cave, Fig. 23.

“Hunting is not just a means of survival for indigenous peoples; it also plays a significant role in their cultural and spiritual practices. Many hunting rituals are deeply intertwined with indigenous ceremonies and belief systems. These rituals often involve prayers, songs, and offerings to show gratitude to the animals for their sacrifice. The animals are seen as kin and are honored accordingly.” (Thomas 2023) This is pretty much at the core of their culture; their ceremonies and rites are often centered on hunting success and the relationship with the animals.

The interaction of the hunter and the hunted is seen as a reciprocal relationship. “Among the Cree Indians of northern Canada, it is believed that animals intentionally present themselves to the hunters to be killed. The hunter consumes the meat, but the soul of the animal is released to be reclothed with flesh. Hunting there, as among many northern peoples, is conceived as a rite of regeneration: consumption follows killing as birth follows intercourse, and both acts are integral to the reproductive cycles, respectively, of animals and humans. However, animals will not return to hunters who have treated them badly in the past. One treats an animal badly by failing to observe the proper, respectful procedures in the process of butchering, consumption and disposal of the bones, or by causing undue pain and suffering to the animal in killing it.” (Ingold 1994:9) So, the hunter not only has to behave correctly in respect to the animal he is hunting, the animal’s soul also has to be given due respect in order for the compact between hunter and prey to be properly fulfilled.

Auroch, horses and deer, Lascaux Cave, France, Online image, public domain.

“The animals in the environment of the hunter do not simply go their own way, but are supposed to act with the hunter in mind. They are not just ‘there’ for the hunter to find and take as he will, rather they present themselves to him. The encounter, then, is a moment in the unfolding of a continuing – even lifelong – relationship between the hunter and the animal kind (of which every particular individual encountered is a specific instance). The hunter hopes that by being good to animals, they in turn will be good to him.” (Ingold 1994:14-15) In other words, it is a reciprocal relationship with both human society and the animals having roles to play, and if the roles are played well success is expected to follow.

“For many Native Americans, the act of hunting was about more than just acquiring food. It was a way to connect with the natural world and to show respect for the animals that were being hunted. Hunting was also a way to teach young people about the ways of their culture and to instill in them the values of their people. ‘We should be grateful for the gift of the animals because they were created to feed the Anishnaabe people, giving them strength.’ It was important for hunters to pray and express gratitude when they took the life of an animal, as taking that life would allow them to feed their own families.” (Mika 2023)

For the Anishnaabe people “They believed that the animals were created to feed the Anishnaabe people, to give us strength, and we should be thankful for that gift. It was very important for the hunter to pray and give thanks when taking the life of an animal, as taking that life meant that he could feed his own family. It was also said that if we stopped hunting and fishing, that we were no longer grateful for the gifts that the creator had given us – therefore it is an act of cultural tradition to not only hunt and fish, but to give thanks by placing sacred medicines when an animal life has been taken for the survival of the tribe.” (Tribal Trade Co. 2020)

Aurochs, horses and deer, Lascaux Cave, France, Online image, public domain.

“The Native American Hunting Practices are based on the unity of nature and humans. They recognize that nature is not only a sustainer of life, but it is also an essential part of human beings. Also, hunting is a way of life and a sacred act of honoring the animal’s spirit. However, with the encroachment of colonization, these practices were misunderstood, exploited, and became a pain point for Native Americans.The primary aim of Native American Hunting Practices was to provide food for the community while ensuring that every part of the animal was utilized to avoid wastage. The practice was done in reverence for the animal’s life and the understanding that its sacrifice would provide for the community.” (Justo 2023)

To the north Inuit beliefs were much the same. “Many Inuit believed that animals offered themselves to the hunter in order to be killed. If the animals were hunted they would multiply; if they were not hunted, they would feel neglected and disappear. - Animals were thus often described as giving themselves to the hunters who would make good use of their meat.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:41)

Among the Inuit again “When departing from a hunting area the heads of the caribou must always face in the direction in which the party is setting out. The soul of the animals slain will then follow the same course and good hunting will result.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:241)

The Inuit believe that the game animals want to give themselves to the hunter. By doing so their soul is released to be, in effect, reborn. A hunter who passes up an opportunity to harvest a game animal risks insulting it and being shunned by all game thereafter. “Killing game is not only a necessity to survive, it is also an obligation placed upon the hunter by the animals themselves. Hunting is not a matter of choice, but a moral obligation one cannot escape. Only by hunting can the Inuit as well as the animals prosper. (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:343)

While most of the examples I have cited refer to Native American or Inuit peoples, the situation is essentially the same among indigenous people worldwide. The relationship between hunter and hunted is one of respect, often even courtesy. And, if the proper attitude and rituals are maintained, the soul of the animal is freed to be reborn, to come back to the hunter again in the future. In the Inuit belief, the soul of a sea mammal such as seal or walrus that is killed returns to Sedna, the ‘Sea Woman’ to wait for its rebirth.

So, to return to the proposition that the cave art might have been produced after the successful hunt instead of before it, there could be a couple of motives involved. The first, of course, might be bragging rights, to commemorate the success of a difficult hunt. The cave picture might have been the visual equivalent of a fisherman’s tale. The second might well have been to serve as a repository for the soul of that animal until it can be reborn. In a number of ways this would seem to make more sense than the “Increase Theory” of hunting magic, that multiplying images of a certain animal would result in the increase of the numbers of the actual animal in the landscape.  Keeping in mind that for many indigenous peoples the soul of an animal taken by a hunter will recycle, will be reborn as a new animal if treated properly and with respect. What if, after a successful hunt, the hunter returned and produced the picture of the animal on a cave or cliff wall to provide a repository for the soul of his dead prey until it could be reborn. In the same way that the soul of an Inuit hunter’s sea mammal victim returned to Sedna to await rebirth, then, the animals, knowing their souls would be provided for, would be more likely to be willing to give themselves to him in the future. The artist would then be part of the natural recycling of the soul of this animal. This could also an explanation for the palimpsests of large numbers of some animal images, each soul would need a new representation. Finally, this also might explain the spiritual and ritual nature of cave 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 this subject you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Buckner, William, 2020, The Psychic Toll of Severing the Hunter-Prey Relationship, 14 October 2020, Nautilus, https://nautil.us. Accessed online 20 April 2024.

Ijäs, Mikko, 2017, Fragments of the Hunt, Persistence Hunting, Tracking and Prehistoric Art, Doctoral Thesis, School of Arts, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.

Ingold, Tim, 1994, From Trust to Donimation, An alternative history of human-animal relations, pp.1-22, in Animals and Human Society, Changing Perspectives, Audrey Manning and James Serpell (editors), 1994 Rutledge, New York.

Justo, 2023, Exploring Traditional Native American Hunting Practices: A Cultural Legacy, 31August 2023, https://nativetribe.info. Accessed online 20 April 2024.

Laugrand, Frederic, and Jarich Oosten, 2015, Hunters, Predators and Prey, Inuit Perceptions of Animals, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford.

Mika, 2023, The Sacredness of Hunting in Native American Culture, 1 March 2023, https://www.indiancountryextension.org. Accessed online 17 April 2024.

Thomas, Connor, 2023, Exploring Hunting Traditions of Indigenous Peoples, 11 September 2023, https://www.findahunt.com. Accessed online 15 October 2023.

Tribal Trade Co., 2020, Cultural Traditions of Native American Hunting & Gathering, April 2020, https://tribaltradeco.com. Accessed online 17 April 2024.

ANAMORPHISM IN CHAUVET CAVE ART:

 

The modern entrance to Chauvet Cave, France. Image from donsmaps.com.

As readers will be able to see from my recent columns on foreshortening in rock art, I am fascinated by these incredibly early manifestations of portraying aspects of perspective that we thought had only been discovered (or invented) during the Renaissance. Along with foreshortening, ancient cave artists are known to have used the technique known as Anamorphism or Anamorphosis in which an image that is meant to be seen at an extreme angle will have its proportions altered to look more normal from that angle.

Red auroch, Lascaux Cave, France. Megaloceros room, photo Norbert Aujoulat, fr. donsmaps.com.

In March of last year I wrote a column in RockArtBlog about an example of reported Anamorphosis (Anamorphism) in Lascaux Cave - a red auroch (Faris 2022). "The Stone Age cave paintings at Lascaux may make use of anamorphic technique, because the oblique angles of the cave would otherwise result in distorted figures from a viewer's perspective." (Wikipedia) The Lascaux art dates to the Magdalenian period of ca. 17,000 years BP. It would appear that the artists of the painted caves in Europe had discovered the optical distortions of angle and distance on an image and also used anamaphosis to counter them. “When our ancestors painted beautiful works of art, were they intending them to be viewed by others, or did they just paint for their own pleasure? The Lascaux caves in the Dordogne region of France, may have the answer. There you can see a painting of a red cow with a black head high on one of the walls. Up close the cow appears to be stretched from head to toe, but when viewed from the ground the cow regains normal proportions. This technique, known as anamorphosis, is highly advanced and suggests the painter was considering his audience as he painted the cow.” (Ravilious 2010)

The anamorphosis of the red auroch in the Megaloceros room is angled so that it would look correct to a viewer coming from the passage visible in the photograph forward toward it. The head is small and the body is outsized and elongated so viewing it from that position would make it seem to be more correctly proportioned. This suggests that the animal may have been painted by an apprentice reacting to instructions from a master positioned at the far end of the room. “Put the line there, no, a little farther back.” From that viewpoint anamorphosis would work to make it look correct to him, but out of proportion when seen from any other angle.

Rhinoceros, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

I was recently reading a small book titled “The Oldest Enigma of Humanity” (David, and Jacques-Lefrere 2013) when I ran across a single line description under an illustration that said “Anamorphic rhinoceros in the Chauvet Cave.” And in a single glance I confirmed that the rhinoceros illustrated appears to display anamorphosis. This led me to search online for “Chauvet cave art public domain” to check for this and any other examples that might be found.

Chubby horse, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

Bison, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

Further searching has turned up examples of painted animals in the Chauvet Cave, which, based upon recent dating studies, makes its art 10 to 15 thousand years older. “Based on radiocarbon dating, the cave appears to have been used by humans during two distinct periods: the Aurignacian and the Gravettian. Most of the artwork dates to the earlier, Aurignacian, era (32,000 to 30,000 years ago). The later Gravettian occupation, which occurred 27,000 to 25,000 years ago, left little but a child's footprints, the charred remains of ancient hearths, and carbon smoke stains from torches that lit the caves. The footprints may be the oldest human footprints that can be dated accurately. After the child's visit to the cave, evidence suggests that due to a landslide which covered its historical entrance, the cave remained untouched until it was discovered in 1994.^” (Wikipedia)

Wounded rhinoceros, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

A detailed study published in 2016 pushed the dates for the paintings in Chauvet back about 10,000 years. “From their analysis, the researchers discovered a totally new timeline for the cave. According to their results, humans left their first marks inside the Chauvet Pont d'Arc Cave from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago, and then occupied the cave again from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago. Analysis of the animal bones, meanwhile, show that cave bears also liked to prowl the cave up until about 33,000 years ago—although the researchers don’t think humans and bears tried to live in the cave at the same time.” (Pilny 2016)

In the other examples here we must keep in mind that the abnormally thickened bodies of many of them may just be a stylistic feature and possibly not anamorphosis. Now, I have not personally had the opportunity to visit Chauvet so I do not know the locations of these examples I have selected. If they are anywhere near eye level for easy viewing their proportions are merely stylistically exaggerated. If, however, they are somewhere up higher on the cave wall then the exaggerated proportions may indicate anamorphosis from 37,000 to 33,500 BCE.  

The art of Chauvet is undeniably spectacular, and now we know it is considerably older than previously thought. This means that the development of anamorphism was much earlier than we thought.

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:

David, Bertrand, and Jean Jacques-Lefrere, 2013, The Oldest Enigma of Humanity, Arcade Publishing, New York.

Faris, Peter, 2022, Another Example of Perspective Anamorphosis in Rock Art – The Lascaux Red Bull, 19 March 2022, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search/label/anamorphosis

Pilny, Susanna, 2016, French cave paintings are 10,0 00 years older than we thought, oldest in the world, 12 April 2016, https://www.redorbit.com/news/. Accessed online 17 June 2023.

Ravilious, Kate, 2010, The Writing on the Cave Wall, New Scientist, 17 February 2010, https://www.sott.net/article/203166-The-writing-on-the-cave-wall.

Wikipedia, Chauvet Cave, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave. Accessed 29 June 2022.

Wikipedia, Anamorphosis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphosis#. Accessed 30 June 2023.

NEW RADIOCARBON DATING STUDY GIVES DATES FOR CHAUVET CAVE AS 10,000 YEARS OLDER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT:

Cave Lion panel, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

A remarkable and comprehensive study published on 2016 pushed the dates of the art of Chauvet Cave in France back to about 10,000 years earlier than we previously thought.

“Chauvet-Pont d’Arc is a cave located in the Ardèche département, a region that is found in south-central France. Discovered in 1994, it features human hand prints as well as drawings of 14 different animal species, ranging from cave bears to big cats. It was long believed to be the oldest known human-decorated cave in the world, with its artwork estimated to be from between 22,000-18,000 BCE.” (Pilny 2016) Chauvet is certainly one of the most admired painted caves in Europe for the striking quality and sophistication of its imagery.

Horses and rhinoceros panel, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

“From their analysis, the researchers discovered a totally new timeline for the cave. According to their results humans left their furst marks inside the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago, and then occupied the cave again from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago - although the researchers don’t think humans and bears tried to live in the cave at the same time.” (Pilny 2016) These dates are within the Upper Paleolithic period known as the Aurignacian.

Coexisting with cave bears might have periodically been a slippery situation. Humans did hunt cave bears on occasion and, when we consider the number of people killed by bears in the modern world, I would suspect the opposite may have also happened once in a while as well.

Cave bears panel, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

"Before these cave painters could move into their respective studios, some of them had to evict existing tenants. In two French caves containing paintings dating back around 32,000 years ago, ancient humans displaced cave bears in order to claim the sites for themselves, according to a study published in April in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Cave bears even appear on some of the art on the wall. Researchers came to this determination after they 'performed radiocarbon dating, mitochondrial DNA analysis and isotope investigations of cave bear remains from Chauvet-Pont d'Arc and Deux-Ouvertures caves located along the Ardeche River in France,' according to Discovery News' Jennifer Viegas. Whether humans are responsible for the broader cave-bear extinction in the region is still unclear. Environmental and/or climatic changes may have also played a role." (DNews 2016)

"We compiled a set of more than 250 radiocarbon dates related to the rock art, human activities, and bone remains in the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave (Ardeche, France) and derived a modeled absolute chronology of the human and cave bear occupations of this site, presented here in calendar years. It provides an insightful framework for the successive events that occurred in the cave during the Paleolithic period.” (Quiles 2016)

Rhinoceros, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

"Radiocarbon dates for the ancient drawings in the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave revealed ages much older than expected. These early ages and nature of this Paleolithic art make this United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) site indisputably unique. A large, multidisciplinary dating program has recently mepped the anthropological evolution associated with the cave. More than 350 dates (by ¹⁴C, U-Th, TL and ³⁶Cl) were obtained over the last 15 y. They include 259 radiocarbon dates, bainly related to the rock art and human activity in the cave. We present here more than 80 previously unpublished dates. All fo the dates were integrated into a high-precision Bayesian model based on archaeological evidence to securely reconstruct the complete history of the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave on an absolute timescale. It shows that there were two distinct periods of human activity in the cave, one from 37 to 33,599 y ago, and the other from 31 to 28,000 y ago. Cave bears also took refuge in the cave until 33,000 y ago." (Qiles 2016)

Rhinoceroses, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

“Other dating methods were applied to different materials. Heated wall fragments were dated by thermoluminescence to determine the age of hearth structures. Uranium-series dating was applied to carbonate concretions superimposed on some ¹⁴C-dated charcoal, yielding a “terminus ante quem” for the deposit of this charcoal. The latter was recently confirmed by ³⁶Cl exposure dating of rock, indicating collapses that occurred in the past and that sealed off the (paleo) entrance of the cave, thereby confirming the early age of the art contained inside.” (Quiles 2016) Notice the detailed dating using different methods as cross-checks. C¹⁴ dating with Uranium series dating, Chlorine 36 dating and thermoluminescence dating. As a layman I find this very impressive and am inclined to give their results considerable weight.

"Using a robust interdisciplinary approach, our modeled results clearly support previous hypotheses postulating two different occupations of the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave. They definitively show that humans frequented the site during two distinct time periods, between 37,000 - 33,500 and 31,000 - 28,000 y ago. These clear results, based on a large number of dates obtained from diverse materials introduced into the cave through various biological or anthropogenic processed, provide a decisive argument in favor of the realization of the parietal art works before 28,000 y ago. They now enable further extensive exploration of the remarkable rock art created in the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave during these two occupation phases." (Quiles 2016)

Full panel of multiple animals, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

“However, dangerous rock slides drove both humans and bears away from the cave, with the mouth finally being sealed by rock around 23,500 to 21,500 years ago. Either way, though, the new timeline of the animal cave paintings puts them in the same range as the Sulawesi ones in Indonesia, meaning Chauvet-Pont d’Arc may just contain the oldest known animal drawings on Earth.” (Pilny 2016)

Based upon these results the team has stated that Chauvet cave art may be the oldest in the world and that seems a stretch when much of the cave art we know of has not yet been dated, to say nothing about cave art not yet discovered. And, since their study was published, a cave painting in Sulawesi, Indonesia, has been dated to 43,500 BCE which is considerably older (6.5k) than the new dates for Chauvet.  Still, this is a very impressive study for very impressive art, and a positive contribution for which we should all be grateful.

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 original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

DNews, 2016, Cave Art in France 10,000 Yrs Older Than Thought, 13 April 2016, https://seeker.com/. Accessed online 16 June 2023.

Pilny, Susanna, 2016, French cave paintings are 10,000 years older than we thought, oldest in the world, 12 April 2016, https://www.redorbit.com/news/. Accessed online 17 June 2023.

Quiles, Anita et al., 2016, A high-precision chronological model for the decorated Upper Paleolithic cave of Chauvet-Pont dArc, Ardeche, France, 11 April 2016, PNAS, 113 (17), 4670-4675, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523158113. Accessed online 16 June 2023.

 

 

ARE SHADOWS PORTRAYED IN ROCK ART? THEY ARE CERTAINLY IMPLIED IN CAVE ART:

The philosophical search for shadows and the question of their existence in rock art:

Aurochs, horse and deer, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

The idea for this began with an article from the online site JSTOR Daily dated 1 December 2021, by Roy Sorensen titled "Do We Actually See Shadows?"

Sorensen approached this as a philosophical question beginning with Fridugisus of Tours in the 8th century who wrote "a short treatise which deals with the nature of nothing and darkness. The epistle was written probably during the author's residence at Tours. It is addressed "to all the faithful and to those who dwell in the Sacred Palace of the most serene prince Charles (Charlemagne). It dealt with the question, are nothing and darkness real things? (Some suggest that this was inspired by the Biblical use of the words in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis). If the Bible uses the words 'nothing' and 'darkness', it seemed that there must be things corresponding to those words. Fridugisus accepts this answer and defends it both by arguments from authority and by arguments from reason." (Wikipedia)  Is nothing or nothingness a real thing, and is darkness a real thing in and of itself"

Sorensen, in effect, was asking that if a shadow is composed of the absence of light, how can we see the presence of the absence of something? In other words, we see because of the light illuminating the things around us. How can we see something it is not illuminating? He goes to considerable historical detail referencing, among others, Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." He brings in the Metaphysical with the question if you spin a ball does the shadow of the ball spin?" Some say "yes." but can you see the shadow spinning?

Sorensen gets deeper with this but what drew my attention was his reference to Medieval artists who did not paint shadows. He stated "Shadows were fringe phenomena in the Dark Ages. They are rarely depicted in the era's paintings. Perhaps the artists portrayed only what they believed to be visible." (Sorensen 2021)  This can be checked and I did so, searching online for public domain medieval paintings.

The Trinity (detail) in Saint Augustine’s City of God”, about 1440–50, Master of the Oxford Hours. Tempera colors, gold and silver paint, and ink on parchment, 14 ¼ x 10 ¾ in. (36.2 x 27.3 cm). The J. Paul Getty Museum.

A few, very faint traces of shadows beneath the figures. Shading on the figures, yes, but they cast no shadows in their environment.

“Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak” in the Prayer Book of Charles the Bold, 1469, Lieven van Lathem, made in Ghent and Antwerp. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Likewise, shading within the elements of the painting, but no cast shadows.

Medieval women hunting. Internet image, public domain.

And again, no shadows cast by the women and their dogs in the environment.

Now since I warp everything toward the question of how it applies to rock art I began looking for examples of rock art that somehow portrayed shadows. I looked at examples from literally all over the world (my photos, books, online) but could find no instances of what can be identified as a shadow. Then I remembered that I had done a column on counter-shading on the images of horses in European Cave Art back in January 2022, so I went back to my own notes.

Torch illuminating a cave. Image from Medina-Alcaide et al., 16 June 2021.

In looking at my file for that article I found the paper by a team of Spanish researchers on cave lighting. This simple, but clever, experiment used a variety of sources of fire to illuminate a cave, one of which was a hand-held torch. Others were things like small fires on the floor of the cave and animal fat lamps. To my way of thinking the hand-held torch would give the most dramatic effect.

I started looking at the Paleolithic paintings of animals in European Caves, such at Lascaux, Chauvette, Les Trois-Freres, and Tito Bustillo and found shadows under the animals, but not shadows painted by the cave artists. Now the nature of torch light is that it acts much like a point source and, depending on how high you hold it, the irregularities of the stone wall in a cave will have shadows of their own underneath any change of contour in the surface.

Horses and Aurochs, Lascaux Cave, France. Early Magdanenian period (17,000 BCE). Internet image, public domain.

The first image I noticed this effect on is this one from Lascaux. The small horse on the left and the Aurochs have their hooves approximately on the upper edge of the shadow on the cave wall. And once I saw this, examples started jumping out at me all over the place. It must be remembered, these are not shadows created by the artist or image maker, they are shadows on the cave wall created by the angle the light of the torch is falling from, but the image maker has used them cleverly to create the desired effect. Other effects that visually approximate shadows under animals painted on cave walls can be color change in the stone wall, and/or other sources of discoloration. And not all are done this way, indeed most panels also have animals that are not standing on shadows, but it turned out a surprising number are.

Aurochs, Horses, and Deer, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

There were a great number of examples from Lascaux Cave in France. In this one we see horses, aurochs, and a deer with their feet on the top edge of the shadow on the cave wall.

Aurochs, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

Horse, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

In some examples the shadow seems to be the result of a color change in the stone surface. Also, we need to keep in mind that these modern photographs were made in lighting that is as even as possible to show up the images, not to accentuate shadows underneath them.

 

Horse and two superimposed mammoths, Chauvet Cave, France. Illustration from Jean-Marie Chauvet, et al., 1996, “Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave.

Although this is not a strong example we can see the break in the cave wall underneath thehorse and mammoths and it would be shadow under the right lighting conditions.

Mammoth, Chauvet Cave, France. Illustration from Jean-Marie Chauvet, et al., 1996, “Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave, p. 58.

Owl, Les Trois Freres Cave, France. 15k BP. Illustration from Paul Bahn and Jean Vertut, “Journey Through the Ice Age,” fig. 10.24, p. 155.

Horse, Tito Bustillo Cave, Spain. Ca. 25k BP. Bahn, Paul, and Jean Vertut, 1997, “Journey Through The Ice Age,” University of California Press, Berkley, California.

From these various illustrations, and from various ages and locations, we see that this design factor was used across a large geographic area and for a very long time. The fact that it is associated with a large number of different animals also is a strong suggestion that it is not just associated stylistically with aurochs, or horses, etc., but that it may indeed have been the simulation of the creature's shadow that was the goal.

So, is this a real phenomenon? Well yes, it is real in that we have seen it exists. But was the placement of animals so that they are standing on a shadow, or an area of color change in the stone intentional, or a coincidence? That is to be decided in the future, probably with a whole lot of arguing involved. But, I will end with this, the cave artists were certainly intelligent and sophisticated enough to have done this intentionally.

NOTE 1: 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.

NOTE 2: This paper was presented at the 2023 IFRAO (International Federation of Rock Art Organizations) Rock Art Symposium, Valcamonica, Italy, by the author on 27 May 2023.

REFERENCES:

Medina-Alcaide et al., 16 June 2021, “The conquest of the dark spaces: An experimental approach to lighting systems in Paleolithic caves”, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250497 (Public Library of Science)

Sorenson, Roy, 1 December 2021, “Do We Actually See Shadows?”, https://daily.jstor.org/ (short for Journal Storage).

Illustration credits:

Illustrations 1 – 9 are Public Domain images from online.

Illustrations 10 – 11: Jean-Marie Chauvet, et al., 1996, “Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave (The Oldest Known Paintings in the World)”, H. N. Abrams, New York.  

Illustrations 12 - 13: Bahn, Paul, and Jean Vertut, 1997, “Journey Through The Ice Age,” University of California Press, Berkley, California.