12,000-YEAR-OLD NATUFIAN FIGURINE OF A WOMAN AND A GOOSE:

 

Venus of Laussel, Laussel Cave, France. Image from Wikipedia.

Back in July of 2018 I wrote a column about the possibility that the horn held by the 25,000 year old ‘Venus of Laussel’ represented a cornucopia, and was thus evidence of an incredibly long lasting tradition. Now a recent discovery of a 12,000 year old Natufian figurine in Israel appears to possibly point to another very long survival of a theme in ancient myth and legend – Leda and the Swan.

Statue of Leda and the Swan. Timotheos, ca. 300 BC. Getty Museum, 70.AA.110.

The myth, as we know it, is set in the Mythical Bronze Age of Greece (roughly 1600–1100 BCE), the same legendary era as the Trojan War. Zeus, the father of the gods, appears to Leda, a queen of Sparta, in the form of a beautiful swan and seduces her. Leda is the mother of Helen of Troy, linking the myth to that cycle. (Wikipedia)

Leda and the Swan. 1505-1510 CE, by Cesare da Sesto, after a  lost  Leonardo.

The myth of Leda and the Swan remained a favorite of artists throughout the Renaissance.

Now, at a Natufian site in Israel the discovery of a figurine from over ten thousand years earlier than the Greeks suggests the possibility that the Bronze Age Greeks had received the myth from earlier people, handed down orally.

Woman and Goose, Nahal Ein Gev II, Israel. Image from the Hebrew University.

This discovery was made by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “A 12,000-year-old clay figurine unearthed in northern Israel, depicting a woman and a goose, is the earliest known human-animal interaction figurine. Found at the Late Natufian site of Nahal Ein Gev II, the piece predates the Neolithic and signals a turning point in artistic and spiritual expression. Combining naturalism, light manipulation, and symbolic imagination, it reveals how early communities used art to explore the relationship between humans and the natural world.” (Phys.org 2025) The figurine appears to be, at least, a small figure of a woman with a large bird on her back and its neck and head over her right shoulder.

Artist's reconstruction of the figurine. Image from phys.org.

“The Natufians, who lived across the Levant between about 15,000 and 11,500 years ago, were among the first groups in the region to establish permanent or semi-permanent settlements. Living before the rise of farming, they were already experimenting with artistic forms that would flourish in the Neolithic. The new figurine underscores their growing interest in narrative imagery, mythmaking, and the symbolic links between people and the natural world. Researchers studying the artifact note that the goose, a bird commonly eaten by Natufians and used for ornamentation, is depicted as alive and active, not hunted. Its wings stretch back toward the woman in a gesture of intimate contact. While a practical reading, such as a person carrying game is still possible, the sculptor’s emphasis on movement and interaction favors a mythological reading. The scene may reflect an early animistic worldview in which humans and animals shared overlapping spiritual roles and identities.” (Radley 2025) Additionally, the presence of traces of red ocher on both the woman and the goose, and the fact that the clay had been fired illustrate its intentionality, this is no lump of mud that accidentally looks like a figurine. (Phys.org 2025)

Prof. Natalie Munro and Dr. Laurent Davin with the figurine. Image from the Hebrew University.

“The figurine is only 3.7 centimeters tall and was molded from local clay before being heated in a fireplace at a controlled temperature. Microscopic examination showed traces of red ocher on both figures and even a partial fingerprint left by its maker, likely a young woman, based on ridge-pattern analysis.” (Radley 2025) Identifying the maker as a young woman based on a partial fingerprint in a lump of 12,000 year old clay may be a stretch.

Goose. Online image, public domain.

A number of other indicators were found testifying to the importance of the goose to the people of Nahal Ein Gev II. “Faunal remains from the site reinforce the connection between geese and ritual life. The bird’s feathers were used for decoration, and certain bones were fashioned into ornaments. The artistic focus on a goose and a woman, the researchers argue, points to an early mythic imagination, a symbolic vocabulary that later blossomed in Neolithic cults and figurative traditions across Southwest Asia.” (Phys.org 2025) While I do not question the identification of the faunal remains mentioned above, I do question that there are enough identifiable details in the figurine to positively confirm that it is a goose. Both geese and swans are large bodied birds with similar beaks. The team use the word mythic, and I would like them to consider that this might be an earlier manifestation of the myth cycle that led to Leda and the Swan.

Swan. Online image, public domain.

“This figurine offers archaeologists a rare glimpse into the beliefs and artistic experimentation of communities standing at the threshold of major cultural change, capturing a moment when early sedentary societies began exploring more elaborate systems – long before the emergence of agriculture, permanent architecture, and the more standardized art forms of the Neolithic.” (Radley 2025) Such an artifact testifies to a certain level of importance of this concept, that someone took the time and energy to create the figurine, fire it and decorate it with ochre. That would certainly suggest a likely ritual importance of the figurine. And, if we accept this ritual importance, I would add, perhaps we should consider the possibility that the origins of a Classical Greek myth can be traced back an additional 12,000 years.

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.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2018, The Cornucopia – An Ancient Tradition, 7 July 2018, RockArtBlog, https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7760124847746733855/3537035597338938690

Phys.org, 2025, The woman and the goose: A 12,000-year-old glimpse into prehistoric belief, 18 November 2025, The Gist, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Accessed online 18 November 2025.

Radley, Dario, 2025, Rare 12,000-year-old Natufian figurine of a woman and a goose offers a glimpse into prehistoric beliefs, 18 November 2025, https://archaeologymag.com/2025/11/rare-natufian-figurine-of-a-woman-and-a-goose/. Accessed online 18 Nov. 2025. 

Wikipedia, Leda and the Swan, https://en.wikipedia.org/Leda_and_the_Swan. Accessed online 20 November 2025.

MORE ON BUFFALO/LION WOMAN:

Chauvet Buffalo Woman,

pinterest.com,

public domain.

Last week I wrote about the question of the time depth of the Pied Piper myth, the Paleolithic origins of the Polyphemus myth according to Julien d'Huy, and whether a woman/buffalo transformation figure in Chauvet Cave in France could illustrate a Paleolithic version of Buffalo Woman of Native American mythology.

D'Huy's analysis traced the Polyphemus myth through space as well as time, indicating that it had reached North America in the Paleolithic period and had evolved into an explanation of the coming of the buffalo. He even related a Blackfoot version that involved Trickster Crow hiding a herd of buffalo in a cave, but two hunters outwitted him and freed the buffalo. (d'Huy 2016) For other peoples of North America the trickster who hid the buffalo was Coyote. For the Lakota people, however, the buffalo were brought to the people by Buffalo Woman, or White Buffalo Maiden.

Deep inside Chauvet Cave there is a painting that seems to illustrate the transformation of a buffalo into a woman and vice versa. It could be possible that this illustrates some variant of the Buffalo Woman myth. Drawn on a downward projecting stalactite is a frontal view of the lower half of a nude woman's figure from the pubic triangle on down. "There are also a couple of good examples of the hybrid figure of a bison-woman, such as the famous image from Chauvet, in France. This black painting features the detailed head of a bison on top of the lower half of a female body (she is nude and her pubic triangle has been emphasized by the artist)." (Von Pezinger 2016:91)

Whether or not this composition was meant to actually illustrate some Paleolithic version of the Buffalo Woman myth, it certainly does a great job of conveying the idea of animal to human transformation.

Chauvet bison woman,

redrawn from Clotte.

There is another aspect of this figure that fascinates me and I have been unable to find any information on from other sources so I will have to tackle this one on my own. It involves the woman's other leg (her right leg). A careful examination of the composite figure shows that the woman's right leg originates as the front leg of a lion drawn facing away from her torso. When I first noticed it I immediately felt a flicker of recognition. The lion's head and left front leg (the woman's right leg) reminded me of the of the head and left arm of the Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel.

Lion Man  of Hohlenstein-Stadel,

Public domain.

The Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel "is a prehistoric ivory sculpture that was discovered in the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. - The lion-headed figurine is the oldest-known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world, and the oldest known uncontested example of figurative art. It has been determined to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old by carbon dating of material from the layer in which it was found, and is thus associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture. It was carved out of wooly mammoth ivory." (Wikipedia) 

To my eye the similarity of the head and bent arm of the carved ivory figure and the head and bent front leg of the lion figure on the left in the group in Chauvet Cave is so remarkable as to be  highly evocative. Now I will be the first to admit that I am not at all sure what this similarity evokes; some Paleolithic myth cycle, a religious belief, or something I cannot imagine? Can there be any connection? Probably not based upon ages, the Chauvet Cave art is dated to 30,000 - 32,000 BCE by radiocarbon, and the Lion-man is 35,000 - 40,000 BCE, quite a discrepancy. However, they are both considered to be Aurignacian in origin, and similar beliefs and myth cycles are a possibility.

There are many instances of beliefs that have lasted essentially unchanged for thousands of years. Indeed, if I change the term from myth to religious belief we can point to Christianity and its basic tenets, or Judaism for a longer time frame. In his book The Cave and the Cathedral, Amir D. Aczel traces the cult of the bull from the aurochs painted in the Paleolithic cave art of Europe, through the bull horns and heads so prevalent in neolithic Catalhoyuk on the Anatolian plain, to the bulls and acrobats in the Minoan murals of the Palace of Knossos, on Crete. This, if true, would give that theme a time-depth of perhaps 10,000+ years. So perhaps it is not completely outlandish to suggest a possible mythological connection between the "sorcerer" painted in Chauvet, and the Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel.

There is one other possibility that should be pointed out, it could be an example of a visual pun, or a puzzle picture, like the duck's head/rabbit optical illusion. Perhaps the artist was just having fun? In any case the form of the woman's figure morphing into a bison and a lion in Chauvet cave is a remarkably sophisticated piece of work, both in concept, and in design and rendering. Not only are the painted caves of Europe a testament to the artistic abilities of our Paleolithic ancestors, they are evidence of their sophisticated thought processes and beliefs, and, as such, are real treasures of human heritage.

NOTE: Images used in this column were retrieved from the Internet with a search that included the phrase Public Domain. If any of these images were not intended to be public domain I apologize for their use, and will be happy to correct my error if so informed.

REFERENCES:

Aczel, Amir D.

2009 The Cave and the Cathedral: How a Real-Life Indiana Jones and a Renegade Scholar Decoded the Ancient Art of Man, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

Clottes, Jean

2001 Chauvet Cave: The Discovery of the Worlds Oldest Paintings, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

d'Huy, Julien

2016 The Evolution of Myths, pages 62-69, Scientific American, vol. 315, No. 6, Dec. 2016.

Von Petzinger, Genevieve,

2016 The First Signs, Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols, Atria Books, New York, London.

Wikipedia

A PALEOLITHIC BUFFALO WOMAN?

Chauvet cave,

www.pinterest.com,

public domain.

On December 3, 2016, I posted a column about an article in the December 2016 issue of Scientific American magazine. Written by Julien d'Huy, and titled The Evolution of Myths, this article traced back the origins of the Greek Polyphemus myth to the Paleolithic of 30,000 to 15,000 years ago. D'Huy illustrated this with the figure from the cave of Les Trois Freres of the "shaman" or buffalo dancer figure surrounded by bison. Intrigued, I wrote the author and asked about the concept of the Pied Piper in mythology, and whether that would fall in the same myth family? I published his answer in my column on April 29, 2017 - he was uncertain but did not believe that the Pied Piper myth had anything close to the necessary depth in time to be pertinent to this cave painting.

Vertical bison,

Chauvet cave,

www.pinterest.com,

public domain.

D'Huy's analysis traced the Polyphemus myth through space as well as time, indicating that it had reached North America in the Paleolithic period and had evolved into an explanation of the coming of the buffalo. He even related a Blackfoot version that involved Trickster Crow hiding a herd of buffalo in a cave, but two hunters outwitted him and freed the buffalo. (d'Huy 2016) For other peoples of North America the trickster who hid the buffalo was Coyote. For the Lakota people, however, the buffalo were brought to the people by Buffalo Woman, or White Buffalo Maiden.

White-Buffalo Woman,

www.ancientorigins.net,

public domain.

"Centuries ago, the Sioux roamed the Paha Sapa or Black Hills. Legends have grown around the now famous vacation land of America in the State of South Dakota, and to this day the legends are still told.

The wind cave, where Wind Cave National Park is located, was a sacred cave where the buffalo lady dwelt. At first the Sioux feared the cave because they thought a giant lived in it. They thought that the wind which blew in and out of the mouth of the cave was caused by a giant breathing. This giant invoked the providence of the Great Spirit to give him knowledge of the mysterious hidden powers of Mother Nature that lurked in the cave the Indians feared.

One day, a medicine man stood at the mouth of the cave pondering, and suddenly, a vision appeared to him. A young Indian maiden told him she was the immortal buffalo lady from below the earth.

The buffalo lady told the medicine man to tell his people that the cave was one of the sacred places of the Paha Sapa. She said, 'Tell your people to come to this cave and offer gifts and tokens by dropping them into the sacred cave. By your offerings the Great Spirit will provide your temporal wants by providing great herds of buffalo for your livelihood.'" (Wikipedia)

Close-up,

White-Buffalo Woman,

www.ancientorigins.net,

public domain.

Another version of the story can be found on the website of the American Indian College Fund. It relates that many years ago "the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Sioux came together and camped during the summer. The people were starving because there was no game. Two young men went out to look for food for their people in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Along the way, a beautiful young woman dressed in white appeared to them, saying, 'Return to your people and tell them I am coming.'  When she presented herself to the Lakota people with the sacred pipe which showed how all things were connected, she taught them the mysteries of the earth. She taught them to pray and follow the proper path while on earth.

Then, before leaving, she rolled upon the earth four times, changing color each time, turning into a white buffalo calf before she disappeared. As she left, great herds of buffalo surrounded the camps. After that day the Lakota honored their pipe and the buffalo were plentiful." (collegefund.org)

Deep inside Chauvet Cave there is a painting that seems to illustrate the transformation of a buffalo into a woman and vice versa. It could be possible that this illustrates some variant of the Buffalo Woman myth. Drawn on a downward projecting stalactite is a frontal view of the lower half of a nude woman's figure from the pubic triangle on down. "There are also a couple of good examples of the hybrid figure of a bison-woman, such as the famous image from Chauvet, in France. This black painting features the detailed head of a bison on top of the lower half of a female body (she is nude and her pubic triangle has been emphasized by the artist)." (Von Pezinger 2016:91)

Chauvet Buffalo Woman,

pinterest.com,

public domain.

However a closer look reveals that her left leg is the front leg of a buffalo (whose head is right above the woman's pubic triangle). Even more interestingly, the woman's right leg appears to also be the leg of a lion drawn on the stalactite. Whether or not this composition was meant to actually illustrate some Paleolithic version of the Buffalo Woman myth, it certainly does a great job of conveying the idea of animal to human transformation.

NOTE: Images used in this column were retrieved from the Internet with a search that included the phrase Public Domain. If any of these images were not intended to be public domain I apologize for their use, and will be happy to correct my error if so informed.

REFERENCES:

d'Huy, Julien

2016 The Evolution of Myths, pages 62-69, Scientific American, vol. 315, No. 6, Dec. 2016.

Von Petzinger, Genevieve,

2016 The First Signs, Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols, Atria Books, New York, London

http://collegefund.org/blog/the-meaning-of-the-sacred-white-buffalo/

http://wiki.olc.edu/index.php/Lakota_Stories 

www.ancientorigins.net

MYTHOLOGY IN ROCK ART - CONTINUED:

On December 3, 2016, I posted a column about an article in the December 2016 issue of Scientific American magazine. Written by Julien d'Huy, and titled The Evolution of Myths, this article traced back the origins of the Greek Polyphemus myth to the Paleolithic of 30,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Therianthropic figure from bison

panel, Les Trois-Freres, France.

D'Huy then identified the therianthropic figure from the Les Trois-Freres bison hunt panel as the central (hero) figure in this Polyphemus myth.

Therianthropic figure from bison

panel, Les Trois-Freres, France.

Back on March 28, 2010, I had posted a column on RockArtBlog about this same panel titled Music At Rock Art Sites? In this posting I presented the possibility that this therianthropic figure was holding a musical bow, and that the panel perhaps represented a ceremony involving hunting magic. Given the difference in d'Huy's interpretation I wrote to him asking about his opinion on the possibility that the figure represented a Pied Piper figure, and whether that, if it were indeed the case, would fall within the Polyphemus myth family.

D'Huy's response to that question was: 

"In answer to Faris: Prehistorian Henri Begouen (whose sons discovered the cave) and archaeologist Henri Breuil proposed a connection between a musical bow and this therianthropic figure back in 1958! But to my knowledge, the Pied Piper of Hamelin tale type was found only in Eurasia; it also is probably very recent. Expanding the database to all the tales where a trickster took away a herd of animals might be a way to test the Paleolithic origin hypothesis." (d'Huy 2017)

So at this point any actual association of the Pied Piper myth with the Polyphemus family of myths is unknown. Thus, the actual identification of the therianthropic figure in this panel at Les Trois-Freres must also remain unknown. It does, however, seem that there is fruitful ground here in the interpretation of rock art. Cultures are generally steeped in their mythology, in a pre-scientific culture myths supply the needed explanations to the people about why the world works the way it does. I look forward to future studies of this sort. Additionally, I wish to thank Mr. d'Huy for his courteous and considered answer to my question.

REFERENCES:

Julien d'Huy,

2016  The Evolution of Myths, Scientific American, December 2016, Volume 315, Number 6, pages 62 - 69.

Julien d'Huy

2017 Response in Letters, p. 6, Scientific American, April 2017.

Faris, Peter

2010 Music at Rock Art Sites? March 28, 2010

https://rockartblog.blogspot.com

Faris, Peter

2016 Mythology in Rock Art, December 3, 2016, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com

MYTHOLOGY IN ROCK ART:

We have long been convinced that mythology could offer insights into the meaning of rock art. I am sure that we all know of examples where we are convinced that this works, that the meaning of a rock art panel can be inferred by knowledge of the mythology of the people who created it. Now an article in the December 2016 issue of Scientific American makes the fascinating claim that mythology can be used to decipher meaning in cave art produced during the Paleolithic period.

Drawing of the Polyphemus

myth panel in Les Trois-Freres. 

Public domain.

Julien d'Huy, in The Evolution of Myths, explains his process of phylogenetic analysis using statistics to generate "phylogenetic trees (that) reveal that species of myths evolve slowly and parallel patterns of mass human migration out of Africa and around the globe." (d'Huy 2016:64)

D'Huy explained that "my phylogenetic studies make use of the extra rigor of statistical and computer modeling techniques from biology to elucidate how and why myths and folktales evolve." (d'Huy 2016:64)

One of the myth families that he has applied this technique to is the "Cosmic Hunt", where "a man or an animal pursues or kills one or more animals and the creatures are changed into constellations." (d'Huy 2016:64) This story, in a number of variations, was common to the ancient Greeks in the story of Callisto who becomes the constellation Ursa Major, the great bear, and to the Iroquois, Chukchi, and Finno-Ugric tribes of Siberia. According to d'Huy "although the animals and the constellations may differ, the basic structure of the story does not." (d'Huy 2016:64)

D'Huy has traced the Cosmic Hunt myth back through history and around the world. He found it to be "nearly absent in Indonesia and New Guinea an very rare in Australia, but present on both sides of the Bering Strait, which geologic and archaeological evidence indicates was above water between 28,000 and 13,000 B.C. The most credible working hypothesis is that Eurasian ancestors of the first Americans brought the family of myths with them." (d'Huy 2016:65)

Another myth family that d'Huy has traced back to early origins is known as the Polyphemus myth after the one-eyed giant in the Odyssey who trapped Ulysses' crew in a cave and devoured some of them. In the same way as Polyphemus kept his herd of sheep in a cave, in variations of this myth animals are kept concealed by a trickster or other being, and a hero bring them to the surface of earth to sustain the people. The Algonquin Blackfoot people acquired buffalo in this way. "A composite phylogenetic tree of Polyphemus myths indicates that the stories followed two major migratory patterns: The first, in Paleolithic times spread the myth in Europe and North America. The second, in Neolithic times, paralleled the proliferation of livestock farming." (d'Huy 2016:68)

Drawing of the hero in the

Polyphemus myth panel in

Les Trois-Freres. Public domain.

"Phylogenetic reconstructions of both the Polyphemus and Cosmic Hunt stories build on decades of research by scholars who based their work primarily on oral and written versions of folktales and legends. The current models also incorporate empirical observations of mythological motifs in prehistoric rock art. Similarities in certain rock art motifs and the reconstructed stories open a new window on the mental universe of the first humans who migrated across the Bering Strait to the New World between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. 

In the myth of Polyphemus, as its original public most likely heard it, a hunter faces one or many monsters that possess a herd of wild animals. He enters the place where the monster keeps the animals and finds his way out blocked by a large obstacle. The monster tries to kill him. The hero manages to escape by clinging to the underbelly of one of the animals.

This protomyth - revealed by three separate phylogenetic databases, many statistical methods and independent ethnological data - reflects the belief, widely held by ancient cultures, in the existence of a master of animals who keeps them in a cave and the need for an intermediary to free them." (d'Huy 2016:69)

Drawing of the hero of the

Polyphemus myth panel in

Les Trois-Freres. Public domain.

D'Huy believes that this theme to can be applied to the Paleolithic world view on the origin of game. "At the Cave of the Trois-Freres (or "three brothers")

in the French Pyrenees, frequented during the upper Paleolithic, a panel shows a small creature with the head of a bison and the body of a human, which seems to be holding a short bow. Lost in the middle of a herd of bison, another animal, similar to a bison, turns its head toward the human hybrid, and the two exchange gazes." (d'Huy 2016:69)

This, he sees as an illustration of the herd of game animals being brought out of concealment (hidden in the cave perhaps) by a hero, to the people.

Now I have been relatively critical of statistical analysis in the past, especially when applied to rock art, but even without relying on statistics this explanation makes a great deal of sense, and when combined with the phylogenetic analysis of the mythology, I have to concede that I believe there is something here that is possibly of great importance to rock art studies. I look forward in the future to more contributions by Julien d'Huy. 

NOTE: Read the whole article in the December 2016 Scientific American magazine.

REFERENCE: 

Julien d'Huy,

2016  The Evolution of Myths, Scientific American, December 2016, Volume 315, Number 6, pages 62 - 69.

A SCULPTURED STONE KNOB IN SOUTHEAST COLORADO:

Front view, sculptured stone knob,

southeastern Colorado.

Photo: Peter Faris.

On a private ranch in Baca county in southeast Colorado there is a remarkable sculptured stone knob protruding from the cliff face. The oval stone knob is narrower at the bottom than at the top and it shows signs of being worked around the neck. Its location is pretty much directly below a small cave-like opening in the cliff. There are some visible striations in the worked area at the upper part of this knob which could have been caused by abrasion of pulling a rope back and forth or may have resulted from the process of reducing the size of the neck. Some lines engraved into the cliff to the left of this knob may be intended to indicate a body for the head-shaped knob. This is in an area where there is a large quantity of prehistoric rock art as well as historic inscriptions and the remains of homesteads so its age cannot be estimated by association. To the best of my knowledge there have been no archaeological excavations at this site to shed light on the question.

View of the stone knob from 45° to the side,

southeastern Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris.

Although I have absolutely no factual data to support this, my immediate reaction upon seeing this was to visualize it as a taxidermy form, picturing it with a deer head stretched over it, antlers projecting upward. It would probably also be sized properly for an antelope head and a desert bighorn as well, but it appears too small to be used with a bison head. In this imagined scenario I picture it in the flidkering light of a bonfire at some sort of nocturnal ceremony with the deer’s head mounted over it, appearing as if the animal were somehow emerging from the cave-like opening immediately behind it. This scenario is obviously influenced by Lakota mythology in which the animals are introduced to the world from underground by a divine being.


It would be fascinating to take a sample from the rock surface to submit to protein residue analysis for traces of contact with such animal hides. It would also be of great interest to see the results of archaeological investigation of the ground around it. While imagination is certainly no substitute for factual scientific knowledge, imagination is a very large part of what makes rock art so fascinating. Let’s remember to leave a little room for it.