Paleolithic Painters
In 1879, Marceline de Sautuola, an amateur archeologist, and his young daughter entered the Altamira caves near Santander in northern Spain to search for clues about ancient man’s way of life. On previous visits Marceline had found specimens of flint and carved bone, but he could never have imagined what he, actually what his daughter would discover on this day. From her lower vantage point she was able to see the shadowy beasts painted on the ceiling, just inches above her father’s head. Father and daughter were the first people to see these renderings in over 10,000 years, but the elation of their discovery was short lived. Barely one year later, at the Lisbon Congress on Prehistoric Art, professional archeologists dismissed the paintings as nothing but forgeries.
In 1896, at Pair-non-Pair in the Gironde district of France, paintings were found partially covered by calcareous deposits that would have taken thousands of years to accumulate. The experts had no alternative but to declare these to be authentic and with the discovery by Abbe Breuil in 1901 of cave paintings in Font-de-Gaume in Dordogne, France the skeptics were finally convinced.
The most outstanding examples of prehistoric cave art were uncovered in 1940 at Lascaux near Montignac also in the Dardogne region. The paintings and over 1,000 engravings attracted great interest from the general public who were allowed to tour the depths and chambers of the caves until it was discovered that the moisture and carbon dioxide released when they exhaled encouraged the growth of destructive fungi. The caves were closed to the public in 1963.
The Lascaux caverns, like the others, were once subterranean water channels; some were only a few hundred feet long while others ran to 4,000 feet. Passage into the depths of the caves is choked with debris, faults and looming stalactites and stalagmite. Despite the sometimes impassable naves, the paintings and engravings at Lascaux were found 70 feet into the cave. In other caves, artwork can be found 850 feet deep, far removed from the living quarters that were huddled near the entrances.
Deep in the caves, archeologists have discovered the tools ancient man used to express himself. Stone lamps with marrow or fat for wax and wicks of moss were used to light the darkness. Their painting medium was red or yellow ochre mixed with animal fat and applied with reed brushes or the ochre was powdered and blown through pipes fashioned out of hollow reeds. Ochres were also used in chunk form to draw directly on the walls. Flint points were used to create engravings and sharp stones smoothed the surface of the rocky canvas. Opposing notches carved seven feet above the floors have also been discovered, leading to the conclusion that primitive artisans once used scaffolding to reach the ceilings.
Using these ingenious tools, the artists created naturalistic images of bulls, mammoths, rhinoceros, bison, reindeer, horses, boars and wolves. They used the natural curves and markings on the walls to add to their creations. In one example, a bison’s outline is drawn around a bulge in the wall, illustrating the girth of the animal. In another instance, pock marks on the walls create the coat of a spotted horse. Attention was paid to shading and the nuances of an animal’s coat and characteristics. In each creation, the artist attempted, usually with great success, to convincingly represent the poses and actions an animal would take. They managed to create pictorial definitions of the animal, capturing its essence with the aspects essential to appearance and personality characteristics. Archeologist Abbe Breuil suggested that "by confining the animal within the limits of a painting, one subjected it to one’s power on the hunting ground."
Though this early 20th century notion of sympathetic magic later met with resistance as archeologists pointed to a possible calendar system or log of kills, it has resurfaced in recent years as additional discoveries have been made and archeology as a field begins to accept the advanced concepts that ancient people were capable of considering. Dings and scratches have been found surrounding some animals, possibly created as a result of spears or arrows being thrown at the image. In another image, arrows are superimposed on a bull and a spear lies nearby. The simple fact that the images themselves are set apart from the living quarters also points to their usages as more than just decoration and the discovery of a shrine in the El Juyo cave, near the Altamira caves where the little girl and her father had uncovered the first cave paintings, adds credence to the magical use of the paintings. Images of animals surround an almost one ton altar-like stone that is supported by vertical stones. The shrine measures 118 square feet and the ground is dotted with clay mounds covering trenches that hold deliberately arranged objects.
Humanoid renderings in the caves are rare, but there are two notable examples. At Lascaux, a stick figure falls before a disemboweled bison as a rhino slinks away from the scene. It is unclear whether the man is dying, dancing or falling or whether he or the rhino killed the bison. Unlike the animals, the man is crudely drawn, he has no distinguishing features and either has a bird face or is wearing a bird mask. At his feet lies a staff with a bird head at one end. The second example was uncovered at Trois-Freres in the Pyrenees Mountains on the border between Spain and France. This is the famous Sorcerer, a humanoid figure with animal haunches wearing a mask and reindeer antlers. The Sorcerer chamber is crowded with beasts of all kinds. Archeologists theorize that the Sorcerer is a hunter or perhaps the god of these beasts; many modern pagans have come to believe that he is an early representation of the Horned God.
Early man not only painted and engraved, but sculpted in three dimensions as well. Bison with Turned Head was found in the caves at Dordogne, France. Carved from a reindeer horn, he is beautifully detailed. His head is turned fully around so that it is entirely framed by his massive body and his mane is illustrated with decorated hatching. In the caves at Tuc d’Audoubert, a pair of lifelike bison were cast in clay. They are wholly independent of additional material and set in such a manner as to cast shadows that add the illusion of depth.
All of the previous cave images and carvings have been dated to between 13,000 and 9,000 BCE, but even earlier examples of man’s need to create have been discovered. These come in the form of sculptures created by the Gravettian culture (28,000-20,000 BCE) that produced artifacts found from the Rhine Valley to the steps of Russia. Most examples of their work have been discovered in central Europe. They sculpted in the material they had on hand, stone, ivory, bone and antler and in their art they left evidence that early man thought in abstract concepts. Multiple female figurines have been found, the most famous of which is the Venus of Willendorf. These females are produced in full round, facial features are rare and some were even created without heads, illustrating that it was not a woman that the artist wished to portray, but the concept of female fecundity, not a female, but fertility.
Prehistoric peoples were once thought of as little more than advanced apes, but their full capabilities are now coming to light through the art, tools and ruins they have left behind.
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