Teenage delinquents responsible for paleolithic cave art?
- From: "Lance" <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 17 Feb 2006 00:46:18 -0800
http://www.livescience.com/history/060214_cave_art.html Ancient Cave
Art Full of Teenage Graffiti
By Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 14 February 2006
02:56 pm ET
Many art historians and anthropologists believe Paleolithic cave wall
art was done by accomplished shaman-artists, but mixed in with the
finer paintings are graffiti-like scenes of sex and hunting.
An analysis of thousands of paintings from the late Pleistocene epoch
suggests the graffiti artists back then were likely the same as
today-teenage males.
Most cave art from 10,000 to 35,000 years ago was done by hand, quite
literally. Artists would chew up a bit of red ocher, place their hand
against a wall, and spit over their hand.
"It was like kids taking a pencil and drawing an outline around their
hand," said Dale Guthrie, a paleobiologist from the University of
Alaska Fairbanks.
Men and women have different hand proportions-men have thicker thumbs
and palms-so by analyzing the dimensions of the hands in European
cave art, and comparing them to 1,000 photocopies of modern hands of
men and women of different ages, Guthrie determined just who painted
what.
Men and women and boys and girls of all ages left their marks but,
statistically, teenage males dominated, contrary to popular belief.
Most of the paintings are of large game, such as bison, horse, ibex,
and red deer. Cave bears and lions, which would have inspired fear,
were also depicted.
Many of the hunting scenes, although sloppily done compared to the
fine, finished work of an adult artist back then, are full of graphic
detail.
"Lots of the wild animals in the caves have spears in them and blood
coming out of their mouths and everything that a hunter would be
familiar with," Guthrie told LiveScience. "These were the Ferraris and
football games of their time. They painted what was on their minds."
And as with modern teenagers, the ancients had more on their minds than
just cars and sports.
"In the graffiti, there is a lot of below-the-belt-art," Guthrie said.
"The people in the art are predominantly women, and not a single one
has any clothes on."
But these weren't just any women, they were Pleistocene Pamela
Andersons adorned with ludicrously huge breasts and hips. The walls
were also decorated with graphic depictions of genitalia.
"These were not the type of paintings that make it into the coffee
table art books," Guthrie said.
While female artists accounted for less than 20 percent of the cave
art, they were being creative in other ways, researchers say.
"What we find in the fossil record doesn't always represent what was
going on," Guthrie said. "Prior to the pottery age, women in all
societies are working in things that don't preserve very well, such as
skins and braiding fiber."
Guthrie presents his findings and more than 3,000 images in his new
book, "The Nature of Paleolithic Art" (University of Chicago Press,
2006).
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