A trio of researchers from Universidad de Cantabria and the University of Cambridge has found evidence suggesting that up to a quarter of all ancient handprints found on cave walls in Spain were made using children’s hands. In their paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Verónica Fernández-Navarro, Edgard Camarós and Diego Garate describe their study of ancient hand prints found in five Spanish caves and what they believe their findings suggest about ancient hand prints on cave walls in general.
Over the past several decades, hand prints on cave walls have come to represent ancient cave art as much as drawings of animals. Scientists studying the handprints have generally agreed that they, along with the animal drawings, were all likely done by males in a given group. In this new effort, the researchers have found evidence suggesting that up to a quarter of all cave hand prints were made using children’s hands. Read more.
To reach the only place in the world where cave paintings of prehistoric marine life have been found, archaeologists have to dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean off southern France.
Then they have to negotiate a 137-meter (yard) natural tunnel into the rock, passing through the mouth of the cave until they emerge into a huge cavern, much of it now submerged.
Three men died trying to discover this “underwater Lascaux” as rumors spread of a cave to match the one in southwestern France that completely changed the way we see our Stone Age ancestors.
Lascaux—which Picasso visited in 1940—proved the urge to make art is as old as humanity itself. Read more.
The Cosquer cave is located near Marseille, France and was rediscovered by accident in 1985 by a scubadiver named Henri Cosquer. As you might have guessed, the cave was named after the discoverer. The entrance of the cave itself lies about 35/37 meters below sealevel which follows a 150 meters long slope up before reaching a huge chamber with perfectly conserved cave art.
Despite the cave being discovered in 1985, the paintings itself were only mentioned in 1991 after a diving disaster that took the lives of three divers in the cave, they died after they got lost.
The discovery of the art inside the cave was quite significant. No other paleolithic art has been discovered before in the region of Marseille and the fact that this cave’s entrance is located under water can provide us with an answer. It is very likely that other similar caves in the region have been completely flooded after sea levels rose during the end of the last cold period of our ice age, this same rise of the sealevel also took Doggerland back into the seas.
The big chamber inside the cave consists of several images of animals. A total of 150 pieces of cave art have been discovered, 65 of which are hand stencils and other motifs/symbols. Most of the animals are quite familiar in other prehistoric caves such as bisons, horses and ibexes but this cave features more marine animals than other European sites. The cave is located right next to the sea so it makes sense that the art inside this cave represents more sea life than art inside caves further removed from the sea such as Chauvet.
Radiocarbon dating has dated the art inside this cave in two different time periods, 27,000 years ago and 19,000 years ago. In total, 177 animals are depicted in this cave belonging to eleven different species. There is also a rare depiction of a therianthrope (therian is Greek for wild beast and anthropos is Greek for human, these are half man/half beast beings) a human with a seal’s head.
Unfortunately some of the submerged parts of the caves most likely contained cave art as well but these paintings have long disappeared thanks to the salty water and algae. What makes this cave so exceptional is the presence of marine animal paintings and tools to create these paintings such as a shell which still contains coal and a piece of calcite plague which once served as a lamp.
Just like all other cave art found in Europe, the purpose behind these paintings is still unknown (despite several theories existing, I might write about them later). Many of these caves, including the Cosquer cave, are hard to reach places full with danger. Our earliest European ancestors risked their lives creating art in these dark spots underground. What is even more stunning is that several handprints made by children have been discovered as well. This means that children were also exploring these caves but we might never know why.
Here are images of: Art inside the Cosquer cave, The underwater entrance photograph by Luc Vanrell,
The Chauvet cave is located in southeastern France in the department of Ardèche. This cave is extraordinarily well preserved making it one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world. The paintings inside this cave are also one of the oldest pieces of art ever created, almost twice as old as the Rouffignac cave art.
The paintings inside the cave, and the cave itself, were discovered not too long ago. On sunday, 18th december 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire explored the area on the left side of the Ardèche river. All three of them were experienced in speleology and believed that there might be some underground caverns present in the area. They were right, the three did discover an underground cavern which was full with hundreds of paintings, it was truly a magnificent discovery.
Hundreds of animal paintings belonging to at least 13 species have been discovered thus far. What is interesting, these paintings are quite different from paintings found in other prehistoric caves. Normally animals such as mammoths, rhinos, deer and aurochs are depicted on paleolithic cave paintings but the Chauvet cave is full with animals such as: horses, cave lions, bears, hyenas, rhinos and wisents.
Not only does this cave contain depictions of animals, several abstract markings, hand prints and even some possible shamanic figures, most notably a humanoid figure with a bison head which resembles the Minotaur a bit. There is even a drawing that can perhaps represent a volcano erupting. Another amazing aspect of the Chauvet cave art is that the animals were sometimes put into a ‘scene’ such as animals hunting, fighting for territory or mating rights.
Who were exactly the humans who created all of these paintings? Through dating techniques it is determined that the cave was inhabited during two periods of time. The oldest period dates back to 37,000-33,5000 years ago and thus it were humans belonging to the Aurignacian culture who were partly responsible for the art. The second period, 32,000-27,000 years ago, was during the Gravettian period. The paintings in this cave are at least 30,000 years old and were made by the first anatomically modern humans in Europe.
Not only paintings were found inside of this cave. Footprints of cave bears were discovered, fossilized bones of animals such as cave bear skulls and ibex skulls. The most interesting of these finds are perhaps the footprints of a young child and a wolf walking next to each other. If both the wolf and child walked there at the exact same time, it could mean that the domestication of the dog happened a lot earlier than previously thought.
The cave itself is closed off to the public since its discovery in 1994. This is done in order to preserve the paintings inside as other caves which are open to the public, such as Lascaux, show signs of damage by growing mold produced by humans. This is also the reason why the paintings inside are so incredibly well preserved. The cave itself has been sealed off since the paleolithic era until 1994, no human has stepped inside during that period of time, preserving the past inside.
It is however still possible to visit the images and experience the ambience of being in a cave. A gigantic life-sized replica of the cave has been built a few kilometres away from the real cave. The reproduced cave has the same atmosphere as a real cave with sounds, humidity, temperature, lighting and silence. This allows us to visit and experience the paleolithic cave ambience without damaging the real paintings.
The El Pindal cave is located in Asturias, Spain and contains about 20 paleolithic artworks. The paintings inside this cave are a bit older than the Rouffignac cave, they are dated back to two periods during the paleolithic: 22,000 years ago and 17,000 years ago. What makes this cave especially special is the presence of quite a unique depiction of a woolly mammoth, that is how the cave earned its Spanish nickname ‘Elefante Enamorado’, the elephant in love.
The paintings inside this cave were discovered in 1908 by a local archeologist named Hermilio Alcade del Rio. The cave itself is about 600 meters long in length, the first 300 meters is opened up for visitors. Even though the paintings were discovered in 1908, only recent research has revealed the age of the works. Unfortunately not all of the 20 cave paintings are visible to the naked eye. The El Pindal cave has deteriorated quite a bit throughout the centuries due to climate changes.
The paintings that are still visible show the images of horses, a salmon, a red deer, abstract symbols, a bison and the most notable of them all, a woolly mammoth with a shape inside of it that looks like a heart. The appearance of a mammoth painting came as quite the surprise to researchers as depictions of mammoths are very rare in modern day Spain. It is thought that early modern humans in modern day Spain viewed the wild horse as a more sacred animal than the mammoth, while in modern day France the mammoth seemed to have been the most important spiritual animal.
Of course we can not know the exact reason why there is a heart-shaped figure inside the mammoth painting. It is also unknown and doubtful if early humans used the same symbol for a heart as we do today. Even though it is tempting to believe that this mammoth was drawn by people who adored the animal, it is more likely that this is actually a depiction of a wounded woolly mammoth.
Interestingly, the cave doesn’t contain any traces of habitation so it seems that early humans have used this cave solely for religious reasons. What kind of ritual would have involved drawing a mammoth with this strange heart-shaped symbol? Was it perhaps drawn by a hunter hoping for an easy hunt? Or was our first assumption right after all and an early human drew this mammoth as a symbol of endearment? We will never know..
Here are photos of: The cave art and entrance of the El Pindal cave.
The Rouffignac cave is a cave located in the department of Dordogne in France and is also known as the cave of the hundred mammoths thanks to its 255 cave paintings of which 62% represent a mammoth. The cave itself is big, it has over 10 kilometers of underground passageways and shafts that lead to even deeper levels not fully explored. In total, 12 kilometers of the cave has been explored and visitors can take a tour on a train that will take them about 2km far into the cave.
Earliest mentions of the cave dates back to 1575 when writer and painter François Belleforest described strange paintings and footprints of various animals in his work ‘Cosmographie Universelle’. During the 19th century, the cave became a tourist attraction because of the paintings but nobody yet realised that these paintings were actually made during the paleolithic era.
It wasn’t until the 1950’s when several researchers (Romain Robert, Louis-René Nougier, Charles and Louis Plassard) entered the cave and noticed that the paintings inside were of great historical value. In 1957 the cave became a listed site and it was finally confirmed that the art inside, is in fact prehistoric in nature and thus of incredible archeological value.
The art inside the cave is not the oldest art found in Europe. The art of Rouffignac is dated back to about 13,000 years ago from the Magdalenian culture, in comparison the art of Chauvet cave is about 30,000 years old. What is quite fascinating is the fact that 62% of all the paintings, 158 in total, represent a mammoth. There are 29 depictions of bison, 16 of a horse, 12 of an ibex, 11 of a rhino, 6 of a snake, 4 of a human, 1 of a bear and 14 abstract paintings.
Some of the art has been made in quite difficult positions inside the cave, it’s amazing to think that humans were able to explore this cave 13,000 years ago and make these pieces of art. There must have been a reason behind all of this art because no one would enter this cave that deeply to create art in pitch black and dangerous surroundings in prehistoric times, even with all of our current gear and knowledge humans wouldn’t even do this for fun in the 21st century. The possible spiritual meaning behind cave art still remains a mystery yet an incredibly fascinating topic to explore.
Why is there such an abundance of mammoth cave art in Rouffignac? We actually have no idea why. Perhaps our ancestors viewed the woolly mammoth as a particularly sacred animal, maybe their spiritual beliefs were based on the spirit of the mammoth. These are just wild guesses because in truth, it is impossible to find any archeological evidence inside this cave that explains the reason why there are so many depictions of a mammoth. One thing that is certain is that the mammoth continues to fascinate human beings until this very day, I myself got a tattoo of a woolly mammoth based on art found inside this cave.
To reach the only place in the world where cave paintings of prehistoric marine life have been found, archaeologists have to dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean off southern France.
Then they have to negotiate a 137-meter (yard) natural tunnel into the rock, passing through the mouth of the cave until they emerge into a huge cavern, much of it now submerged.
Three men died trying to discover this “underwater Lascaux” as rumors spread of a cave to match the one in southwestern France that completely changed the way we see our Stone Age ancestors.
Lascaux—which Picasso visited in 1940—proved the urge to make art is as old as humanity itself. Read more.
“The authors argue that artworks from the Minoan civilization of ancient Greece are likely the oldest to depict domesticated saffron. For example, the dense patches of crocus flowers on the fresco ‘The Saffron Gatherers’ from the island of Santorini (approximately 1600 BCE) suggest cultivation. Another fresco on the same island, ‘The Adorants’, shows flowers with long, dark-red stigmas which overtop dark violet petals, typical of domesticated saffron. Flowers with these traits are also depicted on ceramics and cloth from Bronze Age Greece, and symbolically rendered in the ideogram for saffron in the ancient Linear B script. In Egypt, tombs from the 15th and 14th centuries BCE depict how ambassadors from Crete brought tribute in the form of textiles dyed with saffron.”
“They suggest their findings indicate that doing cave art was a group activity shared among all members, including children. They also suggest their findings hint that some other ancient forms of art, left behind as artifacts, may have been done by children.”
Rather than depicting only the familiar herbivores that predominate in Paleolithic cave art, i.e. horses, cattle, mammoths, etc., the walls of the Chauvet Cave feature many predatory animals.
