What Is Paleolithic Art?

Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity

Jean Clottes, Oliver Y. Martin, Robert D. Martin

• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780226188065
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Art

The noted archaeologist explores the varieties of prehistoric cave art across the world and offers surprising insights into its purpose and meaning. What drew our Stone Age ancestors into caves to paint in charcoal and red hematite, to watch the likenesses of lions, bison, horses, and aurochs as they flickered by firelight? Was it a creative impulse, a spiritual dawn, a shamanistic conception of the world? In this book, Jean Clottes, one of the most renowned figures in the study of cave paintings, pursues an answer to the "why" of Paleolithic art. Discussing sites and surveys across the world, Clottes offers personal reflections on how we have viewed these paintings in the past, what we learn from looking at them across geographies, and what these paintings may have meant—and what function they may have served—for their artists. Steeped in Clottes's shamanistic theories of cave painting, What Is Paleolithic Art? travels from well-known Ice Age sites like Chauvet, Altamira, and Lascaux to visits with contemporary aboriginal artists, evoking a continuum between the cave paintings of our prehistoric past and the living rock art of today. Clottes's work lifts us from the darkness of our Paleolithic origins to reveal surprising insights into how we think, why we create, why we believe, and who we are

One

What Is the Correct Way to Approach Art in Caves and Shelters?

All art is a message. It can address a more-or-less cohesive community whose knowledge varies according to membership of one group or another. Age, sex, degree of initiation, social status, and many other individual factors may also play a part. Art may serve as warning or a prohibition directed at all members of a group or just some of them, and it may also be directed at people outside the group, possibly even at potential enemies (“No entry”). It may also tell a story, either profane or sacred, or eternalize real or mythical facts of special importance. Alternatively, art may have no role other than that of manifesting or affirming individual or collective presence (“Here am I” or “Here we are”). This is the motivation for graffiti. Sometimes, art is intended not for other humans but for one or more divine beings, aimed at establishing a bond of one kind or another with the netherworld. It may serve to recruit the power of spirits or gods believed to reside in the rock or in the mysterious world beyond the permeable boundary that the rock wall forms between the universe of the living and that of fearsome supernatural powers.

All of these kinds of significance, and doubtless many others, can be envisaged when dealing with art that is prehistoric—“fossilized art”—whose nuances and complexities cannot be explained by those who created it, by their contemporaries, or by their successors. One can surely appreciate the challenges facing any attempt to approach these questions of significance millennia after the disappearance of the societies that created the art.

Deceptive Empiricism and Its Lack of Ambition

There is hence a strong temptation to abandon any attempt to provide explanations or to shun this risky enterprise altogether. Viewpoints with varying degrees of pessimism have been expressed, notably over the past twenty-five years. “Precise understanding of significance lies beyond the domain of archaeological investigation of prehistoric art, which must confine itself to the modest satisfaction of recording its structures rather than literally seeking the sense of the depictions studied.”1 Some authors go even further, proclaiming that any research in this direction should be abandoned: “An increasing number of investigators have decided to abandon the fruitless search for meaning.”2 “Interpretation of the art lies outside of science’s capabilities, and will presumably always remain there,” because “empirical knowledge is the only form available to us about the physical world.”3

The alternative proposed by the pessimists would therefore be to limit oneself to an objective description of the facts, or even of the structures, and to compose immediate explanations that are as simple as possible. But this position is unsatisfactory not only because of its lack of ambition but above all because its deceptive empiricism is actually dangerous. In effect, empiricists claim to be objective and celebrate their freedom from any preexisting hypotheses. But they are clearly deluding themselves, albeit unwittingly, as philosophers of sciences have abundantly demonstrated: “Utterly unbiased observation must rank as a primary myth and shibboleth of science, for we can only see what fits into our mental space, and all description includes interpretation.”4 Confronted with the infinite scope of material reality, we are manifestly quite unable to choose among the countless alternatives that present themselves without previously accepting or deciding that one parameter will be important and another not. In other words, we favor one hypothesis over another. Bronislaw Malinovski clearly stated this in 1944: “There is no description untouched by theory.” “To observe is to choose, to classify; it is to select in accordance with theory.”5

Empiricism hence presents a double danger: On one hand, the apparent objectivity that is claimed is in fact nothing more than the implicit application of hypotheses and theories that are generally accepted in the contemporary context, often without debate or even formulation, as if they were self-evident. On the other hand, it carries in its wake a kind of sterilization of research, which is reduced to description while ignoring the context in which the art was created.

Yet, despite all the dangers and difficulties, the ultimate goal of archaeology is, or should be, an understanding of the phenomena examined, in other words a search for significance. In fact, ever since the first discoveries of Paleolithic art during the nineteenth century and ensuing decades, there has been no lack of attempts to provide explanations. After all, it is evident that the question “Why?” is one of the first to be posed by an investigator or even by a simple spectator confronted by these images, whose antiquity renders their mystery even more disquieting.

Suppositions regarding the Significance of Paleolithic Art

When engraved objects were first discovered in Paleolithic levels some 150 years ago, they evoked considerable surprise, because “these works of art did not fit well with the uncultured barbarous state that we had imagined for these aboriginal populations.”6

Initial hypotheses7 were simple, framed to fit the image of a life thought to be idyllic, uniquely devoted to hunting and leisure. Engravings and sculptures accordingly had no purpose other than ornamentation of weapons and tools, just for pleasure, fulfilling an innate need for aesthetic expression. This is the theory known as “art for art’s sake”: Art is gratuitous and self-sufficing. This interpretation was particularly championed, at the end the nineteenth century, by Gabriel de Mortillet, a militant atheist who opposed any idea of religion. It went hand in hand with the established notion of “noble savages,” who had sufficient free time to devote themselves to artistic pursuits, to the extent that they were able and with the means at their disposal. Faced with the contradictions that it generated, this notion fell by the wayside.

Two major opposing arguments contributed to abandonment of the notion of “art for art’s sake,” particularly following the discovery and description of art deep in caves. The initial discovery at Altamira (Spain) in 1879 eventually became widely accepted in 1902, after discoveries in 1901 at Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume in Dordogne (France) led Émile Cartailhac to retract his doubts regarding the authenticity of Altamira and to publish his famous “Mea Culpa of a Skeptic.”8 On the one hand, why should people descend deep into uninhabited caves to create such images? If the purpose of art is to serve communication, this was at the very least improbable at the sites selected, unless their role was something other than providing simple receptacles for images destined to be seen and admired by the artists’ contemporaries, in which case “art for art’s sake” is an inadequate explanation. On the other hand, ethnological reports that began to arrive from other continents (particularly Africa and Australia) bore witness to more complex patterns of thought than had been envisaged for populations regarded as “primitive.” Among these remote people, art often played a prominent part in their cultural practices.

This hypothesis does occasionally resurface either from members of the general public, unaware of the arguments presented above (sometimes taking the form of a question posed during lectures: “Why not just say quite simply that they created images in caves because they liked doing it?”) or, more rarely, in an academic environment. Its latest manifestation was in a controversial publication by the American university professor John Halverson in 1987. In a prominent American journal, Current Anthropology, he criticized the various intervening interpretations of cave art and, being wary of loaded connotations of the word “art,” vainly attempted to resuscitate what he preferred to call “representation for representation’s sake.” His arguments were essentially based on the absence of formal proof for the magical character of the representations and even, joining the company of Gabriel de Mortillet, for the existence of any kind of religion in the Paleolithic.9

However, numerous authors, faced with the unquestionable visual qualities of cave art, have emphasized the fact that its realization implied precise knowledge and a mastery of sophisticated techniques, along with a quest for, and indeed enjoyment of, aesthetic properties on the part of the artists concerned. So, without being “art for art’s sake,” the activity entails artistic sentiment and its application. This is not inconsequential, and we will return to it with respect to shamans and their apprenticeship.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, totemism briefly appealed to certain prehistorians, one example being Salomon Reinach, who influenced quite a number of others. He set out from the close association that a human group establishes between itself or some of its members and one or more specific animal or plant species. The individual or group characterized by a particular totem attributes to it certain powers, respecting and venerating it, for example, abstaining from hunting it.

Three more-or-less well-founded principal criticisms were directed at this hypothesis. Representations of animals wounded by arrows or other projectiles, for which examples are known from caves (Niaux, Les Trois-Frères, and, more recently, Cosquer), would be incompatible with the veneration granted to an animal totem. Above all, however, no major ornamented cave is dedicated exclusively to a single species as would be expected. If that were the case, there would be “lion caves,” “bear caves,” “ibex caves,” and so forth. Nevertheless, some caves are dominated by images of a particular animal, either numerically (mammoths at Rouffignac; bison at Niaux) or by the proportions accorded to them (aurochs at Lascaux). Conversely, the bestiaries of cave art, that is to say the collections of animal representations found at any given site, show relatively little variability. Yet the range of available choices, without even considering plant species, was immense. As André Leroi-Gourhan noted, if they represented totems, we would be obliged to “conclude that all Paleolithic societies were subdivided in the same fashion, with each possessing a bison clan, a horse clan and an ibex clan. Such an interpretation is not beyond the bounds of possibility, but it is not convincingly indicated by the facts themselves.”10

Last, as the twentieth century progressed, the inference of totemism was scarcely crowned with success, doubtless because—without being clearly excluded in certain cases—it was unable to provide the unique explanation that was sought for the complex phenomena observed.

So-called sympathetic magic implies a fundamental, indeed literally vital, relationship between the image and its subject. By taking action on the image, action was exerted on the subject represented, whether human or animal. This was the theory that had the greatest success following the revelation of cave art. Here, too, the first to formulate it was Salomon Reinach, in an article published in 1903 bearing the eloquent title: “Art and Magic in Relation to the Paintings and Engravings of the Age of the Reindeer.”11 Adopted, elaborated, and promulgated by abbé Henri Breuil and Count Henri Bégouën,12 this theory, under the rubric of hunting magic, enjoyed astonishing success for decades.

Count Bégouën precisely defined the foundations and procedures, although nowadays we reject use of the term “primitive,” which Bégouën applied repeatedly to traditional societies or to prehistoric cultures: “A notion widely held among all primitive populations is that representation of any living being is, in some way, an emanation of that being itself and that a human being in possession of the image of the being already has a certain power over it . . . Accordingly, one can infer that primitive people similarly believed that the fact of representing an animal somehow subjected it to their domination. As masters of its image, of its replica, they were more easily able to master the animal itself.”13

Art was hence magical and utilitarian. Objects decorated with images of animals could serve as amulets or talismans. And as for depictions in the depths of caves, they were not intended to be seen: they were created to influence reality through its representation. Creation of the artwork therefore took precedence over the result and over its visibility to the mortal community. This explained multiple superpositions of images on a given cave wall, where each magical ceremony added representations that ended up in an inextricable tangle, rendering the panels concerned virtually unreadable. “Once this act had been accomplished . . . the image was no longer important.”14

The magic concerned had three major components. The first of these, accounting for its familiar name “hunting magic,” was to facilitate hunting of large herbivores constituting the customary prey and to enhance their fecundity. These animals were spellbound through their images and by the marks of projectiles and wounds that were depicted on them. Some animals were incompletely represented in order to diminish their capacities for defense. Within this conceptual framework, what are now called “geometric signs” were interpreted as weapons or as traps. Humans represented were sorcerers. Those that we refer to as “composite creatures,” which present a combination of human and animal characteristics (Les Trois-Frères; fig. 1), were clothed in animal skins or endowed with animal attributes (horns, tails, claws) in order to capture more effectively their qualities and their power. They might also have represented gods reigning over the animal world.

The second kind of magic, called “fertility magic,” was aimed at promoting reproduction of the game animals. This explained images of pregnant females and of numerous animals lacking any traces of wounds.

“Destructive magic” served the goal of eliminating harmful animals, such as lions or bears, which were represented in certain caves, such as Montespan or Les Trois-Frères. This hypothesis stood to some degree in contradiction to the preceding one, as in one case animals were represented in order to increase their numbers, whereas in the other this was done in order to eliminate them.

During the second half of the twentieth century, certain inconsistencies in this explanation, such as the one just mentioned, were demonstrated, while new research and discoveries contradicted some aspects.

Figure 1. Composite creatures, partly human and partly animal. Top: the two “sorcerers” of Les Trois-Frères (Ariège) (tracings by H. Breuil). Center: on the left, the “sorcerer” of Gabillou (Dordogne) (tracing by J. Gaussen, completed); on the right, the “slain man” of Cosquer (Bouches-du-Rhône), without the harpoon traversing his body (after a photograph). Bottom: on the left, the man with a bird’s head in the Shaft scene at Lascaux (Dordogne); on the right, men transfixed by lines (not shown here), one with a bird’s head (Pech-Merle) and both with peculiar arms (Cougnac). The latter is shown in an upright position to facilitate direct comparison with that of Pech-Merle (after photos).

For example, animals marked with signs in the form of arrows should logically predominate, but they are in fact relatively rare and confined to particular caves, while being completely absent from others. More seriously, excavations at the entrances of decorated caves or in shelters or caverns associated with them revealed that, contrary to expectation, the animals hunted and consumed did not closely correspond to the painted or engraved bestiary. At Niaux (Ariège), for instance, bison represent more than half of the animals portrayed. So the expectation would be that the authors of the artwork, Magdalenian people of the nearby La Vache cave, were bison hunters and not that their prey would be essentially ibex, as is actually the case.15 This observed discordance between animals hunted and animals depicted is too consistent to be a chance outcome. This brings to mind an observation made by Claude Lévi-Strauss in a different context: “It is not sufficient that a food is good to eat; it also has to be good to think.”

The proposed explanation, which was intended to be globally valid, failed to take account of a large number of elements present in caves. This was...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: What Is the Correct Way to Approach Art in Caves and Shelters?
• Chapter Two: Encountering Multiple Realities on Other Continents
• Chapter Three: Perceptions of the World, Functions of the Art, and the Artists
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index