Any discussion of prehistoric art and design begins with the problem of interpretation, and a fundamental question: What are we to make of the work our distant ancestors left us on cave walls, rock surfaces, and in the form of artifacts such as the various examples of art mobilier? The answers to this question are complex, but they require consideration if we are to arrive at some useful method of understanding these works and placing them appropriately among the vast array of human creative expressions.

In my lectures in both History of Art and Design History, I maintain that what we actually can know about any given image is little; in terms of facts, the following information is available to us: the medium, the age, the form of the image (as a recognizable animal, for instance), and certain statistical information (such as the facts that animal figures predominate, human figures are few, there are no women represented in parietal art, etc.). Further investigation might help us to locate the tools that were used, and other material evidence might help us to form a working explanatory hypothesis. Very often, such evidence suggests a ritual or religious purpose behind many of the works. But before we pursue this avenue it is important to remember some basic human tendencies.

First, human beings are metaphor-makers; we learn by using what we already know in order to understand what we do not yet know. Cognitive theorists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have made the foundational role of metaphor in human life clear in their book Metaphors We Live By, where they note that not only is metaphor “pervasive in everyday life,” but also, “our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (Lakoff and Johnson 1). If we lack experience of our own, we rely on stories of others' experiences. In order to make sense of new information, we place it within a recognizable context, and employ our gift for seeing one thing as another to compare the new information with what we already know. For example, we rely on our knowledge of what rocks are and what they look like when we encounter a rock we've never seen. So whether or not we can identify the type of rock we're encountering, we immediately recognize it as a rock--or at least as rock-like.

Human beings are also storytellers. The vast number of myths that pervade our own culture (and the equally vast number that pervade other cultures) provide ample evidence that narrative literature, whether oral or written, is "in our bones." The more stories we know, the richer our cultural experience, and the larger our "cultural pool of metaphor" (a concept I have borrowed from historian of science Gerald Holton)--the repository of examples upon which we can draw in order to understand a new situation.

But how does all this affect the way we interpret the images left behind on cave walls, thousands of years ago? In the past, anthropologists and art historians tended to interpret cave paintings (also known as "cave art" or "parietal art"--which refers to art created on walls) as reflecting essentially "primitive" views of the world. But modern researchers have come to recognize that since human beings have not evolved physically in more than 150,000 years, the fundamental intellectual abilities of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and ours are roughly equivalent. What they lacked, of course, is the rich veneer of technology that has developed between the end of the last glaciation and today. We would expect their world view, then, to be radically different from ours--but not "primitive" except in a technological sense. One difference, however, points to something we have given up in exchange for our technological sophistication. As cave art specialist Jacques Courtin notes in the Archaeology film "The Cave Beneath the Sea," the world of the Cosquer Cave painters was full of animals and almost devoid of people. Paleolithic peoples needed to know a lot more about the natural world than twenty-first century people do, simply in order to survive. What this difference ultimately leaves us with is a poor connection between their context and ours, which severely limits our ability to see the world as they saw it.

Interpreting what we observe

One of the most frequently discussed Paleolithic figures can be found in the most famous of all caves, Lascaux. The image includes what appear to be a male human figure and a wounded bison. Adjacent to these figures are a group of six marks, a rhinoceros, and what can probably most easily be described as a "duck on a stick." For a link to the image itself, click here. This collection of images has probably generated more controversy than any figure in the history of art, with the possible exception of the "venus" sculptures from approximately the same period. The central question seems to be, What does it all mean? The short answer is, as I have mentioned, we can't possibly know for sure. But the short answer is not very satisfactory, and since human beings are both metaphor-makers and storytellers, we can--and have--come up with a variety of possible (but not provable) answers.

By the late '60s, when I had begun to study archaeology and art history, science was becoming an increasingly important tool in cultural interpretation. As a result, the interpreters began to be a bit more reticent about assigning definite meanings to particular images. One of the first books I ever read on the subject of "cave art" was by Peter Ucko and Andrée Rosenfeld, called Paleolithic Cave Art. Clearly they were aware of problems with earlier interpretations, and their discussion of the man/bison image may prove illuminating:

The difficulties involved in the interpretation can be summarized by looking at the attempts to make sense of a particular set of representations in the shaft at Lascaux which nearly all authors [. . .] see as a pictorial composition. One of the main differences in the various attempts at understanding the meaning of this scene is the place assigned to the figure of the nearby rhinoceros. [One of the foremost early researchers, the Abbé Henri] Breuil saw it as a narrative hunting scene in which a dead man was shown lying between a rhinoceros which had killed him, and a wounded and furious bison. Nearby Breuil saw the representation of a throwing stick. According to this interpretation the rhinoceros had been victorious in killing the man who had previously wounded the bison. The bison, shown with a lance through him and his entrails hanging out from the wound, stands stationary with threatening head and lashing tail. On the basis of practices of modern tribes, Breuil interpreted the bird-headed stick as a funerary post. The dots below the tail of the rhinoceros received no interpretation. Variations on this same interpretation stress that the man is shown falling backwards and that this man has a bird head 'precisely similar' to the bird on the stick. The suggestion has been made that the rhinoceros was painted by a different hand from the other figures and may not be part of the scene at all while another view is that the rhinoceros, an essential figure in the composition, is ready to charge having already trampled the man. (Ucko and Rosenfeld 43-44)

Ucko and Rosenfeld go on to describe other interpretations, including one which assigns notions of clan identity to the figures (44). However compelling these interpretations might be, they are still by nature speculative. The best are based on cultural analogy with present-day hunting and gathering groups, such as the San people of Botswana, or the aboriginal peoples of Australia. The latter methodology is particularly attractive to those interested in trying to understand the cognitive development of human beings, and it may turn out to provide valuable insights. Current theories about shamanism and trances (see David Lewis-Williams, The Mind In The Cave, and Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams, The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves) based on similar analogical descriptions may also be helpful. They just can't prove anything. But as I am fond of pointing out to my Humanities students, science is not so much about proof as about telling the best story based on the evidence available at any given time. I'll give the final word on this matter to Paul Mellars, from a recent article on "The Upper Paleolithic Revolution":

Overall, perhaps, three features are clear: first, there is almost no limit to the range of potential hypotheses which can be invoked to account for the deeper 'significance' or 'psycho-social' motivation of cave art; second, virtually none of these interpretations are at present capable of being systematically tested or evaluated in any very rigorous or controlled way against either the individual details or the broader context of the art itself; and third, allowing for the enormous variety and overall spatial distribution of the art, there is clearly room for a wide range of complementary interpretations, which may have varying degrees of credibility at different times and places throughout the Upper Paleolithic universe as a whole. (73)

The scientific clarity that both Mellars and I require as foundations for interpretation do not negate in any way the narrative possibilities of these images. It the case of the man/bison image, it seems probable that the artist was trying to convey information of some kind (one can certainly ask of all these works, If they weren't trying to say something, why would they create the images in the first place?). All I ask is caution, and respect for the people who created the images. We should not try to impose our own meaning on their art; we can, however, derive our own meaning from their art: for example, that human beings are not only storytellers and metaphor-makers, but artists and craftspeople as well.

Bibliography

Cunliffe, Barry. Ed. Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.

This is a fairly recent and highly readable account of life in prehistoric Europe--including, but not exclusive to, the region which produced the bulk of existing cave paintings and drawings.

Clottes, Jean and David Lewis-Williams. The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves.

Translated by Sophie Hawkes. New York: Abrams, 1999.

Students who saw "The Cave Beneath the Sea" heard Clottes discuss his response to the Cosquer Cave images. This book offers his take on the relationship between shamanism and cave art, augmented by Lewis-Williams' expertise (see his book listed below). The images are first-class, and the exploration comprehensive. My personal jury on the shaman/artist interpretation is still out, but this is a valuable book. See the link below to the Amazon.com review.

The Cosquer Cave. Ed. Jean Clottes and Jacques Courtin. 27 March 2001. Ministère de la culture et de la communication,

France. 1 January 2003. http://www.culture.fr/culture/archeosm/en/fr-cosqu1.htm.

The official Cosquer Cave site, for those who would like to follow up on the Archaeology film, "The Cave Beneath the Sea."

La Grotte de Lascaux (Lascaux Cave). Des. Sandrine Michoud. Ed. Norbert Aujoulat. 21 September 1999. Ministère de la

culture et de la communication, France. 6 April 2002. http://www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/fr/index.html

This is the French government's official Lascaux site, and it has much to offer. Click on the page itself, then on the "English" icon, then on the page, then on "discover"--and then go on a virtual tour of the cave. The man/bison figure can be found in the Shaft of the Dead Man. It would also be useful to check out those pages listed under "learn."

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

In this very thorough examination of the role of metaphor in everyday life, the authors point out the many ways in which we use metaphor both consciously and unconsciously to both see and describe the world around us.

Lewis-Williams, David. The Mind In The Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

So far this book looks pretty solid; it has been recommended by some pretty respectable writers (like Peter Ucko). The section on the Man/Bison image in the Shaft at Lascaux is helpful, and I'll be discussing aspects of the new information in my lecture.

Marshack, Alexander. The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol, and Notation.

Mount Kisco, N. Y.: Moyer Bell, 1991.

Marshack's book covers not only cave paintings, but other artifacts--particularly those which appear to indicate that early human populations were not only observers of the animals and plants of their world, but were also highly interested in celestial events and the passage of time. While many do not agree with everything he postulates, most researchers think he's on to something important. See pages 276-280 for a discussion of the Man/Bison figure from Lascaux.

Mellars, Paul. "The Upper Paleolithic Revolution." Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History. Ed. Barry Cunliffe. Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1998.

This article from the Cunliffe volume noted above, provides a solid description of the Paleolithic economy, out of which the Lascaux and other cave images emerged. The "art" is discussed in the context of the overall cultural environment.

Pfeiffer, John E. The Creative Explosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.

Pfeiffer writes about the relationship between science and archaeology, and is the former Science and Medicine editor for Newsweek. This book focuses on the problem of understanding prehistoric art, and because he's used to a popular audience, his style is highly accessible. Pfeifer quotes the late François Bordes, one of the most important figures involved the history of studying early human populations, as the source of one particular interpretation of the man/bison panel at Lascaux. According to Pfeiffer, Bordes "offered it partly with tongue in cheek as a piece of science fiction: 'Once upon a time a hunter who belonged to the bird totem was killed by a bison. One of his companions, a member of the rhinoceros totem, came into the cave and drew the scene of his friend's death--and of his revenge. The bison has spears or arrows in it and is disemboweled, probably by the horns of the rhinoceros.'" (31)

Rigaud, Jean-Philippe. “Art Treasures from the Ice Age: Lascaux Cave.” National Geographic. Oct. 1988: 482-499.

This article contains superb photographs of Lascaux, and some discussion on the problems of assigning meaning to the images.

Ucko, Peter J. and Andrée Rosenfeld. Paleolithic Cave Art. New York: World University Library, 1967.

Although somewhat old, and probably out of print, this book is really only out of date because it does not include information on those caves located after 1967. Ucko is currently a professor of comparative archaeology at University College, London.

Some useful links

New: The PBS television series, How Art Made The World, offers some recent interpretive ideas (the shaman explanation of David Lewis-Williams) and the companion website is helpful in this regard.

D. Andrew White, Prehistory of Art. A relatively brief consideration of the problems involved with interpreting prehistoric art, with a good bibliography.

"The World's First Artistic Traditions", from a course on Buried Cities and Lost Tribes offered by Mesa Community College in Arizona. It includes a passage from Richard Leakey's Origins Reconsidered (1993), which offers his take on the Bison/Man figure under discussion, and discusses the trance/hallucination theory behind many current interpretations.

The latest word on the shamanism theories comes from Jean Clottes, one of the current leaders in the field of cave-art interpretation: The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves by Clottes, David Lewis-Williams, and Sophie Hawkes (the link is to Amazon.com, where you can see a table of contents and excerpts. I'll order this for the LRC, but it probably won't be available at least until the summer). Here is a recent article by Clottes on "Paleolithic Art in France."

Paleoesthetique is a page on aesthetic issues arising from the study of parietal art, by Emmanuel Guy, a French scholar in the field. The introduction is in English, but the essays (which are quite helpful) are in French. (Now aren't you sorry you didn't take it in high school?)

Here's a BBC News article, Oldest lunar calendar identified, by David Whitehouse. The site is Lascaux.

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07.10.07