The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art

The period beginning 40,000 years ago (the Upper Paleolithic) witnessed a marked increase in human artistic and symbolic expression. At about this time, a large number of statues carved from bone or stone begin to appear in the archaeological record, as do magnificent paintings of animals that were hunted and animals that were not, as well as other images on cave walls and ceilings. It is difficult for modern viewers to remain unmoved by these images, but what did these works mean to their creators and why did they create them?

Some researchers regard Paleolithic artwork as part of a system of communication of ideas-a system that uses animals and geometric patterns as symbols, the specific meaning of which may be lost forever. Anthropologist Meg Conkey views the 1,200 bones engraved with abstract geometric patterns at Altamira Cave, Spain,as the identifying symbols-the "flags"-of different groups of people who came together at the cave during certain periods.Archaeologist Michael Joachim views the cave paintings of northern Spain and southern France (the so-called Franco-Cantabrian region) as symbols marking territory. Social stresses that accompanied the population influx into the region during the period beginning 25,000 years ago may have resulted in the need to mark territory with symbols of ownership.Painting animals-probably the most important resources of a territory-within a sacred place in the territory, like a cave, might have served to announce to intruders the rightful ownership of the surrounding lands. Archaeologist Clive Gamble views the small stone statues of female figures,known as Venus figurines, as a symbolic social glue, helping to maintain social connections between geographically distant groups through a common religion and art style.

More recently, researchers Patricia Rice and Ann Paterson have returned to a more economic perspective. Their statistical analysis of the numbers and kinds of animals seen on cave walls in the European Upper Paleolithic shows interesting correlations with the collections of animal remains found at habitation sites in Spain and France. Small, non-aggressive animals such as reindeer and red deer were important in the diet of the cave painters and seem to have been depicted on cave walls in proportion to their economic importance. In addition, animals whose remains are found less often at archaeological sites, but that were impressive, dangerous, and produced large quantities of meat when they were successfully hunted,were commonly included in the artwork as well. So it would appear that cave painters wanted to depict animals that were important food sources. However, the relatively recently discovered Chauvet Cave contradicts this pattern, with its stunning depictions of animals not known to have been exploited for food by Paleolithic Europeans, including carnivores like lions, bears, and panthers, as well as woolly rhinoceroses.

A neuron-psychological approach has been applied by researchers J. D. Lewis-Williams and T. A. Dowson to explain at least some of the less naturalistic cave art. They note that there are six basic geometric forms that people who are placed into an altered state of consciousness (for example, through hypnosis) under experimental conditions report seeing: dots, wavy lines, zigzags, cross-hatching or grids, concentric circles or U-shaped lines, and parallel lines. Interestingly, these geometric forms are precisely those seen in some ancient cave art dating to more than 30,000 years ago.

Lewis-Williams and Dowson's approach is cross-cultural-in other words, they surveyed a wide variety of historical and archaeological cultures, finding common images in artwork all over the world. Lewis-Williams and Dowson point out ethnographic records of shamans (priests) who, in an attempt to communicate with spirits or see into other worlds, fall into a trance-like state by fasting, dancing, hyperventilating, going into isolation in absolute darkness, undergoing sleep deprivation, or even ingesting natural hallucinogens.When these shamans produce an artistic representation of what they have seen in their trances, they often include geometric shapes that are also seen in Upper Paleolithic artwork. These images from trances are not culturally controlled but result, in part, from the structure of the optic system itself and are therefore universal.Perhaps through sleep deprivation, staring at a flickering fire or the ingestion of drugs, ancient shamans or priests produced these images in their own optic systems. They then translated these images to cave walls as part of religious rituals.