22 Palaeolithic Art of Europe

D. K. Bhattacharya

No other activity expresses man’s feeling as directly as art does. These have been very successful media of communication of joy or sorrow and fear or of man’s victory over them. Palaeolithic archaeology basically retrieves and analyzes human technology and economy, evidence of art, on the other hand, opens a window to his mind. Prehistoric art was practised by our ancestors either on stones or bones or on walls of caves. The art found executed on stones or bones or similar moveable objects is more widely distributed. This is called “art mobilier” or home art. As against these, the art executed on cave walls, ceilings or floors are called “art parietal” or cave art. Cave art is present mainly in southern France and northern Spain. Besides these cave art is also noted from Italy, Arctic Circle of Euro-Asia and Spanish levant. The latter groups of rock art are from Holocene period and hence cannot be included in Palaeolithic Art.

In 1880, a Don Marcelino de Sautuola discovered the famous paintings of Altamira in Spain and was the first to suggest a possibility of these paintings to be of Palaeolithic antiquity. Unfortunately experts rejected such claim because the paintings looked too much bright and fresh to be of such antiquity. Subsequently more evidences of rock art started being reported. Since 1902 when Les Combarelles was described from France many enthusiasts started recording many more sites. Today in Western Europe alone we have nearly 200 rock art sites described. Rock art characteristics can be briefly described under such separate headings as context, motif, orientation, chronology and interpretation. The painting in many cases shows lines drawn by etching or engraving first and then painting on them. The colour used are black and various shades of ocher. Colours like green, blue, red, or white are seldom used. It is believed that such minerals as manganese or iron oxides have been crushed and mixed with either urine, blood or animal fat. Scaffolds must have been used to reach top levels of ceiling or even cave walls. Unfortunately we have no evidence of such scaffolding. Use of artificial light in the form of a lamp has been found only in one cave.

Context: Most cave art is found deep inside cave or in crevices despite the fact that empty canvas is visible all around the accessible part of the cave. In many cases natural rock protuberances on the cave wall has been used to advantage to show the contour of the anatomy. In one or two cases a hole in the rock surface is used to show the eye of an animal by drawing the head skillfully around this natural whole. Sometimes a shell has been inserted in the whole to make the eye look real.

Motif: One of the most significant characters of Palaeolithic rock art is their repeated super imposition. Barring few large panels almost all drawings and paintings are super imposed with many other figures. The most common motif in all these paintings is cows, bisons, horses and antilopes, Mammoths and rhinoceros are very rarely depicted. Landscapes and human figures are almost nearly absent. Another important feature of rock art is that animals depicted are not always in proper orientation or in size. That is one can see a huge reindeer within the belly of which a small mammoth may be shown. Sometimes two animals are drawn in such a manner that they share part of their bodies. There are also instances where an animal may be shown with legs pointing upwards. Carnivores, birds or reptiles are also nearly unknown in Palaeolithic rock art of Europe.

Chronology: Cave art is dated, in most cases, according to various styles enunciated as representing a period. These may be also based on styles of representation observed in objects of home art which come associated with datable cultural layers. Robert Bednarik in a recent paper dated some engravings on the basis of lime encrustration covering the panel and demonstrated how misbeading it is to use styles as representing a chronology. Leroi- Gourham (1965) had suggested the following style chronology.

The various stages of development of art demonstrate a high degree of regional variation within the Franco-Cantabrian region. In some caves dots have been preferred to an outline, while in others natural rock bosses or protuberances have been used to represent the anatomical contours of the animal’s body. The cave of La Rouffignac in Dordogne district of France is nearly 10 km. long and the first works of art appears nearly 2km. from the entrance of the cave. Similarly there are caves where one has to take a boat to enter the area where art begins to appear. The two most famous sites of rock art which have been studied in detail are Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain.

Lascaux: This is the finest of all cave painting sites of France. It is 100 meters long with 2 axial galleries. The work of art is spread over the main hall and the galleries. Surprisingly very little super imposition is done in the major panels. The painted animals are rather large in size, sometimes measuring as much as 5.5 meters in length. The main chamber measuring 30×10 meters is decorated with polychrome paintings of bulls and some other animals. Because of the predominance of bulls this chamber has been called the “hall of the bulls”. This hall also contains the curious and much discussed paintings of the so-called ‘unicorn measuring 1.65 meters in length. Another 2.70 meter long horse in red wash and parts of its head and feet in black wash occurs in the same chamber.

The main chamber opens into a gallery and the far end of this gallery terminates into a vertical shaft which is nearly 5 meters in depth. This is referred to as the “shaft of the dead man”. Near its floor has a scene painted on a flat protuberant rock. This shows an impaled bison standing with a human figure in a position of lying on its back in front of it. The bison has its tail up and the hair on its body bristling. A spear is shown pierced through its hind quarters and some of its entrails hang down from its belly. The human figure is schematically drawn with single straight lines representing the body, hands and legs. The man has a bird like face. He is shown with an erected phallus. A stick with a bird sitting on it is struck in the ground by the side of the prostrate man.

Besides these numerous horses, bovids and cervidae are also painted in the various galleries. French archaeologists feel that Lascaux represents both late Gravettian as also paintings upto middle Magdalenian period.

Altamira: This is a 280 meter long cave with most spectacular polychrome paintings of Spain. In style these have been viewed as comparable to French sites of late Magdalenian stages (like for instance Font-de-Gaume). Excavations have been conducted inside the cave and it reveals a rich Solutrean and Magdalenian layers. Nearly 10 meters beyond the entrance the main cave passage leads into a low-roofed, closed hall. Here the ceiling is covered with polychrome paintings of 15 bisons some standing and some sitting with their legs curled beneath them. Besides these three wild boars, three females dear, two horses and a wolf are represented within this panel. The larger figures individually measure about 1.5 meters in length. Besides these some monochrome paintings of animals belonging, most probably, to an earlier period are also found in this hall. Among these a fine running horse in red outline and red washes is one of the best preserved figures. Besides these, tectiforms of several kinds are also recorded.

Besides the above two world famous cave sites both France and Spain have numerous other caves with Palaeolithic rock art. In Laussel a rock face seems to have been cut to represent a man standing with a bull’s horn in hand. This work of art in many respects can be taken as unique because: firstly, it is a bas relief and secondly it shows a full length man’s figure and finally it shows him (possibly) attempting to drink something from the bull horn. Other than the mother goddess figurines Laussel in Dordone district of France represents another bas relief form of art.

Interpretation: In the absence of any clue to the state of ideas and attitude of prehistoric man the easiest approach to explain the art will be to explain them as art for arts sake. A closer look at the amazing variety of representations with what seems to be unexplainable signs and their occurrence in the deep interior of the caves would rule out such an over simplified explanation. With the increase of ethonographic literature archaeologists rushed to conclude that evidences from tribal world might enable us to understand the cause of as well as function of art in prehistoric societies. Thus, earlier workers like Reinach, Begouen and even Breuil developed theories of hunting rituals, initiation, sympathetic magic, fertility and totemic rituals to explain the mystifying works of cave art. The interpretation of prehistoric art has oscillated between two mutually exclusive views.

At one extreme it is art for art’s sake, and at the other end it is esoteric rituals. The fact that in most of the sites or at least in the best decorated caves there is no habitational debris prevents the acceptance of a non-ritualistic hypothesis. At the same time it is unlikely to consider every piece of art as having been associated with one or other kind of ritual. The multiple palm prints at many of these rock art panels poses many questions. This is firstly because there are some caves like Gargas (France) where more than 500 negative and positive palm prints occur. Secondly many of these palm prints show one or more fingers are amputed. It was argued that these represent initiation rituals, because body amputation could be used as a test of manhood for such rituals. Some authors felt these show the presence of leprosy in prehistory. Recently scholars felt that these could also be sign language. Finally the super-imposition of these figures seems to indicate that they were not drawn for visual pleasure at all. Does it then be taken that the mere act of drawing in the dark interiors of the caves or in such inaccessible regions as the “shaft of the dead man” was the essence of the ritual.

It would appear that these Caves have been visited by many individuals and so might have had some regular unknown activities. But whether such activities were for totem worship, initiation, ceremony, magic, hunting or fertility ceremony will perhaps never be known. But the weight of evidence definitely indicate its association with some kind of ceremonies perform or esoteric or both.

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