• : WbHblUkIL CAVE PAINTINGS By REBECCA B. ILLUSTRATED WITH s «t ; ',, MARCUS PHOTOGRAPHS n PREHISTORIC CAVE
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WbHblUkIL
CAVE PAINTINGS By
REBECCA
B.
ILLUSTRATED WITH
s «t ;
',,
MARCUS PHOTOGRAPHS
n
PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTINGS Twelve-year-old Maria de Sautuolo liked to
accompany her
father
when
he went cave exploring near their home in northern Spain. It was fun to hunt for tools left in the cave by ancient, unknown men. Then one day Maria went exploring by herself and made a discovery of her own. Wandering into a deep part of the cave, she saw a painted herd of lifelike bison charging across the ceiling. Maria's discovery
was the first step
an exciting treasure hunt for cave paintings that led from Altamira to in
Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume,
to
Mexico, to South Africa and back in time to Cro-Magnon man through the
Olmec Indians of 3,000 years ago, and
down
to th«* present. Maria's
tures
were
adven-
like those of the priests
and explore.s who have devoted their lives to the search for clues to solve
the mysteries of these paintings.
In a crisp, clear style
Rebecca
Marcus conducts an adventure of discovery. She explores the history, origins, and techniques of the art and the artists, reveals the meaning of their work, and describes the methods used by present-day scientists to date the paintings and protect them from mold and temperature changes. She shows how we, too, can go cave exploring and discover for ourselves the remarkable world of these artists of long ago. (see
back
flap)
PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTINGS
ROSLINDALE
Cro-Magnon man painting to
make
the wall of a cave.
a picture of a stenciled hand.
He
is
using a blowtube
PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTINGS by
REBECCA
illustrated with
B.
MARCUS
photographs
FRANKLIN WATTS, INC. 575 LEXINGTON AVENUE NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022
ROSLINDALE
\
.t)
.$& ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes
to
thank Dr. Richard A. Gould of the Department of
Anthropology of the American
Museum
of Natural History for his criti-
Thanks are
cal reading of the manuscript.
also due the following persons
for their special kindness and courtesy in helping to gather material for this
book:
Seiior Felipe
Mendez de
la
Torre, Jefe de Relaciones Publicas, Cuevas
de Altamira, Spain; Sefior
Tomas Maza
Solano, Director de
la
Revista Altamira, Patronato
de las Cuevas Prehistoricas, Santander, Spain; Dr. Jean Guichard, Director,
Photo credits appear on page
Musee de
Prehistoire, Les Eyzies, France.
89.
BOSTON PUBLIC
LIBWfltf
©1968 by Franklin Watts, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-25724 Printed in the United States of America Copyright
12
3
4
5
CONTENTS MARIA'S DISCOVERY
3
SEALED IN A CAVE
4
THE SECRET TREASURE AT ALTAMIRA
8
DISCOURAGEMENT AND DISAPPOINTMENT IN
THE VEZERE VALLEY
IN
FRANCE
13
16
LES COMBARELLES, FONT-DE-GAUME,
AND BACK TO ALTAMIRA
20
DISCOVERY OF THE LASCAUX CAVE
28
THE PAINTINGS AT LASCAUX
29
THE MYSTERIOUS SCENE
IN
THE WELL
CRO-MAGNON MAN
39 42
ROSLINDALE
BEGINNINGS OF CAVE ART
47
HOW CAVE PAINTINGS WERE PRODUCED
48
SKETCH SHEETS AND ART SCHOOLS
50
CAVE PAINTINGS AND SYMPATHETIC MAGIC
51
CAVE ART MAY HAVE A DIFFERENT MEANING
55
THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF CAVE ART
58
MEXICAN CAVE PAINTINGS
62
ROCK PAINTINGS - SPANISH LEVANTINE ART
64
ROCK ART
AFRICA
67
CAVE PAINTINGS TODAY
72
IN
VISITING THE
APPENDIX I — Some APPENDIX
II
Painted Caves in Spain and France
- Radiocarbon Dating
75
80
GLOSSARY
82
INDEX
86
PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTINGS
\T
The painted
ceiling in the Altamira cave.
MARIA'S DISCOVERY "Tows, torosl—
Bulls, bulls! Father,
come and look
at the
Maria de Sautuolo's cry from deep inside the cave reached her father as he dug in the rubble at
bulls!" Twelve-year-old
the cave's front.
The cave was
in a gently rolling
meadow
at Altamira,
near
Mar in northern Spain, a few miles from the Sautuolo summer home. Marcelino de Sautuolo sometimes took his daughter with him when he went digging for remains Santillana del
by ancient man. Maria liked to poke around in the dark cave, to shine her candle on the walls and ceiling, and watch the shadows cast by the bulges in the rock. On this day in 1879, Maria had found her way to a part of the cave that only a child could have entered walking upright. As she flashed her candle on the low ceiling, she saw, painted on the rock, a herd of animals that looked like bulls. The paintings were so lifelike that the animals seemed to be left
there
(3)
charging right out of the rock. In wonderment, she called to her father.
Her father stooped through the opening into the part of the cave from which Maria's voice came. There he found a treasure, not of gold or precious stones, but of pictures painted
the ceiling of the cave
by men who had lived 15,000 years
SEALED IN The entrance
ago.
A CAVE Altamira cave had been sealed for
was discovered only by accident. hunter in the meadow saw his dog disappear
15,000 years. In 1868 a
to the
on
It
into
the ground. Following the faint barking of the dog, the hunter
began
to dig
away
at a small hole into
which the animal had
apparently fallen. This hole led to an underground pile of loose rock. In order to free the dog, the hunter had to
move away some
of
the rock. In so doing, he discovered that the rocks covered
had fallen and blocked the entrance. The hunter released the dog and conthe entrance to a cave. Part of the cave ceiling
tinued his search.
Upon
his return to Santillana del
told of his discovery, but
Mar he
no one was curious enough
to ex-
plore the cave.
Ten years
Marcelino de Sautuolo, a historian and archaeologist, returned to his home in northern Spain from a visit to the Paris Exposition of 1878. There he had seen a later,
display of tools and other objects
(4)
made by
ancient peoples.
Rhinoceros engraved on bone, found among the remains of ancient in
man
southwestern France.
The
had been found in 1864 in a cave near the town of Les Eyzies in the Dordogne valley of southwestern France. Among the objects Sautuolo had seen were engraved pieces of animal bone and ivory that came from the tusks of mammoths, an extinct type of elephant. One piece of ivory had a fine engraving of a mammoth, and undoubtedly had been made by a man who had seen such an animal. Now mammoths had not roamed Europe for about 15,000 years. They had died out about the time the great ice sheet that covered much of Europe was melting. The engraving, then, had to be articles
at least
15,000 years old. In
all
probability, the other objects
found with the piece of ivory were also
(5)
at least as old.
Sautuolo had been intrigued by these remains showing the
work
of ancient men. Perhaps groups of these
lived near his
own home
men had
also
few hunFrance. Perhaps
in northern Spain, only a
dred miles from the Dordogne region in these men, too, had left remains that told something about their lives. He knew of the unexplored, barely opened cave at Altamira. Might not this be a place to look for evidences of ancient
cavemen?
Soon after his return from Paris, Sautuolo went to Altamira and began to remove more of the rubble and slabs of rock that had fallen down and sealed the mouth of the cave. When he had cleared away enough of the fallen rock to enter, he found himself in a dark chamber. He explored the chamber and saw that it showed signs of having been occupied by people. Here and there he found bone needles, stone axheads, spear points, knives, and scrapers — objects unmistakably made by man. That winter, back in Madrid, Sautuolo spoke of his finds Juan Vilanova of the University of Madrid. Vilanova was one of the world's foremost scholars engaged in the study of ancient man. He encouraged Sauto his friend Professor
tuolo to continue his digging in the cave the next summer. In the
home
summer
of 1879, Sautuolo returned to his country
At Altamira he spent many days digging in the front part of the cave, and found many different objects. Among them were small pieces of bone, each in northern Spain.
pierced with a small hole at one end. pieces of bone together, he
an ancient
man
or
woman
saw
When
he strung the
had a necklace that might have worn. Once, on a rocky
(6)
that he
V
i
1