The Cave Painters

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by Gregory Curtis


  To the Greek artists, perfecting the forms found in nature expressed the highest philosophical ideals. The same is true for the cave painters. Their beautiful but placid and repetitive art, based on perfecting the forms of animals found in nature, was not only the first great art but also the first great philosophy, the first attempt we know of to put meaningful order to the chaos of the world. How liberating, how frightening, and how seductive that must have been! No wonder then that from time to time those first rough but civilized people left the churning, fecund world above and went down into the caves, which were empty and sterile, and there, whether collectively in the great painted chambers or individually in the remote engraved tunnels, they summoned the shades of animals trapped in the rock. Then they watched as the world below the world, which their efforts had set free, flickered in the dim light of lamps burning in their hands.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book without Jean Clottes's friendship and help. From the moment I arrived at his home in Foix, practically without introduction, he was kind, informative, and patient with me. As I pressed on with my research, often stumbling as I did, he was always there to answer questions and to offer encouragement when I needed it. He opened certain doors for me that would never have opened otherwise, and he helped me avoid numerous errors. I will be eternally grateful for his kindness and generosity.

  Two friends and confidants of many years, Stephen Harrigan and William Broyles Jr., read the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions. Every writer needs friends he can trust to say the truth. Steve and Bill are mine.

  I'm grateful to my editor, Ann Close, for believing in this book and helping me immeasurably with it. My agent, David McCormick, handled all business details impressively and provided excellent editorial advice as well.

  By opening up Les Trois-Freres to me, Robert Begouen not only advanced this book but also gave me one of the very best days of my life. His son Eric has also been of great help.

  Laure Emperaire took time during a very busy period in her life to share with me memories of her mother, Annette Laming-Emperaire.

  The warmth with which I was welcomed by archaeologists in France sustained me throughout my research and writing.

  Georges Sauvet of the University of Paris was particularly generous with his time and knowledge. Brigitte and Gilles Delluc, husband-and-wife prehistorians, greeted me with friendship and extraordinary hospitality. In particular they shared their memories of Andre Leroi-Gourhan. Claudine Cohen of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales kindly shared with me some of her vast knowledge of the history of prehistory. During my stay with the team studying Chauvet, I was privileged to meet many talented scientists, who were without exception friendly and helpful. For that I would like to thank Norbert Aujoulat, Valerie Fer-uglio, Carole Fritz, Bernard Gely, Jean-Michel Geneste, Yanik Le Guillou—who also corresponded with me afterward—Gilles Tosello, and Florian Berrouet. Ludivine Moreno was gracious and informative during several tours of Niaux.

  In the midst of my research I had several detailed conversations about this book with the historian H. W. Brands. His comments were especially helpful in setting me on the right path. At the beginning of my research my friend from high school Norman Yoffee, now of the anthropology department at the University of Michigan, helped me with contacts and was consistently reassuring. John Speth, also of the University of Michigan, spent a long morning with me working through various nuances of anthropology. He also read the manuscript and made extensive comments that both saved me from errors and asked incisive questions. Richard Klein of Stanford generously shared with me some of his deep understanding of human evolutionary development.

  Nancy McMillen was an immense help in assembling the illustrations.

  And, of course, this book would have been impossible without my children and without my wife, Tracy.

  NOTES

  Works cited in brief in these notes are cited in full in the bibliography. When the source of information or of a quote is clearly identified in the text, I have not repeated the reference here.

  1 / The Seductive Axe; The Well-Clothed Arrivals

  20-24 profusion of animals: Kurten (1968, 1976), Powers and Stringer (1975), Spiess (1979), Sonneville-Bordes (1986), Gordon (1988), de Beaune (1995), Lister and Bahn (2000), Cohen (2002).

  24-32 the earliest humans: Klein (1999).

  27 well-regarded scholars: Kohn and Mithen (1999).

  30 a neurological change: Klein with Edgar (2002).

  30 Scientists who disagree: Zilhäo (2001), Clark (2001), Wolpoff et al. (2004), and Speth (2004), among others outside this book's bibliography.

  31 infused with sentimentality: Zilhäo (2001).

  31 One scholar: Solecki (1971).

  32 for 100,000years: Jordan.

  33 description of the Neanderthals: Trinkaus and Shipman (1994), Mellars (1996), Tattersall (1999), Jordan (1999).

  34 one influential paper: Berger and Trinkaus (1995).

  35 animal fat: Cachel (1997)

  35 could speak or not: Mellars (1996,1998).

  35 their society remained primitive: Stringer and Gamble (1993), Mellars (1996).

  35 buried their dead: Mellars (1996), d'Errico (2003).

  35 rodents brought in the pollen: Sommer (1999).

  37 One theory: Wolpoff and Caspari (1997), Wolpoff et al. (2000), Wolpoff and Coolidge (2004).

  38 international scientific team: Krings et al. (1997).

  38 a different international team: Ovchinnikov et al. (2000).

  38 did not become our ancestors: This point is not settled among scientists, or at least among some scientists. The view expressed in these pages is the majority view by far, but Wolpoff, Speth, Zilhäo, Clark, and others contest it fervently.

  39 difference in birth rate: Zilhäo (2001).

  39 large mammals: Stewart et al. (2003).

  39 climate grew more severe: Stringer and Gamble (1993).

  40 hunter-gatherer societies that still survive: Gat (1999).

  41 Arcy-sur-Cure: Mellars (1999), White (2001).

  41 wasteland in southwestern Spain: Straus (2005).

  2 / A Skeptic Admits His Error; The Passion of Miss Mary E. Boyle

  44 discovery of Cro-Magnon skeletons: Camps (1991), White (2003).

  45-46 nineteenth-century background: Hammond (1982), Murray (2001), Trinkaus and Shipman (1994).

  46 the brilliant Gabriel de Mortillet: Reinach (1899), Trinkaus and Shipman (1994), Richard (1999a). 48-54 Sautuola and the discovery of Altamira: Murray (2001), Bahn (1996,1998), Bahn and Vertut (1999).

  54 Chiron and his theories: Bahn and Vertut (1999).

  55 discoveries at La Mouthe, Font-de-Gaume: Cartailhac (1902), Bahn and Vertut (1999).

  57 Breuil's early life and his work with Cartailhac at Altamira: Breuil (1952), Broderick (1973; first published 1963), Boyle (1963), Bahn and Vertut 1999).

  59 Piette: Delporte (1987).

  59 collection of prehistoric objects: Chollot (1964).

  68—72 Battle of the Aurignacian: Reinach (1899), Trinkaus and Shipman (1992), Richard (1999a), Cohen (1999).

  72-75 Breuil's later life: Brodrick (1973; first published 1963), Boyle (1963).

  74 interview after Breuil's death: Boyle (1963).

  3 / Noble Robot, an Inquiring Dog; The Abbe's Sermons on the Mount

  80-91 On a Sunday afternoon: The account of the discovery of Lascaux comes from Arlette Leroi-Gourhan et al. (1979), Ruspoli (1987), B. Delluc and G. Delluc (1989, 2003a, 2003b), Russot (1990).

  4 / The Great Black Cow; How to Paint a Horse

  92 “What little I've learned”: B. Delluc and G. Delluc (2003b).

  93 highest point: Personal observation.

  95-120 Except when otherwise noted, the discussion of Lascaux in these pages is based on Geneste (2003) and Aujoulat (2004).

  98 “twistedperspective “: Breuil (1952).

  113 a separate entrance: Aujoulat (2004).

  11
3 thousands of dots: Clottes (2003b).

  5 / A Stormy Drama Among Bison; The Golden Section

  121-123 The details of Raphael's life come from the introduction to Raphael (1986).

  122 wrote in a letter: Raphael (1986).

  6 / A Lively but Unreliable Creation; Quaint, Symbolic Arrows

  135 mailed a typed manuscript: Laming-Emperaire (1962).

  136—139 the precise image: Details of Laming-Emperaire's life come from Lavallee (1978), Andre Leroi-Gourhan (1981), and correspondence and conversations with her daughter Laure Emperaire.

  7 / The Trident-Shaped Cave; Pairing, not Coupling

  148 seething, divisive feud: Franchise Audouze worked with Leroi-Gourhan, collaborated on papers with him, and is the editor of a book in his honor. Still, in 2002 she wrote in the Journal of ‘Archaeological Research,“Acknowledging innovations or ideas of other prehistorians was not one of Leroi-Gourhan's traits. Bibliographic references are minimal, and he never acknowledged his debt to … Laming-Emperaire or Raphael.” She should know better. He did not acknowledge Raphael, it's true, but he acknowledged Laming-Emperaire extensively.

  In the course of my research, I heard as a solemn truth that Laming-Emperaire concentrated her work on Brazil because Leroi-Gourhan had used her ideas to become so dominant in prehistory that there wasn't any room left for her. This ignores the fact that work with her husband took her to Brazil long before La signification was published. Also, the photograph from 1975 reproduced in the text shows her working diligently in caves beside Leroi-Gourhan, so they maintained some kind of relationship even near the end of her life. Still, there was something between them, some resentment that was taken up by her family and that time has not soothed. When I asked Laure Emperaire what her mother thought of Leroi-Gourhan, she refused to discuss the subject at all.

  149 a cave namedLe Portel: A. Leroi-Gourhan (1967).

  151 But he did: And both he and she acknowledged each other again and again. She had begun her thesis under a different professor. According to her preface to La signification, when she changed to the guidance of Leroi-Gourhan, he was already “working at that time on a monumental work on the evolution of Paleolithic art.” And she is not at all resentful about his influence over her or his role in her career and the development of her thinking. On the contrary, she has nothing but the most glowing praise for him. It was a fruitful period, she says, “a time of collaboration when Andre Leroi-Gourhan, with the simplicity and cordiality that are habitual with him, argued point by point the different aspects of our [that is, her] study, bringing to the discussion his suggestions and corrections, a constructive period when we had the feeling we were seeing a new and more coherent Paleolithic world reborn before our eyes.”

  Three years later, in 1965, Leroi-Gourhan's Prehistoire de Van occi-dental appeared. Its foreword contained his own version of their encounters: “My new thinking first crystallized in connection with Le Portel … A real order seemed to me to be reflected in the arrangement of the figures—though what this might be was as yet confused in my mind. At this point both Mme. Laming-Emperaire and I realized that we were very much on the same track. After an exchange of ideas, we decided not to be influenced by each other, but to pursue our separate researches, the better to compare our eventual findings, at least until she completed La signification de Van rupestre paleolithique, the book she was at that time still writing. When we finally compared notes, we saw that if we had both “gone off the track,” at least we had done so with the same sense of direction.”

  These two accounts are completely compatible and both speak of an especially warm and productive relationship.

  151—155 Details of Leroi-Gourhan's life come from A. Leroi-Gourhan (1982), Cohen (1984), Delport (1987), Coudart (1999a), Bahn and Vertut (1999), and Audouze (2002).

  155 the chaine Operateure: Audouze (2002), A. Leroi-Gourhan (1993).

  156 another permanent contribution: A. Leroi-Gourhan (1983,1984), Michelson (1986).

  156—160 The analysis of the finds at Pincevent is from A. Leroi-Gourhan (1984).

  160 long index cards: Brigitte and Gilles Delluc, students of Leroi-Gourhan, showed me several sets of these cards. Brigitte Delluc is the dark-haired woman in the photograph on page 150.

  161—164 Statistics were fundamental: A. Leroi-Gourhan (1967).

  162 “sexomaniac obsession”: Breuil and Lantier (1965).

  162 Leroi-Gourhan looked: Clottes (2000).

  164 even Laming-Emperaire: Laming-Emperaire (1972).

  8 / Three Brothers in a Boat; The Sorcerer

  169-171 In July 1912: Breuil (1952), Begouen and Breuil (1958).

  173 Robert is the coauthor: Begouen and Clottes (1981).

  184 Breuil rediscovered them: Breuil (1952).

  9 / A Passage Underwater; The Skull on a Rock

  187-190 biographical details about Jean Clottes: Clottes (1998) and personal correspondence and conversations. 190-195 account of the discovery of Cosquer and the ensuing controversy: Clottes et al. (1992), Clottes and Courtin (1996).

  193 Bahn wrote an article: Bahn (1992).

  195-198 the archaeology of Cosquer: Clottes and Courtin (1996).

  196 Leroi-Gourhan wrote: A. Leroi-Gourhan (1983).

  198-201 the discovery and authentication of Chauvet: Chauvet, Deschamps, and Hillaire (1996), Clottes et al. (2003), and personal conversations.

  203 MichelLorblanchet: Lorblanchet (1995).

  205 another, more complex painting: Clottes (2003b).

  209 radiocarbon dating: Clottes (2003b).

  209 Craig Packer, a specialist on African lions: Clottes (2000).

  210—213 more than 420 animals: Clottes (2003b).

  214 a persuasive warning: (Yanik Le Guillou, pers. comm., December 16, 2004).

  215—217 traces left on the floor: Clottes et al (2003).

  217 Jean Clottes was part of a group: Clottes and Lewis-Williams (2001).

  218 title that has become notorious: Bahn (1997).

  218 knew it at the time: Clottes and Lewis-Williams (2001).

  221–225 Jean Clottes was familiar: Clottes and Lewis-Williams (2001).

  222—223 “Understandably enough “: Clottes and Lewis-Williams (1998).

  226 Bahn's review: Bahn (1997). The other reviews are all quoted from Clottes and Lewis-Williams (2001).

  227 “The various participants “: Clottes and Lewis-Williams (1998).

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Adovasio, J. M., et al. “Upper Palaeolithic Fibre Technology.” Antiquity70 (1996): 526-524.

  Airvaux, J. “Dicouverte d'une grotte ornee, le reseau Guy Martin ä Lussac-les-Chäteaux (Vienne), et application d'une methodologie structurale pour l'etude de l'art prehistorique.” L'Anthropologie102, no. 4 (1998): 495-521.

  Allemand, L. “Qui sauvera Lascaux?” La Recherche363 (April 2003): 26-33.

  Amormino, V. “L'art paleolithique et le carbone 14.” L'Anthropologie104, no. 3 (2000): 373-381.

  Anati, E. La religion des engines. Paris: Hachette, 1999.

  Archambeau, M., and C. Archambeau. Les Combarelles. Perigueux: Pierre Fan-lac, 1989.

  ——. “Les figurations humaines parietales de la grotte des Combarelles.”

  Gallia Prehistoire33: (1991): 53—81.

  Arsuaga, J. L. The Neanderthal's Necklace. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002.

  Audouze, F. “New Advances in French Prehistory.” Antiquity73, no. 79 (1999): 167-175.

  ——. “Leroi-Gourhan, a Philosopher of Technique and Evolution.” Journal of Archaeological Research10, no. 4 (2002): 277—306.

  Audouze, F., and Andre Leroi-Gourhan. “France: A Continental Insularity.” World Archaeology13, no. 2 (1981): 170—189.

  Aujoulat, N. “L'espace Suggere.” Les dossiers d'archeologie152 (1990): 12—23.

  ——. Lascaux: Le geste, l'espace et le temps. Paris: Seuil, 2004.

  Aujoulat, N., et al. “La grotte ornee de Cussac.” Bulletin de la Societe Prehistorique Francaise99 (200
2): 129—137.

  ——. et al. La Veere des engines. Paris: Ministere de la Culture, 1991.

  ——. et al. “The Decorated Cave of Cussac: First Observations.” Paleo13 (2001).

  Bachechi, L., et al. “An Arrow-Caused Lesion in a Late Upper Palaeolithic Human Pelvis.” Current Anthropology38, no. 1 (1997): 135—140.

  Bahn, P. G. “Water Mythology and the Distribution of Palaeolithic Parietal Art.” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society(London) 44 (1978): 125—134.

  ——. “Inter-Site and Inter-Regional Links During the Upper Palaeolithic: The Pyrenean Evidence.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology1, no. 3 (1982): 247-268.

  ——. “Prehistoric Wonder or Mammoth Red Herring?” Independent on Sunday, January 12,1992.

  ——, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

  ——. “Membrane and Numb Brain: A Close Look at a Recent Claim for Shamanism in Paleolithic Art.” Rock Art Research14, no. 1 (1997): 62—68.

  ——, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

  Bahn, P. G., and J. Vertut. Journey Through the Ice Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997; London: Seven Dials, 1999.

  Barriere, C, and M. Sueres. “Les mains des Gargas.” Les dossiers d'archeologie178 (1993): 46-55-

  Barton, C. M., et al. “Art as Information: Explaining Upper Palaeolithic Art in Western Europe.” World Archaeology26, no. 2 (1994): 185—207.

  Bar-Yosef, O. “The Upper Paleolithic Revolution.” Annual Review of ‘Anthropology31 (2002): 363-393.

  Bataille, G. Lascaux, or The Birth of Art, translated by A. Wainhouse. Lausanne: Skira, 1955.

 

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