Some 35,000 years
old, a small number of exceptionally skilled prehistoric hunter-gatherers walked into a cave in the present day south of France, and started to draw animals on the undulating
walls, with breath-taking skill and dexterity. These representations include deer,
bears, lions, rhinoceros, mammoths and horses. The French Inspector of
Decorated Caves, the Archaeologist Jean Clottes believes that many of
paintings are the result of just one talented individual, a so called
‘prehistoric Leonardo’, who is responsible for most of these images.
Why were the caves
painted?
There have been
many theories about the cave paintings, including that the animals represent
clans within tribes; that it is a form of sympathetic magic; or it is simply
art for the sake of art. These days the conventional anthropologist sees that
the bear is important in its role as intermediary between Man and the Spirit
World, and that the cave walls are some sort of spiritual membrane, and that the cave fulfilled some sort of initiation role, somewhat
like a holy of holies, where the outer tunnels the profane entered and with the
depths reserved for the initiated. (see for
example David Lewis-Williams’ classic book The
Mind in the Cave).
My old supervisor, Professor John Onians, prefers a totally neurological
explanation, one of neurological spontaneity, where the initial result (of the bear)
surprised our prehistoric artist and although they tried to replicate the
effect, the results soon started to become jaded. I have experienced the same
sort of creativity myself, in carving wooden animals, only to find on trying to
replicate the same effect a second time to find the result lacking.
From my
understanding, the older theories are
wrong and the new theories are only partially correct. There was of course a
spiritual ritualistic element, and also there was also a neurological element
as man ‘saw’ animals within the curves of the natural formations of the cave,
under poor lighting. I know the latter to be true from my own experiences of
running in the failing light through woodland, and in the total darkness with a
head torch, where beasts and animals emerge from inanimate objects such as logs
or bushes, broken branches or shadows: an optical illusion of sorts, formed
within the visual cortex. It is the same method that Leonardo used in his
sketches, to bring out ‘form’ from what could be a jumble of sketches and
over-drawings on a sheet of paper, or him seeing landscapes in the mould
growing on a wall. But there is more to it than that just being a process of
neurology.
The location of
Chauvet cave is in a horse shoe meander, called the Cirque d’Estre, a river
that has cut deep into the limestone cliffs making a sheltered depression and
with a naturally formed bridge called the Pont d’Arc. This landscape would have
been both visually attractive to animals for its source of food and water, as
it was to man (for food, water and also the aesthetics of the area) and
therefore perhaps the area represented a sort of sanctuary in a dangerous
landscape. It is possible that prehistoric man watched columns of animals walk
across a tundra-like plain, dotted with Scots Pine, to this natural ‘oasis’
that would have attracted a plethora of animals for water and for grazing and
for hunting, perhaps these prehistoric artists watched these animals cross the
Pont d’Arc and down to the water’s edge, in a moving column. Man would have
observed a coming together of nature in one place and one time which must have
been an exceptional spectacle. In imagining the impact of such a vision, one
may have the impression of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, with predators such as Bagheera, Akela and Baloo
communicating together for some common good, and this impression, whilst a
little naïve, may well have some relevance in the existence of an alternate
reality of an animal spirit world.
Chauvet Cave
contains a staggering amount of prey animals and predators, including
rhinoceros, horses, lions, reindeer and bears; perhaps some of the oldest
archetypes of spirituality in animal form. Indeed, if they are spiritual animal
helpers as I believe, ask yourself the question: just how set apart these
spirit animals are from what we would now consider ‘power animals’ from our
knowledge of contemporary native wisdom? I believe very close. Indeed my contention is that the people who lived in the Eurasian continent 35 thousand years ago, which was, at the time, contiguous with America, were probably close in culture, and perhaps even ancestors of, the Native America Nations. Therefore I see it relevant to look at Native American Rock Art and culture to look for any similarities, particularly in a sense of hunter-gatherer spirituality.
The bear is very
important in this sense of spirituality. As a spiritual animal guide, the bear is
almost
human-like, and more so than we think. The note books of Leonardo da Vinci show
that the bear’s feet are almost identical to that of a human foot, and a
severed bear’s foot, denuded of fur and claws looks strikingly like a human
foot, enough for Police in U.S.A., on one rare occasion, to begin a murder
enquiry. The Native Americans also frequently carved bear foot prints according
to the book Indian Rock Art of the
Southwest:
‘In the Pueblo
world, the bear track stands for the curing power of the bear and the paw is
equal in power to the mask of other deities. When the Keresan shamans put on
their bear paws, they “become bears”’
I believe that the
bear having human like characteristics, such as standing on two feet, made the
bear a shapeshifter in the eyes of prehistoric man – a man-bear who can become
either human or animal – and I believe this is integral in the prehistoric
mind, later finding expression in the Viking Berserkers who were believed to
change into bears on the battlefield. This idea of the close relationship
between humans and bears lays dormant in our own minds today, to be inspired by
literature and art. I think there is no coincidence that JRR Tolkien used a
bear as a ‘skin-changer’ in his book The
Hobbit, and later in The Lord of the
Rings with a character called Beorn, akin to the Viking berserker, a man
who changes into a bear. It is no coincidence that Russia uses the bear as it’s
nation’s emblem, strong, intelligent and brave; or that we still feel an
affinity to the bear and give our children ‘teddy bears’ to play with.
Somewhere in our consciousness, in some deep tribal memory, is a deep understanding
of the human like characteristics of the bear – a bear that communicates with
us and becomes our teacher, companion and guide.
The bear is not
just sacred in the West but also in the Far East. In the classic book The Golden Bough, J.G. Frazer records a
wide spread veneration of the bear in the northern Japanese islands populated
by the Ainu people, and a corresponding veneration of the bear in Eastern
Siberia, the Eastern side of the Eurasian continent; here a young bear is taken
and hand reared to maturity when it is ritually killed. In all cases the skull
is separated from the rest of the body, attached to a tree, or added to a pile
of bear skulls from other previous ritual killings.
Bears are also
important to Chauvet Cave, at the Western side of the Eurasian continent, they
hibernated in the cave, they left their claw marks in the cave walls and Man
appears also to have venerated the bear and even placed a bear’s skull on a
fallen stalagmite as a focal point of veneration or worship. The prehistoric
artist also drew representations of bears on the walls of the cave; however, we
will never know if bear cubs were raised to maturity for ritual killing.
The area of France
where Chauvet Cave resides is now dry and hot, indeed the South of France with
its arid warmth, vineyards and easy lifestyle has inspired many artists, who
had the leisure time to indulge their fancies. Yet 35,000 years ago this was a
harsh landscape and art was not produced simply for enjoyment, either in its
execution or the viewing of the art by the beholder. There was an important
reason to divert resources from hunting and gathering ‘life support’ tasks, to
making this art. At this point it is important to consider an oft quoted saying
of E.H. Gombrich, that there is no such thing as art, only artists. In this context this idea
is even more important to derive a solid conclusion of why this ‘prehistoric
Leonardo’ painted in the cave. It is not to do with the ‘art’ but in the
purpose and the intent of the artist. It is my belief that the paintings were
created for what I refer to as an act of pragmatic spirituality or shamanism –
a natural hunter-gatherer spiritual belief that is linked to the cultural and
ecological environment in which they lived.
According to my
own findings, the art work within the caves are not representations of clans or
tribes as we might infer from Native American culture, or totems, they were not
art for the sake of art, and they were not used as hunting magic; however, they
are works of pragmatic spirituality. It is my assertion that these animals
represent archetypes encapsulated in their animal form as spirit animals or
animal helpers. In my own understanding the brown bear is the head spirit guide
of the animal kingdom, the teacher, who imparts courage and ‘heart’ in times of
adversity. The bear is the king of the spirit helpers, and a teacher. The bear is also a metaphor for Homo sapiens and so there is a direct link between the behaviour of the bear in the cave, for example clawing the walls (to make 'art') and humans going into the cave and being inspired to do the same. The bear is, like
us, an omnivore, and will eat a combination of meat, fish, and plants. Anyone
who has seen a bear in the flesh will notice the wicked looking claws that they
carry around with them, always fixed protruding (as prehistoric hunter-gatherers carrying their knapped flint 'claws') and they can stand on two legs. They hibernate in caves…just as humans must at times become prone to their mental health and retreat into the dark cave of depression...a dark and moist space...womblike, nurturing and protective...
But for me, the cave
is like the cranial cavity that holds the brain. As those prehistoric people
entered the cave, in its dark, damp interior, they are able to remove the
stimuli of the outside world and step back into their own minds, to explore
their own neurology, to unwittingly conduct their own neurological experiments, to interact
within the creative act of drawing animals, to interact with reality itself.
These prehistoric ‘artists’, if I can paraphrase Semir Zeki, were the first
neurologists, exploring their own brains through these unique brain processes,
through the medium of ‘art’ in the unique atmosphere that the cave gave them, empowering themselves with the attributes of the animals spirits that they called upon themselves. Perhaps even 'becoming' the animals that they drew.
REFERENCES
See for example Onians
J 'The Neurohistory of Art: How Neuroscience Illuminates Individual Inspiration'
in the seminar Why Music? Is
Music Different from the Other Arts? Institute of Neurology, Queen Square 7th October
2011
Colour photos from Return to Chauvet (Clottes J ed. 2003)
B/W photo x 2 of rock art from Rock Art of the Midwest (Schaafsman P 1980)
Leonardo Bear Foot sketch from Leonardo da Vinci by Zoellner & Frank
