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 (Originally posted Saturday, August 23, 2008)
Horses, rhinoceros, etc., from Grotte Chauvet
From this site, first found by modern people in 1994, we have a profusion of wonderful art; the date is somewhat in debate - perhaps
something like 30,000 years before the present. See Science 15 August 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5891, pp. 904 - 905 for a review of the
controversy.
Whatever the date should be, these works are certainly very old and are probably at this time the oldest known examples of pictorial art.
From the same site come many other works, including the following fine depictions of hunting lions and a curious (completely different) owl
made by finger impressions on the wall:
The owl is clearly distinct in technique and sophistication. The lions and the horses (and most of the other animals) are done with great care,
by artists who understood their craft well. The owl makes me wonder if we are not dealing with a fundamentally different thing - maybe done
by a person not trained as an artist, or perhaps a child? Why an owl?
In any case, certain things are very clear: (1) the people that did these paintings expended substantial effort to put them where they are today -
hence the works were regarded as important and, in some sense, precious; (2) there is a sure ability to compose a picture to suit the purposes
of its maker; (3) the artists obviously distinguished quite well many different kinds of animals. They were probably better at doing this than
most modern people.
Curiously, in the same issue of Science (viz., 15 August 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5891, p. 914) only a few pages later, we have a review of an
excellent book that challenges widely held and often unspoken assumptions about the "upward" thrust of human evolution, assumptions that
"modern" people must be inherently stronger, smarter, and in all ways better than their "primitive" ancestors. But Grotte Chauvet's works
already make plain that to be modern is by no means to be superior.
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