Lascaux Caves, France.

Thought to be 17,000 years old.


There are many caves in this area, the Dordogne, France and many paintings still to be discovered.  

Why are some of the animals upside down?  Are they falling or is it because of the position of the artist?

Is this animal pregnant?  Did they still kill it or just record it?

Many of the drawings use the contours of the cave walls thus enhancing the finished picture.

There is a tenderness in many of the pictures. As in the meeting of these two animals.  Even if they were drawn at different times and not meeting, there is a gentle elegance in the drawing.

Is this an animal protesting in fear and pain as it is speared?  Does this drawing depict understanding of the hunter of a sentient being and its feelings?

The assumption is that men made these drawings.  All cave drawings are apparently created by men because they so often depict the hunt.  
I disagree, I think that women were intimately involved in the hunt either as beaters (driving the animals out of hiding) or even in the stalking and the kill.  Certainly they were intimate with the animals as carcasses and perfectly able to depict them accurately on the cave walls.  

Even the simplest of markings give me shivers.  Who drew them and why? What did they mean or was someone just sharpening their drawing instruments?

The elegance of the animal.  Head turning, looking, aware.  This is a picture by someone who knows of more than a hunt for food.

I also think that archeologists have overlooked the fact that it was probably women who would have been in the caves longer than the men.  

They would have been left at the camp when they were heavily pregnant or having just given birth.  They would have been nursing the young, and caring for the elderly and sick. 

They were the ones who would have had the time to draw on the walls.  

They had the to time reflect on hunts or the animals they had skinned, butchered and cooked. 

They may well have been the first philosophers.