created by Cohen_Math_Prep on 02/12/2024 at 04:54 UTC
36 upvotes, 3 top-level comments (showing 3)
After reading my young children stories for bedtime tonight, I wondered if cavemen taught their own children about various animals through pictures. Is it possible that cave paintings are examples of cavemen pedagogy or cavemen story time? I usually hear more ritualistic/esoteric explanations, and (as I mentioned in the tile) I am not well-versed in the literature by any means. Any value to this line of inquiry?
Comment by Thecna2 at 02/12/2024 at 10:30 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Any value to this line of inquiry?
Like most things sciency the first question should be 'where is the evidence for that theory'. Usually we see some evidence and try and then provide a theory that explains it. I dont see any evidence in the records that suggests this, so as a theory it is mainly just speculation.
Is there anything you've seen that suggests it?
You're correct that people usually go for the 'ritualistic' explanation and that is quite the meme in the field.
Thing is, we dont know. We'll probably never know. Its like Venus figurines, ritualistic religious matriarchs? Or the local porn figures? We dont know.
However I think kids living in the world at that time would be unlikely to need to go deep into caves for some schooling, it would be right there in front of them.
Comment by itsallfolklore at 02/12/2024 at 11:45 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Any chance? Sure - because mostly all we can do is speculate, but when we enter the realm of speculation, anyone's guess becomes as good as the next person's. This leaves us nowhere - or everywhere.
There is some evidence of child participation in whatever was happening in deep caves - hand prints and footprints in mud. They were there, but why is a matter of guesswork.
In addition, the cave paintings date to times spanning thousands of years and are found in many places. Cultures change, no matter how slowly, and attempting to see cultures in different places as homogeneous creates its own problems. Children may have participated differently in one place - or at one time - differently from how they did or did not participate in another time.
Because there was likely a range of possibilities, geographically and temporally, any given speculation may fit one moment and place but not the others. But even that is speculation!
Comment by Twenty26six at 02/12/2024 at 14:46 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I strongly recommend the book What is Paleolithic Art: Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity[1] by Jean Clottes[2] for answers to "why" cave art was made.
1: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo19109026.html
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Clottes
"In this book, Jean Clottes, one of the most renowned figures in the study of cave paintings, pursues an answer to this “why” of Paleolithic art. While other books focus on particular sites and surveys, Clottes’s work is a contemplative journey across the world, a personal reflection on how we have viewed these paintings in the past, what we learn from looking at them across geographies, and what these paintings may have meant—what function they may have served—for their artists. Steeped in Clottes’s shamanistic theories of cave painting, What Is Paleolithic Art? travels from well-known Ice Age sites like Chauvet, Altamira, and Lascaux to visits with contemporary aboriginal artists, evoking a continuum between the cave paintings of our prehistoric past and the living rock art of today. Clottes’s work lifts us from the darkness of our Paleolithic origins to reveal, by firelight, how we think, why we create, why we believe, and who we are."