1
People keep calling those cave paintings "hunting scenes" but they're probably wrong
I was at a talk last month about the Lascaux caves and the lecturer kept saying every animal drawing must be a hunt. But I've been reading this book by a researcher named Dale Guthrie who argues a lot of those paintings are just doodles or symbolism, not actual hunting records. My buddy who's a grad student in anthropology says the same thing, that we project modern ideas onto ancient art. Has anyone else noticed museums oversimplifying what these cave paintings actually meant?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
thomasb411d ago
@blake_kelly19 hit it. Guthrie's book is solid.
6
Wait, so you mean ancient humans weren't just running around with spears 24/7, documenting every single meal like some prehistoric food blog? Yeah, sounds about right. Museums love slapping a "hunting scene" label on anything with four legs and a stick figure, probably because it's easier than admitting "we have no clue what this means." I read somewhere that a lot of those paintings could be spiritual doodles or even just bored teenagers tagging the wall after a long day of gathering berries. It's honestly funny how we assume they thought like us, when they probably stared at a bison and thought "that looks like my uncle.
-1