Children may have had a hand in a quarter of prehistoric art
CHILDREN and babies could be responsible for up to a quarter of prehistoric rock paintings, a study has found, suggesting it was often a familyoriented group activity rather than the exclusive high-art form it is seen as today.
Researchers from Spain’s University of Cantabria and Cambridge University looked at 180 examples of art involving outlines of hands – made by blowing pigment through a hollow reed or bone – from more than 20,000 years ago in Spanish caves.
When they analysed the hand sizes, they found that, in some caves, up to 25 per cent of prints seemed to involve children no more than 12 years old.
“From the real hand to the one on the wall there are always a few centimetres of error, because the silhouette comes out larger. We calculated that error and many more children’s hands came out than we expected,” said Verónica Fernández-navarro, the leader of the study, which is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The researchers said the findings should help to demystify prehistoric cave art, something we often put on a pedestal, perhaps due to how long it has survived.
“It would appear that artistic activity was not a closed activity closely linked to male individuals and the survival of the group, as had been thought until now,” Ms Fernández-navarro explained.
Most of the children’s hand art appeared to correspond to individuals aged between three and 10.
But there were also outlines of hands of toddlers and even babies, who would not have been able to blow hard enough themselves and must have been helped by parents or other carers. “This activity could have served as an element of group cohesion,” Ms Fernández-navarro said.
The researchers noted that most of the hands they examined on the walls of five caves across the Spanish regions of Cantabria, Aragon and Extremadura were placed in prominent and easily visible positions. But the mystery of their significance remains.
Ms Fernández-navarro told the Spanish newspaper ABC that she is now working with French colleagues on cave art in France as part of a project called “Mind2wall” to examine whether the hands could constitute some form of non-verbal language.
“In some caves, patterns have been found, some of the hands have missing or bent fingers, and the positions repeat in a specific way. We want to find out if it is a code that they knew how to interpret, in the same way that we today interpret a ‘stop’ sign,” she said.
Looking at subtle variations of the patterns between different territories and caves may help scientists unlock the mystery.
“Our main aim is to gain a much deeper knowledge, not of the art itself that these societies produced, but of the protagonists, the men and women who created these artworks during the Palaeolithic period,” said Diego Garate, of the Cantabria International Institute for Prehistoric Research, one of the authors of the study.
The researchers pointed out that our modern conceptions of childhood and the social status and roles of juveniles are likely to be extremely different from those of Palaeolithic human societies.
However, they added, the existence of childhood as a distinct phase of life is still clear.