Some new thoughts on palaeolithic cave art

[AR]

Saw this on the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64162799 , interesting suggestion that in part at least, the purpose of the art was to record the reproductive times of the animals they hunted.

 

[wellyjen]

What an irresponsible lot, drawing on cave walls, spoiling the pristine nature of the underground environment. Their daubs are still there tens of thousands of years later. We should organise a group to go and clean them off.

 

[cavingbiker]

Interesting idea, if the dots represent the full moon, is the third full moon at Creswell Crags the same as the one at Lascaux? How do the lunar cycles depicted relate to our calendar? Are they breeding cycles or are they when the animals migrate into the local area? It would be interesting to read the full article on the research.

 

[alanw]

It would be interesting to read the full article on the research.

The whole article seems to be freely available (for the moment at least)

An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core

An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar - Volume 33 Issue 3

www.cambridge.org

 

[wellyjen]

Interesting idea, if the dots represent the full moon, is the third full moon at Creswell Crags the same as the one at Lascaux? How do the lunar cycles depicted relate to our calendar? Are they breeding cycles or are they when the animals migrate into the local area? It would be interesting to read the full article on the research.

Here you go:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/serv...owriting_system_and_phenological_calendar.pdf
An open access paper, so free to read, which isn't common enough with academic stuff.
Edit: Clash with alanw!

 

[rm128]

For anyone interested, the full research paper is here:

An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core

An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar - Volume 33 Issue 3

www.cambridge.org

Double clash!