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..... Introduced by Professor Margaret Conkey, Director of the Archaeological Research Facility at Berkeley, he spoke on what the early cave art can help us postulate us about the nature of early man. His talk was filled to bursting with art students, travelers, anthropologists, and many community members in Moses Hall
Prof. Clottes noted that great similarities exist in European cave art from the Urals in Russia to sites in Spain. The paintings are in the range of 25000 to 37000 years old, and are probably markedly older since radio carbon dating has not been calibrated to account for level fluctuations that far back in time.
The caves include hand marks (pigment sprayed over hands on rocks which leaves a ghost-like hand image in negative relief); illustrations of bison, ibex, deer, mammoths; etched marks and edges of drawings; abstract geometrical marks; and bas-relief sculptures (which are currently the oldest artworks known to man). Whether what we see is strictly art in the modern sense is problematic, in that they the marks may have made as graffiti, for use in sacred ceremonies, out of boredom, etc. Prof. Clottes did surmise that there was a great similarity of culture over a broad geographic area and an immensely long time frame (in human civilizational terms) of several tens of thousands of years.
As a rule the cave art is set deep into the caves, sometimes several kilometers back, in places which can only be reached by means of difficult and complex navigation. When one adds to this remoteness the necessity of bringing requisite supplies – torches, pigments, drawing implements, food – in order to create the art, the singular importance of these sites to early man is apparent. Evidence of habitation near these deep internal cave sites has not been found, suggesting their use was quite probably connected with religious feeling or ceremonies, involving most likely the hunt, the power and spirits of nature, or social bonding.
Prof. Clottes reminded us that artists (people who can draw) are conjurers even to this day: witness the lineup of people behind any tourist vendor of sidewalk portraits. He suggested that the skill in much of the cave art suggests a specialization, since then, like now, one can surmise that some people draw substantially better than others. In face, the drawings of now extinct animals show remarkable anatomical exactitude, showing features which have been verified when frozen or fossilized examples of these animals make it into the public record. The shamanic power of words (poetry and incantation) and images (animal drawings) is hinted at by these artworks in light of the obvious skill of their makers and their occult locations. He recounted that at one cave the sensitive, magnificent mural-like animal figures on the wall reduced him to tears. By their great beauty and sensitive portrayals, they evoke an intimate connection to earlier humans who existed eons previously..
The audience engaged in a lively question and answer with Prof. Clottes questioning the possible ‘meaning’ of the animal forms and the lack of human representation, the similarity and range of abstracted marks over broad geographical areas, and the nature of art-making. Prof. Clottes participated in several more specialized talks with Anthropology / Archaeology Students, as well, during his visit to Berkeley.
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