The Incredible Human Journey (46 page)

As the grip of the Ice Age tightened, we might perhaps expect to see arts and crafts gradually diminishing, as life became
harder. More Solutrean points to make, less time for art. But, rather interestingly, we see exactly the opposite. In the Vézère
Valley the rockshelters not only continued to be occupied into the LGM, but the hardy Ice Age people of south-west France
made their way deep into the caves that riddle the limestone hills – to paint.

Visiting the Painted Caves: Lascaux, Pech Merle
and Cougnac, France

Ornaments, portable art and cave art are classic features of the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe, but they did not suddenly appear
everywhere; rather, they popped up at different times in different places. As I’d seen, early examples of portable art appeared
in Germany more than 30,000 years ago, as part of the Swabian Aurignacian. The ceramic models of animals and people from Moravia
were much later, dating to 26,000 years ago. Pendants and beads – like those at Abri Castanet – appeared in the early Aurignacian,
and even in the Chatelperronian, in France – but were not found in other parts of Europe until much later.

Cave art is concentrated in western Europe, in south-west France and northern Spain. The limestone formations in this area
certainly provided the perfect canvas, but there are plenty of limestone caves in other parts of Europe and the world. To
find out why cave art happened in south-west Europe in particular, we need to look at the environmental and social context
of the paintings. To start with, we need some dates.

There are some very early dates for cave art in France and Spain, going back to perhaps 30,000 years ago, although some of
these dates need to be treated with caution. Although many of these painted caves have been known since the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, it is only very recently that archaeologists have been able to obtain meaningful dates and to fit
the rock art into the wider picture, alongside other archaeological evidence. In France, archaeologist and cave art expert
Michel Lorblanchet welcomed the opportunity to place the paintings in time, and wrote of the ‘post-stylistic era’, where cave
art could be directly dated, rather than relying on style alone to establish chronologies. Where paintings included charcoal,
radiocarbon dating could be used to provide a precise timing. Unfortunately, the majority of paintings do not contain charcoal
or other organic remains, so they are not amenable to direct dating, in which case indirect dates from excavations within
caves, as well as the style of the paintings themselves, remain important clues as to their date of inception.
¹

Sometimes it is very hard to get a decent date, even when charcoal exists in a painting. Organic residues from micro-organisms
and carbonate from the cave wall itself can affect the date. Radiocarbon dates of black dots from the painted cave of Candamo
in northern Spain range widely, and have been reported as being as old as 33,000 years ago – or as young as 15,000. It is
difficult to decide which of these is the true age: the dots may be 33,000 years old, and may have been painted over again
15,000 years ago. Or perhaps the younger date is true – and the older date was obtained as a result of contamination with
more ancient carbon.
¹
Similarly, dating of a black horse from Chauvet Cave in France has produced estimations of about 21,000 years ago (Magdalenian),
and around 30,000 years ago (Aurignacian); the style of the paintings in Chauvet suggest that the younger date is more likely.
Dating specialists certainly hope that advances in radiocarbon dating, and the use of different labs to test the reproducibility
of results, will help to clear up such discrepancies in the future. But for now, the potential Aurignacian dates for Candamo
and Chauvet have to be treated with caution.
¹

Experts tentatively agree, however, that most cave art, including paintings and engravings, seems to be part of the Solutrean
and subsequent Magdalenian cultures of the late Upper Palaeolithic – in other words, it was created around the time of the
LGM.
²

I wanted to see some of this cave art for myself and so I made my way to Lascaux, near the town of Montignac in the Vézère
Valley – the most famous of the Franch painted caves. Unfortunately – but entirely understandably – I was not to see the original
cave paintings: the cave has been closed up while conservators attempt to eradicate the mould that has been threatening to
destroy the precious paintings. Instead, I visited Lascaux II, the reproduction of the cave that is open to visitors. I had almost visited Lascaux some years before, but then decided against when I found that only the replica cave was open
to viewing. This time, however, I had to admit that Lascaux II was worth a visit. I walked down a passageway lined with photographs
of the original excavations, and into the ‘cave’. It was great – I was completely taken in. The cool air, the shapes and
texture of the walls, and the paintings themselves seemed quite authentic.

But this was a reproduction – by a single, modern artist. The colours were true to the original – manganese black, ochre yellows
and reds, a similar palette to the rock paintings I had seen in Australia. Lascaux II is a re-creation of the splendid ‘Hall
of the Bulls’ and the passageway known as the ‘Axial Gallery’.

The original Lascaux was discovered by four teenagers exploring the hills above Montignac in 1940. A pine tree had fallen,
and where its roots had torn up the earth the boys found a hole in the ground. The sinkhole led straight down to what would
become known as the Hall of the Bulls. The young discoverers went straight through this chamber – presumably not looking up, or they would have seen that the walls
curving in above them were emblazoned with huge bulls – and on into the Axial Gallery, where they first noticed the cave paintings.
I stood in the replica Hall of the Bulls, gazing up at the beasts – the so-called ‘Unicorn’ (strange, as he patently has
two
horns), above me and on my left, followed by great black-outlined bulls, facing each other, with smaller, antlered deer filling
the space between them. On the right-hand part of the ceiling were more bulls in black, and red ochre. Making my way down
into the narrower, keyhole-shaped Axial Gallery, I could see a procession of animals on the ceiling above me: a beautiful
black deer or reindeer with branching antlers, more bulls, and pot-bellied horses.

With my appetite whetted, I went off in search of an original painted cave: Pech Merle, in the Lot
département
. A flight of stone stairs led down to a somewhat incongruous white-painted door, through which I passed to emerge into a
limestone cave deep within the hillside. I walked through magnificent chambers with huge flowstone creations, enormous stalagmites
and stalactites, some of which had met between ceiling and floor to form massive pillars. The cave opened into a great chamber,
high and wide and elaborately adorned with speleothem creations. It was like walking into a gothic cathedral. What on earth
would it have been like for Ice Age hunter-gatherers? For someone who had never been in a church, let alone a cathedral? If
we still wonder at the natural beauty of these caves today, just imagine what it would have been like for our ancestors. It must have seemed magical, otherworldly, and sacred.

I was so distracted by the natural splendour of the cave that I almost missed the cave art. But there, on one rare, smooth
part of the cave wall to my left, were two beautiful horses outlined in black, facing away from each other, their hindquarters
partly superimposed. They were covered in black spots which also flowed on to the background around them, as though they
were somehow camouflaged. There were red ochre spots, too, on the belly of the horse on the left, and on the flanks of the
other. I noticed that the flat wall of rock had a strange contour where it ended on the left – almost like a horse’s head. It was
as though the artist had taken this suggestion from the natural shape of the rocky canvas and allowed it to direct his hand
as he (or she) created these wonderful beasts.

The horses were stylised rather than naturalistic representations. They had great curving necks and small heads, rounded
bodies and slender legs. Were they artistic representations of real horses or mythical beasts?

I imagined the artist painting them, in the darkness of the cave, with a tallow lamp flickering and lighting up small areas
of the wall as they applied the black and red pigments. There were six negative handprints, stencilled on to the wall around
the horses, some left, some right hands, but all matching. Were these the signature of the original artist or additions by
a later cave painter?

Further along in the same chamber there was another hand stencil, this time in red ochre. I found these hands incredibly moving
– it was amazing to think of that Ice Age artist, so many thousands of years ago, placing a hand on the wall and recording
that moment. I felt very privileged to be seeing those images. It was like a message that had been passed down from ancient
times to the present. What did it say? I know the real meaning is lost for ever, but for me those hands say ‘we are people,
just like you’.

Pech Merle is incredibly rich in cave art; it contains more than seven hundred images, including many black-lined pictures
of mammoths, bison and horses.

My next subterranean stop-off was the cave of Cougnac, and, outside the cave, on the wooded hillside, I met Michel Lorblanchet,
the man who had spent so many years studying – and re-creating – the ancient art of the French caves. I had many questions for him, but first Monsieur Lorblanchet wanted to show me how
the hand stencils were made. He had studied the pigments used and how they might have been delivered on to the wall, and had
concluded that the ghostly handprints had been created by spitting colour on to and around a hand laid against the stone.

He demonstrated the technique for me outside Cougnac, on an exposed limestone cliff. First, he donned overalls and an artistic-looking
black beret, then fetched a collection of things from the boot of his car: stones, charcoal and a bottle of water. Then he
ground up some charcoal, using a pebble to crush the pieces to dust on a large flat stone. He explained that the black pigments
in the cave paintings were usually manganese oxide: ‘It’s also black, but it could be dangerous for the experimenter. I spoke to a toxicologist in Paris and this man told me:
don’t use manganese oxide, you’ll get poisoned. So, I prefer to use charcoal.’

It became clear why, because the next thing he did was to take a generous pinch of ground charcoal, and transfer it into his
mouth. I could hear him crunching it up into an even finer consistency.

‘I grind the pigment between the teeth,’ he said, through blackened, gritted teeth, then he chewed some more, laid his hand
against the stone and started spitting the charcoal around it. He spat quickly – ‘pup pup pup pup pup’ – and a fine black
spray landed on the wall and on his hand with each spit. He had transformed himself into a human airbrush.

After five minutes there was a slight misting of charcoal around his hand on the wall. He would pause to put more charcoal
in his mouth, chew it up, then resume the spitting, an action so fast that I worried he might hyperventilate. But Monsieur
Lorblanchet was well practised in this technique. As a piece of experimental and experiential archaeology, he had re-created
the entire Pech Merle spotted-horse frieze, in a cave, using his spitting technique – it had taken a whole week to execute. While I suspected there might be a quicker and more efficient way of transferring the paint on to the wall, (through a hollow
tube, perhaps?) I admired his dedication. His technique was also based on ethnographic studies of Aboriginal painting in Australia, where
handprints also exist. The pigments were similar, too. ‘Red ochre and charcoal, and manganese oxide have been used everywhere in different parts
of the world,’ he said. ‘There are not many solutions. Some vegetables can provide pigment, but Palaeolithic people mainly use charcoal, manganese
oxide and red ochre. Not vegetable pigment.’

After half an hour, Monsieur Lorblanchet stopped and stood back from the wall. His lips were black with wet, powdered charcoal,
and his white beard had assumed a black streak in the centre. He took a swig from the water bottle to clean out his mouth.
There on the wall was a modern hand stencil.

‘So I spit the pigment on the wall. It is the same method that was used during the Ice Age because I get a foggy image, a
foggy hand stencil. And this sort of form is exactly the same as in Pech Merle.’

‘How did you hit on this method?’

‘Oh, it is difficult. It’s necessary to do it several times to get the right methods, yes. To have a good result it’s necessary
to have some experimentation.’

Stencilling wasn’t the only method used by the ancient rock artists. Monsieur Lorblanchet described how lines would be drawn using fingers or chewed sticks to form paintbrushes. But stencilling
was an excellent solution to applying paint to a rough or crumbly wall surface: ‘Cave walls are often full concretions, stalagmite and stalactite, so it’s impossible to draw with a finger. And if the wall
is soft sandstone, and you paint with a brush or with a finger, you destroy the surface,’ he explained. ‘But with this spitting
technique you can paint without touching the wall.