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What's striking to me is that prehistoric art in parts of the world that were unlikely to be in communication with each other tend to hit on common themes, e.g.

What's striking to me is that prehistoric art in parts of the world that were unlikely to be in communication with each other tend to hit on common themes, e.g. the frequent depiction of animals (as opposed to depicting humans, which is apparently fairly rare). Where does the impetus come from?

yodon 6y ago
We're talking about drawing styles that were used for tens of thousands of years. Even if most people never travelled more than a couple miles from their birthplace, the information those people knew, like how to draw animals, is able to rapidly jump from person to person in order to cross continents. This isn't just the domain of lyric poetry. Modern electronics works the same way. When you press the return key on your keyboard, there are unlikely to be any physical electrons that travel from your keyboard to the CPU or even from one side of the CPU to another. It's surprising how fast these information transmission processes can happen even with comparatively immobile and lossy information carriers.
gus_massa 6y ago
Was so rare to depict humans? I'm not an expert, but in https://www.google.com/search?q=cave+painting&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=cave+painting&tbm=isch approximately one half of the painting contains humans (and some are a photo of a single figure in a big painting).
- garbagetime 6y ago
  It was rare (if it happened at all) to depict humans in as much detail as, for example, the pig in the OP. Mostly they're just stick-figure type characters.
trianglem 6y ago
Especially negative human handprints. They’re all over the place and doesn’t seem intuitive at all to me. Holding a mix of red ochre + water in your mouth and blowing it against your hand held on a wall. Incredible!
- Zuider 6y ago
  One possible explanation is that, in order to produce the desired clear outline of a hand, it would be more effective to use the 'stencilling' technique than it would be to attempt to transfer paint directly from the palm on to an uneven surface.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  if hand stencils aren't obvious what is? What would you have adorned your cave with 45,000 years ago?
  - trianglem 6y ago
    I feel like I would do a palm print before a stencil print.
    - wombatmobile 6y ago
      With what sort of paint? Do you think the result would be as distinctive as the stencil?
      - trianglem 6y ago
        The same? Red ochre + water? Why would it be different?
        wombatmobile 6y ago
        Consistency of adhesion, consistency of transference, and contrast of outline, I imagine. I haven't tried it. I'm making speculative inferences from the existing data vs the non-existent data.
andi999 6y ago
To me I find the hand outlines strange. Personally I wouldn't do them. And it is interesting they show up in multiple pictures.
ncmncm 6y ago
Ordinary handprints are a natural idea. Stenciled handprints are an absolutely unnatural idea. That they appear in practically every cave-painting site indicates cultural transmission spanning tens of thousands of years and miles. Similarly, "seven sisters" interpretations of the Pleiades are found from Africa to Australia and everywhere in between. The last time the Pleiades were recognizably seven stars was 40,000 years ago. "Seven sisters" legends everywhere include an accounting of the missing sister.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  Starting from a very small population of cave people, as hominids expanded exponentially for thousands of years when everyone was still much more closely related no matter how far apart they were, migration pathways would not all have to remain open for tradition to be carried on to some extent. I think it's also accepted that some cultures spent thousands of years with very little change compared to the climactic and geographic variations they endured. Art periods are of couse referred to as "schools" and the most prominent way tradition is carried on by modern artists who intend to produce a work that will stand the test of time, is to use medias that are much closer to Rembrandt or Michaelangelo than what we see in the caves. But not that different either. Whatever was proven to last more than a few generations at the time. IOW techniques proven over unknown generations of artists who came before, so much so that maintaining any knowledge on the subject required a degree of faith or superstition not less intense than efforts which preserved religious or cultural traditions, even of prehistoric humans. Maybe for thousands of years. It's not the Flintstones but it is just modern man in prehistoric times. Artists who are contemporaries will need to develop a trend together in order for a school to form, and from what we see in recent centuries, a certain style often takes a while to catch on but also can last more than a generation even when there is only one progenitor as a seed. Even though almost all art & science have always been lost without a trace. The little bit that does stand the test of time and get preserved probably lasts much longer if it had been in development for more years before initial recognition. And you've got to figure that schools of art come & go in much less rapid cycles the further back in time. But the materials that will last have evolved much less quickly. The latest trends are still often depicted using inorganic pigments on canvas or carved in marble, and signed using the artist's name, styles can be wildly different but that part is exactly like it was done over the most recent centuries. A recognized predecessor might have simply been inorganic pigment on a cave wall, signed with a hand stencil, when you're trying to paint a masterpiece that will stand the test of time. If nothing else had ever been proven this is what most would do. And that tradition would likely have lasted orders of magnitude more generations when pop culture or art appreciation cycles were slower. Much slower in all probability, and probability can have some tall odds. Like when there's not that many people in the world yet, most of them are going to be more similar than they are later. Seems like the initial trend from earliest centuries could have actually lasted for earliest unfathomable millenia before any other school of art might have arose naturally as it was going to do anyway. Could be all art everywhere started out always being signed with a hand stencil and it was so widespread and universal a trend it did not dissipate for tens of thousands of years. And it was everywhere, at home, at work, on billboards etc., you just couldn't get away from it, for like eons. It's been a while and it wouldn't be too surprising if the only thing preserved from way back then is in caves, and it could have been painted there intentionally for generations to enjoy into the unforseeable future, based on proven techniques from the unknowable past.
fit2rule 6y ago
There are basic shapes, which can be found in the human body, and which all cultures seem to have eventually discovered ..
Zuider 6y ago
It is also striking how similar the style is between the Indonesian and European cave paintings, where the heads and feet of the animal are depicted as being smaller and more gracile than in life.

yodon 6y ago

We're talking about drawing styles that were used for tens of thousands of years. Even if most people never travelled more than a couple miles from their birthplace, the information those people knew, like how to draw animals, is able to rapidly jump from person to person in order to cross continents. This isn't just the domain of lyric poetry. Modern electronics works the same way. When you press the return key on your keyboard, there are unlikely to be any physical electrons that travel from your keyboard to the CPU or even from one side of the CPU to another. It's surprising how fast these information transmission processes can happen even with comparatively immobile and lossy information carriers.

gus_massa 6y ago

Was so rare to depict humans? I'm not an expert, but in https://www.google.com/search?q=cave+painting&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=cave+painting&tbm=isch approximately one half of the painting contains humans (and some are a photo of a single figure in a big painting).

garbagetime 6y ago
It was rare (if it happened at all) to depict humans in as much detail as, for example, the pig in the OP. Mostly they're just stick-figure type characters.

trianglem 6y ago

Especially negative human handprints. They’re all over the place and doesn’t seem intuitive at all to me. Holding a mix of red ochre + water in your mouth and blowing it against your hand held on a wall. Incredible!

Zuider 6y ago
One possible explanation is that, in order to produce the desired clear outline of a hand, it would be more effective to use the 'stencilling' technique than it would be to attempt to transfer paint directly from the palm on to an uneven surface.
wombatmobile 6y ago
if hand stencils aren't obvious what is? What would you have adorned your cave with 45,000 years ago?
- trianglem 6y ago
  I feel like I would do a palm print before a stencil print.
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    With what sort of paint? Do you think the result would be as distinctive as the stencil?
    - trianglem 6y ago
      The same? Red ochre + water? Why would it be different?
      - wombatmobile 6y ago
        Consistency of adhesion, consistency of transference, and contrast of outline, I imagine. I haven't tried it. I'm making speculative inferences from the existing data vs the non-existent data.

andi999 6y ago

To me I find the hand outlines strange. Personally I wouldn't do them. And it is interesting they show up in multiple pictures.

ncmncm 6y ago

Ordinary handprints are a natural idea. Stenciled handprints are an absolutely unnatural idea. That they appear in practically every cave-painting site indicates cultural transmission spanning tens of thousands of years and miles. Similarly, "seven sisters" interpretations of the Pleiades are found from Africa to Australia and everywhere in between. The last time the Pleiades were recognizably seven stars was 40,000 years ago. "Seven sisters" legends everywhere include an accounting of the missing sister.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
Starting from a very small population of cave people, as hominids expanded exponentially for thousands of years when everyone was still much more closely related no matter how far apart they were, migration pathways would not all have to remain open for tradition to be carried on to some extent. I think it's also accepted that some cultures spent thousands of years with very little change compared to the climactic and geographic variations they endured. Art periods are of couse referred to as "schools" and the most prominent way tradition is carried on by modern artists who intend to produce a work that will stand the test of time, is to use medias that are much closer to Rembrandt or Michaelangelo than what we see in the caves. But not that different either. Whatever was proven to last more than a few generations at the time. IOW techniques proven over unknown generations of artists who came before, so much so that maintaining any knowledge on the subject required a degree of faith or superstition not less intense than efforts which preserved religious or cultural traditions, even of prehistoric humans. Maybe for thousands of years. It's not the Flintstones but it is just modern man in prehistoric times. Artists who are contemporaries will need to develop a trend together in order for a school to form, and from what we see in recent centuries, a certain style often takes a while to catch on but also can last more than a generation even when there is only one progenitor as a seed. Even though almost all art & science have always been lost without a trace. The little bit that does stand the test of time and get preserved probably lasts much longer if it had been in development for more years before initial recognition. And you've got to figure that schools of art come & go in much less rapid cycles the further back in time. But the materials that will last have evolved much less quickly. The latest trends are still often depicted using inorganic pigments on canvas or carved in marble, and signed using the artist's name, styles can be wildly different but that part is exactly like it was done over the most recent centuries. A recognized predecessor might have simply been inorganic pigment on a cave wall, signed with a hand stencil, when you're trying to paint a masterpiece that will stand the test of time. If nothing else had ever been proven this is what most would do. And that tradition would likely have lasted orders of magnitude more generations when pop culture or art appreciation cycles were slower. Much slower in all probability, and probability can have some tall odds. Like when there's not that many people in the world yet, most of them are going to be more similar than they are later. Seems like the initial trend from earliest centuries could have actually lasted for earliest unfathomable millenia before any other school of art might have arose naturally as it was going to do anyway. Could be all art everywhere started out always being signed with a hand stencil and it was so widespread and universal a trend it did not dissipate for tens of thousands of years. And it was everywhere, at home, at work, on billboards etc., you just couldn't get away from it, for like eons. It's been a while and it wouldn't be too surprising if the only thing preserved from way back then is in caves, and it could have been painted there intentionally for generations to enjoy into the unforseeable future, based on proven techniques from the unknowable past.

fit2rule 6y ago

There are basic shapes, which can be found in the human body, and which all cultures seem to have eventually discovered ..

Zuider 6y ago

It is also striking how similar the style is between the Indonesian and European cave paintings, where the heads and feet of the animal are depicted as being smaller and more gracile than in life.