. Earth Science News .
Most Cave Art The Work Of Teens Not Shamans

illustration only
by Staff Writers
Fairbanks AL (SPX) Feb 13, 2006
Long accustomed to lifting mammoth bones from mudbanks and museum shelves and making sketches from cave art to gather details about Pleistocene animal anatomy, renowned paleobiologist and artist R. Dale Guthrie offers a fascinating and controversial interpretation of ancient cave art in his new book "The Nature of Paleolithic Art."

This ancient art was made during the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 to 35,000 years ago, and has typically been the purview of art historians and anthropologists, many of whom view Paleolithic art as done by accomplished shaman-artists. "This assumption may be true of a few of the best known and better-drawn images, but these are a small proportion of preserved Paleolithic art," Guthrie said.

Using new forensic techniques on fossil handprints of the artists and examining thousands of images, "I found that all ages and both sexes were making art, not just the senior male shamans," Guthrie said. These included hundreds of prints made as ocher, manganese, or clay negatives and a few positive prints made with pigments or mud applied to hands that were then placed on cave surfaces.

"The possibility that adolescent giggles and snickers may have echoed in dark cave passages as often as the rhythm of a shaman's chant demeans neither artists nor art," writes Guthrie.

"I was using Paleolithic art both to appreciate the colorful renditions and to find useful and interesting details about Pleistocene animal anatomy," said Guthrie, professor emeritus of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. A symposium of Paleolithic art scholars in 1979 "... set me on a new course of trying to place Paleolithic art in a larger dimension of natural history and linking artistic behavior to our evolutionary past," writes Guthrie.

The book, which contains more than 3,000 images all drawn by Guthrie, is about more than art. It's about good parenting, children, romantic love, lust, play, graffiti, risk-proneness, missing shields, hour-glass figures, striped horses, seas of grasses, and cold dry winds � it's about life on the margins of the Ice Age Mammoth Steppe.

Related Links
University of Alaska, Fairbanks

New Analysis Shows Three Human Migrations Out Of Africa
St Louis MO (SPX) Feb 10, 2006
A new, more robust analysis of recently derived human gene trees by Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D, of Washington University in St Louis, shows three distinct major waves of human migration out of Africa instead of just two, and statistically refutes � strongly � the 'Out of Africa' replacement theory.







  • US Hands Over Kashmir Relief Equipment To Pakistan
  • Damning Report Says Katrina Response A 'National Failure'
  • UN To Continue Pakistan Relief Despite Security Concerns
  • Storm-Ravaged New Orleans Seeks To Reverse Social Ills

  • Constructal Theory Predicts Global Climate Patterns In Simple Way
  • Global Warming Is Most Widespread In 1,200 Years UK Study Finds
  • Medieval Diaries Point To Hot Spots Due To Global Warming
  • Frozen Methane Chunks Not Responsible For Abrupt Increases In Atmospheric Methane

  • NASA Awards Colorado Satellite Observation Grants
  • Converging Satellites Unlock Sudden Demise Of Hurricane Lili
  • Satellites Support Businesses Working For Sustainable Development
  • Keeping New York City "Cool" Is The Job Of NASA's "Heat Seekers"

  • Garbage Truck Industry Ponders Move To LNG
  • Nuclear Fusion On A Tabletop
  • China Energy Quest Not A Threat
  • SCHOTT Solar Receiver To Power New Solar Thermal Power Plant

  • Bird Flu Hits Western Europe
  • Bird Flue Hits Africa
  • 1,500 Cholera Cases In Flood-Hit Mozambique
  • Deadly Meningitis Outbreaks In Drought-Stricken Kenya, Uganda

  • Science Slowly Explaining Evolution Detail
  • China May Use Wolves To Rein In No-Longer-So-Endangered Blue Sheep
  • Introduced Predators Throw A Wrench In The Food Web
  • Dozens Of New Species In 'Lost World' Of West New Guinea

  • Company Accused Of Releasing Chemicals Into Chinese River
  • Toxic Slick To Reach Japan In Spring, Russian Officials Warn
  • Indian Environment Watchdog Split Over French Asbestos Warship
  • Global Initiative To Limit Chemical Hazards Agreed In Dubai

  • Most Cave Art The Work Of Teens, Not Shamans
  • New Analysis Shows Three Human Migrations Out Of Africa
  • Brain Changes Significantly After Age Eighteen
  • Blue Light May Fight Fatigue

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement