“Their work portrays the animals that their culture valued, not so much in a practical way—or else there would have been more fish, which were an important part of their diet—but in an aesthetic or mythological or spiritual way.” (17)
There are many theories for explaining the meaning behind the Cave Paintings in the Dordogne Valley. As we have been reading, they range from the most simplistic (the paintings represent the world that the people of this region and time period were apart of) to the most unsubstantiated due to the culture being extinct (mythological, totemic, spiritual, magical, etc). Our ethological interpretations of the paintings can never be fully proven without a living member of the culture; speculation is all the remains. When archaeological evidence is difficult to interpret, there is often a jump to this realm of thought, in the context of the cave paintings in the Dordogne Valley, it is more than warranted.
My personal opinion on the art works is that they must have had some mythological, spiritual, or totemic purposes. Raphael’s theory of the painting being related to clan structures and separations also seems reasonable but there still must be some mythological/spiritual/totemic explanation for the symbolism of why a clan would identify with a specific animal. The selection of which animals the artists used in their works is also very intriguing. They generally seem to be Bison, Mammoth, Horses, and Rhinos; essentially they are animals that they were able to hunt and that would have produced massive amounts of meat and tools for a group (I’m not sure if they did hunt them, tried to find info on it, and couldn’t find any). According to “The Cave Painters”, the mega-fauna mentioned weren’t a massive portion of their diet. These animals are also very powerful animals with massive potential for danger if a group were to hunt them. Horses were not domesticated at this point, so it is not unreasonable to assume that they could have been hunted.
Whether or not prehistoric groups in this region hunted these animals is irrelevant though because it is not significant of the potential symbolism attached to a particular animal. The most logical application of the paintings seems to be the mythological or spiritual purpose of the art works. The recent discovery of children’s artistic and overall presence within the caves where the artwork was housed shows that these artistic practices are definitely transmitted to the next generation, as opposed to being the work of just few people over the course of time. It also shows the cultural importance of continuing the painting process because children were encouraged to participate in abstract artistic expression, which could have further bonded a group and reinforced cultural values through representation of their mythological or spiritual system. Totemic representation could be involved in the symbolism of the animals.
Obviously there is no definitive conclusion to be drawn from these artworks. All that can be definitively interpreted is that clearly the paintings served a purpose that would reinforce the culture the group/groups producing these paintings. It’s enjoyable to speculate just what is the exact meaning of these artworks, just as it is when viewing art in today’s society.
Sources
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