Spotted horses and handprints in the cave at Pech Merle, Lot, France

How do you begin to explain the truly fabulous images found in prehistoric caves in the Lot and Dordogne regions of France? Why are only certain animals drawn and not others? What is the meaning of giant spotted horses and negative handprints? 

The cave paintings that capture the general public's imagination most were made between 17,000 and 25,000 years ago by our direct ancestors, Homo sapiens sapiens for reasons we may never know. These early "Europeans" had no writing or architecture so there are few clues that inform us about their society or Paleolithic culture. The drawings and paintings do remain, however, and are the most impressive and tantalizing evidence of a complex and sophisticated people. 

It is reasonable to assume that one is looking at a society that had spiritual beliefs. Homo sapiens sapiens ritually buried his dead, as did our close cousins Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, though there is no proof that earlier forms of humanity did. However, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis did not leave images on cave walls. This activity appears to be a distinction of our ancestors.   

Theories that explain the cave images in terms of religion have been proposed by several academics. One of the most recent attempts has been made by a leading French prehistorian, Jean Clottes. He collaborates with people of other academic disciplines in his search to understand the mysterious marks. Clottes' work uses areas of anthropology and neuropsychology to propose that the prehistoric images are the product of a shaman culture (or a succession of shaman cultures).   

His theory is speculative, like all the others, but it is one that is highly informed and well argued. He has published his ideas in a book, co-written with David Lewis-Williams, called Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire (The Shamans of Prehistory). Lewis-Williams is an archeologist and anthropologist whose specialist area of study is the San people of South Africa and their shaman belief system. 

Our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. Shamanism is most often associated with such cultures in the contemporary world.  Nevertheless one cannot blithely transpose modern cultures onto prehistoric ones, which is why Clottes also draws on other disciplines and an analysis of the prehistoric images themselves to provide more convincing links between the ancient and the modern.    

The shaman and the cave 

The shaman is a key figure in communicating with the spirit world through a state of altered consciousness, in which the soul of the shaman leaves the body by flying or by going underground. A cave is a place that is conducive to attaining such a state of mind, and it is also a place that is the anti-thesis of the world of light and reality. Subterranean chambers, for some shamans, are also where one encounters animal spirits and the spirits of other shamans.   

Paleolithic people rarely inhabited the space in which the drawings and paintings were done. The images are often situated in the most obscure corners and, in some cases, access to these parts is very difficult. Indeed there is little evidence to show that many people frequented these parts of the caves.   

Clearly certain caves had a special significance and were regarded as being somewhere apart from the everyday chores of survival. It is obvious that the images were not done with our notions of art or decoration. They would have been seen by few people and were probably created by an elite for an elite. The "artist" may well have been a shaman.   

A cave offers a degree of sensory deprivation that present day shamans often use to introduce the next generation to shamanic practice. The drawings might also have played a role in the initiation of a young apprentice shaman. 

A simple lamp made of carved stone or bone, animal fat and a wick would have been used by the shaman or his/her assistant when visiting the caves, making the darkness and strangeness of the deepest galleries come to life. The shapes and undulations of the various surfaces suggest animal forms, animals that the shaman may have encountered during a trance and that have a special meaning in tribal life. It is possible that the cave walls were not perceived as a solid barrier but more like a membrane between the two worlds of animal spirits and people. 

Perhaps the act of touching and marking the cave walls was more important than the idea of a finished picture. When the modern observer sees the overlaying of drawn animals that occurs in some places, creating a confusion of lines, one is led to conclude that the end product was not as meaningful to the creators as the act of drawing on a particular surface.   

The handprints 

The significance of touching the walls appears to be reinforced when one considers the negative handprints. Both negative and positive handprints are found in caves all over the world. Prehistoric people (shamans?) placed their hands on the rock surface and blew pigment on to the hand and the surrounding area. When they took their hands away a silhouette was left, the hand having served as a negative version of a stencil.  

Jean Clottes speculates that this technique was a gesture that fused the hand with the rock that made the hand indistinguishable from the stone. Once again it is thought that the act was more important than the end product. 

Many visitors see these handprints as a kind of signature left by the people who made the animal images. This idea belongs more to our modern, western, individualistic culture and the concept of the artist as an individual than it does to a shaman culture. Self-expression is not the main purpose of Paleolithic imagery, which manifests a particular conformity of subject matter and means of representation over many thousands of years. Shaman cultures are more concerned with denial of the self, especially when the soul leaves the body to travel to other worlds and possibly transform itself into an animal during the trance. 

The illustration shows a panel of six negative handprints around two large horses, alternatively left and right hands, in the famous cave at Pech Merle in Southwest France.  

The horses 

This panel of drawing, stenciling and "airbrushing" is done where the natural shape of the rock suggests a horse's head. The horse is an animal frequently represented in Paleolithic caves, along with the bison. Indeed large herbivores predominate. Carnivores, fish, birds and humans are much less common. Was the horse a powerful spirit or was it just a source of food? The two could be interconnected, of course. It is possible that the shaman had to pacify the spirit world on behalf of his tribe, which killed such animals for food. 

The horses appear to be spotted. On closer observation one sees that there are spots outside the bodies as well as on them. This is no accident. Spots occur in other parts of the same cave (as well as in many other sites), usually next to an image or a negative handprint.   

Prehistorians do not know how to interpret these marks. Clottes' and Lewis-Williams' book offers an answer. As shamans, of whatever period of history, have the same biological brain as everyone else the study of the brain's functions is relevant and revealing. When one goes into a trance, however this is induced (by sensory deprivation, fasting, intense pain, certain illnesses, drugs or prolonged, rhythmic percussion or dance) one encounters several levels of hallucinations. The initial stage is one of abstract signs: dots, zigzags, grids or a composition of straight and curved lines. At a deeper level of trance one can encounter animals and even seem to become one.   

These different levels of hallucinations are universal, although the details of the experience may vary according to the social or cultural background of the subject. Dots, grids and other abstract marks occur in many caves. According to these ideas the spotted horses may well represent several stages of the trance experience. 

France 

While there may be more questions than answers with regard to Paleolithic imagery, this does not diminish the experience of actually seeing some of these prehistoric sites today. One cannot begin to understand the prehistoric mind if one has not gone into the same environment as our ancestors did.  No amount of surfing on the web will give you this!  

Despite all the mystery, something is still being communicated down the ages to the modern tourist, and no one leaves any of the caves unmoved (or should I say untouched?). 

So what is so special about France?  The southwestern part of the country has a unique concentration of Paleolithic caves and many are open to the public. Indeed the region has some 20% of Europe's painted caves, so ... profitez-en! 

Sally Gosheron of Atelier de la Rose is a British art and design historian, living in the Lot (France) since 1991, who provides cultural tours on demand.