Paleolithic Art and Ritual: An Exploration on Human Activity inside Caves in Southwestern Europe

Summary

Caves provide a privileged context for the study of Prehistoric ritual activity. Inside them, we enjoy the unique possibility of directly observing and analyzing spatial features that have hardly changed (and in some cases have not changed at all) since the Paleolithic. However, the poor preservation of the archaeological evidence during the earliest years of the research, and particularly the enormous cultural gap between the Paleolithic codes and systems of beliefs and the modern observers hinder the reconstruction of the events that may have taken place in those places.

In this paper, the available evidence on human action in caves with rock art of southern France and northern Spain will be described and analyzed. We will address relevant topics such as the spatial relationship between Paleolithic graphics and scenographic features of the caves (visibility of the paintings and engravings, capacity of the chambers, sound properties of the decorated areas…) and the evidence of human actions inside the karst (footprints, paths, archaeological items in passages and walls, artificial modifications of the cavern space…). The case of areas of concentration of portable art inside caves, such as Enlène and La Garma, will also be included in the discussion.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20842