The elephant in the cave: A Paleolithic perspective

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Elephant Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this talk I will try to touch upon, and tie together, two major elements in early human adaptation, culture and perception – namely elephants and caves. Proboscideans presence in Paleolithic caves is manifested in two major ways: either as selected body-parts brought in from the hunt for human consumption, or as depictions on the cave’s walls. It is indeed either or, as caves yielding proboscideans remains usually do not demonstrated cave “art”, and vice versa. The only exception to the rule is mammoth ivory sometimes used for the production of mobile “art” at some Upper Paleolithic caves in Europe. The long dependency of Paleolithic humans on proboscideans will be summarized, and the probable effects of elephants/mammoths disappearance/extinction on human subsistence and ontology will be discussed. I will suggest that by tracing elephant presence in Paleolithic caves one can follow the long and changing interactions between early humans and proboscideans and new light can be shed over these interesting relationships.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Elephant Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51332