PICTURES: Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female

Source: National Geographic

June 16, 2009--Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave, hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural.

For about as long as humans have created works of art, they've also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago.

Until recently, most scientists assumed these prehistoric handprints were male. But "even a superficial examination of published photos suggested to me that there were lots of female hands there," Pennsylvania State University archaeologist Dean Snow said of European cave art.

By measuring and analyzing the Pech Merle hand stencils, Snow found that many were indeed female--including those pictured here. (Also see: pictures of hand stencils through time.)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/cave-handprints-actually-women-missions-pictures/index.html

:dunce:

:hi:

and may have involved a type of shamanism, which they probably were predisposed to interpret as a male activity.

I'm just guessin' here.

and there was precious little to do in that cave while the children were napping.(Guiding Light & Days of Our Lives were decades away). There would be plenty of charcoal around, and who knows, maybe the pictures were a WAY to entertain the kids:)

I was under the impression that the caves where the paintings are are believed to be ritual caves. The paintings tend to be very deep into the rock, in areas so dark and far in that they would not be convenient to live in. The residential caves were shallow or just rock overhangs.

I think the theory is that the cave paintings are in almost like movie theaters: when you bring a torch in and wave it, the animals appear to move as the shadows dance.

The painters were shamans or some kind of intermediaries to the supernatural world.

If the painters were women, it would suggest that women were shamans or priestesses.

And thought it was typical and arrogant for scientists to assume all those paintings were made by men. Always seemed to me that the logical choice would have been women.

and a male artist I met was looking at my sketches and paintings..
his words "My god..you draw like a man!"
needless to say, he probably never said it again after I was thru with him.

GMTA!



:)

I just googled Galeano. I wasn't familiar with him, but clearly I ought to be!
:hi:

I agree that automatically ruling out the possibility of women doing the drawings doesn't make sense. But is there a consistent, measurable difference between female hands and male hands--as seen in their prints?

Now this is generalized,but usually a woman has a longer index finger than ring finger, and men have longer ring fingers than index fingers. Also, women's little fingers tend to be noticeably short.

You learn something every day

:dunce:

:shrug: ... or recipe file. :dunce: