Tough materials such as stone, bone and ivory bearing signs of human working have been discovered at many archeological sites of early man. Use of the uranium-thorium method has shown that paintings found in three widely separated cave locations in Spain - in Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales - can be dated to approximately 64,000 years ago, making them indubitably the work of Neanderthals. However, the uranium-thorium method, used since the 1970s, has extended dating range accuracy to 500,000 years ago, and is being used to date the calcium carbonate that was deposited by water flowing over paintings older than 50,000 years. It is used in dating those cave paintings where carbon such as a burnt twig was used in the drawing. The familiar carbon-14 method, developed in the 1940s, is accurate only up to 50,000 years ago. Meanwhile, dating methods have become more refined over the years. The works found in Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, as well as others from the same periods, had been thought to be the work of the anatomically modern humans only, originally named Cro-Magnon ( Homo sapiens), because older lineages, including Neanderthals ( Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), were thought to be incapable of such sophisticated work. The dating of these paintings range from approximately 15,000 to 35,000 years ago, although the Magura Cave in Bulgaria has similar paintings dating from between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. Other well-known caves with extraordinary paintings and/or engravings include Chauvet - discovered in 1944, and located on the gorge of the Ardeche River, north of Marseilles and included into the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2014 - and Lascaux, discovered in 1940 in east-central France, and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979. Therefore, a replica cave has been created at the nearby National Museum and Research Center of Altamira. The cave itself - discovered in 1868 - is located in northern Spain near the port city of Santander, and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985.Ĭave environments are very fragile, and concern about serious degradation of the painting has led to severe restrictions on entry. I no longer remember when I saw my first reproduction of a cave painting, but the magic of dynamic animals - racing horses, majestic rhinos, beautifully rendered bison, crouching lions and more - racing silently across stone walls, coming to life only when a lighted torch was present, was gripping.įifty years ago, while visiting Madrid, we were privileged to view partial reproductions from the Altamira Cave located in the forecourt of the National Archeological Museum. For a very long time, particularly if your definition of art is “any embellishment that does not add to the functionality of an item.”
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