Cave Paintings & Handprints

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I’m Quinn Rose., and I didn't go to art school, but I still love to learn about art anyway. 

Betty: And I am Betty. I also didn't go to art school, but I also love to learn about art anyway and have been interested ever since I was a little child making handprint art with my hands. This will be relevant later in the show. I'll explain. But I like art a lot.

Quinn: No, this is just an episode about the kind of art that we did as toddlers. Welcome to our PowerPoint presentation. 

Betty: Oh, actually, you know what? That may be, maybe for a future episode. There are some pictures of me when I was little doodling. Although the pictures are of me are kind of embarrassing, so maybe not.

Quinn: Maybe, maybe the pictures of me as a young child should just stay private, you know.

Betty: Today I decided since I think a little while ago, I decided to look into like Chinese art from 3000 years ago. I'm like, why not go further until 300,000 years ago?

Quinn: Ooh, we’re going all the way back this time. 

Betty: Yeah. So today's topic is going to be, I've named it, or I'm calling this early human art. But some of them may not have been done by humans, technically speaking. So that will be interesting. I decided to look into what is like the earliest art ever created. And this turned out to be a really complicated question.

Quinn: I love complicated questions.

Betty: Yeah. It's great. So there's not really a consensus on what's considered art. And I think we've discussed this before, as well.

Quinn: I was about to say, I think I've seen this film before. 

Betty: Yeah. So there's kind of, there's kind of different schools of thoughts on what is considered art. And also I've read that there's some dispute on different scientific dating methods as well. So that's, I'm not really familiar with that cause that's very scientific. But I think some of the more commonly used methods is carbon dating. But then in recent years there have been another type of dating method is called uranium dating, which I think some people think is not as accurate, but I have no idea. So that's like another reason why, but I think the bigger, most of the more complicated question is, is this really art?

Quinn: So the scientific question of when did this actually get made is maybe something we will leave to professionals, the philosophical questions—I was about to say, we're equipped to answer. We’re not equipped to answer, but like who is really? And so we can get into it.

Betty: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I’ll kind of start off by going, I guess, in general of like what I'm talking about. And then I'm going to tell you about the oldest art from some of the less old ones to some of the really old ones. Basically, most of the artworks that are really old as people probably may have heard of are found in like deep caves or cliffs. And most of them are in like rock or bone or maybe sometimes even ivory. So basically these like very hard objects, but also if they happen to be in places that I guess in general are really wet, which I presume—and also dark, which I presume are reasons why things in general are better preserved. So for the longest time, the oldest artworks ever or ever discovered were mostly in places like Spain and France. So in the first show note I have there is some examples of the artwork at Chauvet Cave, which is in France. It's in Southeastern France. Bunch of caves where they've discovered, I think like lots of, lots of different paintings, mostly of animals. And these date back to probably something like 30,000 years ago from today.

Quinn: Yeah. This is what I've heard of. And for the whole thing of like, oh, this is the earliest human art that we've ever discovered, I feel like this cave is very famous. If someone had asked me to name what the earliest human art would be, I'd be like, isn't it that cave in France?

Betty: Yeah. So this one was, it was discovered in 1994. And so it's also been known for, you know, quite a while. You know, a few decades. So a part of the paint cave has these red paintings like paintings done in red ochre. And then another are these black and white pictures. And most of it are like of lions, mammoths, horses and some of the best, or some of the ones that are most well-known are these panels that have horses and one that has like rhinoceroses. And that's a very interesting word to say, rhinoceroses. And you’re right, these are, this cave is, you know, one of the ones that are commonly brought up as some of the earliest human art. And I think on this page, like you can see like this pretty much is kind of undisputed. Like people are like, this is art. These are pretty detailed, pretty like sophisticated paintings of horses and rhinos and animals. So there's very few people that's going to say no, this is not art because honestly this is better than most art I can make.

Quinn: I know, these are like very good paintings of horses and animals and stuff. I'm like, this is a level of detail that I don't have.

Betty: Yeah. And it's pretty impressive. So it's from 30,000 years ago, roughly. And maybe even slightly older. And the thing that I did read that's interesting is that apparently the animals that were drawn on here are actually, based on archeological evidence, they’re not actually animals that were hunted very often. Which is kind of contrary to previous beliefs is that, you know, early cave people probably painted animals from daily life that they either hunted or hung out around. But they more so seem like maybe these are animals that were more rare and maybe people, it was more like they were admiring or they found these animals really precious. So it's, there's basically more intention into why they painted these pictures.

Quinn: Wait, that makes me want to cry. So you're telling me that these are animals that they had seen, but they didn't see a lot. So they were like, I want to preserve the image of this so that I can come back and look at it later? So let me paint these beautiful horses and rhinos and everything so that we see these more uncommon things in our life day to day. That's amazing.

Betty: Yeah, exactly. So I think you know, it kind of makes more sense to me. Well, I don't know, cause obviously people draw from everyday life as well, but I think it just makes sense. You know, also you're like, ooh, like this is a special moment. I saw this rhino and I don't normally do, let me draw this. 

Quinn: This is like the difference between having a picture of your own cat in your home—which let me be clear, is absolutely something I would do, versus having a picture of like a lion in your home. And it's, you know, both are great and there's reasons for both of them, but they have different motivations behind them.

Betty: Exactly. Yeah. And then the other, the other cave that most people would have heard of as some of the oldest paintings is the caves at El Castillo caves, which—I just said caves, it's the El Castillo caves in Spain. And this is even older, so it's probably like 10,000 years older than the France ones. So about 40,000 years old. And these I would say are less detailed than the ones in France, but they still are, it's pretty obvious that they were done by people. Like it's not just like random patterns on a wall. And most importantly is that there is a series of handprints silhouetted with red ochre as well. And then there's also paintings of animals on the caves as well. So this one also, you know, people are pretty certain, most people would call this art as well. And it is older, but it's definitely not as detailed as the ones in France.

Quinn: For all the problems that humans have wreaked upon the world and each other, I also think humans are so amazing. And I think that this is one of those examples that, when you talk about like the most, the earliest art that survived into this time. And it's things like I saw a really cool animal and I painted it or like, I just wanted to trace my own hand print and have this piece of evidence that I was here. It's like, we still, this is the same. Our brains are the same. We walked down the street, we see wet cement and we think, I should touch it. Everybody just wants to have some kind of mark, some kind of permanence that shows that they were there. And isn't that amazing? 

Betty: Yeah no, totally. And some of, a lot of the hand prints also are small hand prints and probably done by children. This is why I mentioned like, when I was a kid, I did art with my hands and it's like, well, that's what kids do. And probably kids back then were like, I’m going to make art with my hand because that's what I want to do. Cause I want to, I was here, so.

Quinn: And their parents probably helped them do it. Ahh!

Betty: I know, it’s so cute. But anyway. So these for decades, you know, were known as the earliest artworks. However, since, you know, the 90s, there have actually been a lot of other discoveries of artworks that are even older than these, but unfortunately a lot of them are kind of controversial. And I'll get into them like as we go on. But one of the ones that are, one of the the caves that does have older artwork is from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and this particular one that I'm showing you was actually just discovered in, I think, 2020, because this article’s from January 2021. Would you like to describe the artwork that you see or what you believe you see?

Quinn: Yeah. So these are similar to the other pictures that we've already looked at, where they’re like drawings of animals and drawings of hands or whatever, but this is definitely less detailed than the other ones. The main one that I'm looking at in this article is a painting of a big old pig. And it is really cool. You can tell, like it's a big fat pig. I love it. It appears that it's also painted with like a red ochre. And there's detail, a little bit of detail given to this pig. It's not, it's almost just the outline, but then there are lines drawn on it to indicate a hair which a wild pig would have. So that's pretty cool. There is a little bit of detail and shading added into it. And then to the left of it, it's the same thing where it's the hands that are pressed onto the rock and then outlined in the red ochre. And I have no idea if these illustrations are supposed to be related to each other, they don't seem to be, it seems to be like someone drew a pig and then someone did hands next to it. Or maybe it was a way of like signing it where it's like, oh, like we did this work, so I'm going to put my hand print near it. Which is a cool idea. But yeah. I love the pro—I don't know if this is exactly what the proportions of this pig actually would have looked like, but it's so big, and its head is really little compared to its body and I'm a big fan of that. 

Betty: Yeah. I actually, I like these a lot and so these ones, yeah are red ochre wild pigs in this island in Indonesia, and this dates back to more than 45,000 years ago. And I believe, so in this article, it did say this is a species of wild pig that's very specific and indigenous to this part of Indonesia. And then they still roam around now. So I guess we could check to see if they still look like that. So, but yeah, so these ones are also like, even though they're less detailed, it is pretty obvious that somebody painted this, they didn't just appear on a wall randomly. And I think these ones, the ones are that were discovered a couple of years ago is also from a series of just probably like hundreds of different paintings of pigs, handprints, other figures in this island of Indonesia. And they all date back to anywhere between 35,000 to like 45,000 years ago. Which puts this older than the ones in Spain and France or on the same level, if you, if you're talking about the whole dispute with the inaccuracy of the uranium dating, but even then, even if it is off by a bit, it's around the same time. And the reason why this is significant is because for the longest time, other than France and Spain, artworks from other places in the world—there’s just no hard evidence that they date back to, you know, like 40,000 years ago. So of course there was a narrative that like art originated in Europe…

Quinn: Pfft. Okay.

Betty: Which is, theoretically, that should be ridiculous. But a lot of people were like, yeah, this is, we only found really old art in Europe.

Quinn: I'm assuming that's probably mostly climate related, like the climate around France and Spain is more suited to preserve that kind of art, or what?

Betty: Exactly. Kind of like I was talking about a few episodes ago about the artwork in Xian. Xian is an example of a place that's really not suited to preserve art because things flake off and disintegrate within minutes. Whereas in this island in Indonesia and in a cave, in a wet, dark cave, they last for at least 45,000 years, right? So, you know, there may have been people making art in Xian a hundred thousand years ago. It just, we don't have evidence.

Quinn: You got to get those caves. You've gotta get those deep dark caves. 

Betty: Yeah, exactly. And that's another reason why they don't want to dig in there to, you know, have it be disintegrated. So the next example I have is similarly, it's another example that's not from Europe. It's the Blombos cave in South Africa. There's two links. So the first one is something that was discovered in about 2002. And it is a, it's a rock that's also made of limestone. But this one instead of being painted on, it has, like it's been carved on. It’s got this cross hatch pattern, you know, pretty much shows that it's probably intentional that somebody like carved into this rock. You know, it was done by, it was done by a person. But so this one actually dates back to 70,000 years ago, basically double the amount of time as the other works that we were just talking about. And so this one is not the more controversial one. But so there was another work that was discovered around the same time, but it wasn’t, I think a bunch of scientists, they took samples of artifacts and rocks and took it back to some lab. And then in 2018, there was a researcher that was going through the samples and they found one of the other rocks, which dates back to even further, like 73,000 years ago. And they believe that it's the oldest known drawings done by a homosapien. So it's a rock. Actually, why don't you describe what you see on this rock?

Quinn: I mean, it sure is a rock. And then there's honestly, I don't know enough about rocks, because what you see is red lines on it. They don't appear to be a form of representational art. It's more just like lines that are drawn. If I looked at this—again, I don't know anything about rocks, so I would just assume that it was natural rock formation. Clearly someone who does know more about this was like, oh, this was drawn here by someone. And it was not just part of the original rock formation. But yeah, it's not, it's very less clear what the purpose of this was.

Betty: Exactly. So this is where, you know, some people say that this was intentionally drawn. They’re are a series of red lines kind of drawn in a diagonal pattern. I think it is clear that it wasn't just a part of the rock. It is fragments of pigments that are on the rock, but the disagreement is, did someone intentionally draw it, or it was just smeared on like by accident or it didn't, I guess the whole question is intention, like what did this person want to do? And as far as we know, it's just a series of lines. And so some archeologists believe this is the earliest example of a drawing, but then other researchers and archeologists, they're not convinced, basically.

Quinn: They are pretty clean lines when it comes down to it. They're straight lines. And so you know, there's some really early human out there who was just doing some sketches on a rock. And then that's the only part of it that survived. And now we're looking at this trying to figure out what is, and meanwhile, they painted a whole masterpiece over there and it got destroyed. And so we'll never know that these were actually the coordinates to… [laughs] you know, I mean, it really could be anything.

Betty: Exactly. So this is basically around a time where it, where it starts to get hazy. Like we don't know if this is a part of a larger work or not. But at the very least, like we know a human probably put it there. We just don't really know why and how and how much more there was. But I think again, this one is also not the only thing they found in around this cave that are evidence of humans making something. There's like the rock I just showed. And also, I think they also found some stone beads and seashells and stuff that looked like they were worked on. And it's just that this one I just showed you is the oldest out of all these objects, but the other ones were, they do date back to around 70,000 years ago. So again, it's more evidence that no, art didn't originate it Europe. 

Quinn: That seems like a pretty safe assumption. I mean, just like, I've read a history book, you know, just in terms of where humans came from and their migration patterns across the globe, you know, it would be pretty silly if nobody did any art until they were in Spain. How did that happen?

Betty: Yeah. Well, so actually that's a good segue into the next artwork which is in Spain. So these are cave paintings that were discovered in Maltravieso cave in Spain. And they think that artworks in here probably date back to about 64,000 years and possibly there were some jewelry. So these seashells that have holes in them that were probably strung through to be worn as necklaces and stuff. These, they date these back to 115,000 years ago.

Quinn: Wow.

Betty: However. Archeological evidence shows that humans, like homosapiens didn't make it to this part of Spain until 20,000 years ago. So most likely these were done by Neanderthals.

Quinn: Now that's interesting. I feel like this whole episode is just a series of me thinking about how I don't know a lot about science, but it doesn't seem that unbelievable that Neanderthals would be doing art, right? They were just like humans, but worse.

Betty: Well, for the longest time, people—or the general belief was Neanderthals are not as sophisticated as humans, are dumber and couldn't possibly do art basically. And this is also evidence contrary to that. So there, there is also a lot of experts these days who believe—in terms of whether it's like intelligence or way of life or the things they did, you know, around this time. Probably other than maybe like features, you can't really tell them apart from modern humans, that they probably made art and did other things and had language just like homosapiens. And of course, you know, there’re still many people of European descent who have Neanderthal DNA. So, you know, technically they're still around, just in pieces.

Quinn: They’re part of us now

Betty: Yeah, we’ve absorbed them. And so it also has, you know, red ochre, there's this one particular artwork that is—what seems, what looks like it’s a ladder, is a drawing of a ladder, but of course, again, like the other one in South Africa, it technically could just be a series of lines. But it is geometric. And then there's another one that's also a hand print. So, you know, some experts are like, well, we don't, we don't know if this is considered art, but again, if you compare this to the artwork in the other Spanish cave from 30,000 years ago, it's not that much different, at least from my eyes.

Quinn: Yeah, I mean, a hand print’s a hand print.

Betty: The last piece that I'm showing you is also in the, you know, along the same motif, this is a group of fossilized hand prints and footprints that was discovered in 2021 found on the plateaus of Tibet. And these date back to 200,000 years ago.

Quinn: Wow.

Betty: Yeah. So we just keep going back in time.

Quinn: I made a joke about putting yourself in wet cement earlier, but this is literally, this is basically that. Putting hand prints and footprints in… well, not cement probably, but.

Betty: Yeah, these are hand prints and footprints that's in travertine, which is a type of limestone that is formed near hot mineral springs. So they, when they are first formed, they're like a pasty mud. So kind of like wet cement. And you can put your hand prints, footprints, basically pattern in them. And then when the hot spring dries up the mud hardens into stone and they become travertine over time. And so these kids were probably—oh, and these are also small hand prints and footprints probably from like kids between seven to twelve years old. So they were probably playing by the hot springs and, you know, they put their hand print and footprint in them. But again, some people say, well, how do we know they weren't just walking around and then fell over and their hands were in the mud? And so based on assessment, it looks like these were done in an intentional pattern. Like it's not just someone walking, they wouldn't just make that pattern. It was done in a sort of design. Again, by children. I saw in the article, the person wrote “it may be art in the same way that parents hang scribbles from children on the refrigerators and call it art.”

Quinn: Aww! This is what I'm saying, humans really haven't changed that much.

Betty: Yeah, exactly. So again, so these we don't know if it was done by homosapiens or possibly Denisovans, which is also another—it’s not homosapiens, but very close. And then also a lot of people in Asia still carry Denisovan genes. So they're similar to Neanderthals, they've been absorbed by us. So, but yeah, it's very likely that it was done, you know, by children from 200,000 years ago. But anyway, I think like all these just show, you know, like you said, humans have been doing pretty much the same thing for at least 200,000 years, if not longer. And there's debate about what's considered art, whether it was done yesterday, like somebody painted a square, or if it was 200,000 years ago by some kids. 

Quinn: I love this so much. It's so cool to see this little backwards timeline of different art discoveries, even when some of them may or may not have been intentional art, it's still so cool to see how clearly there's a through line between them and how clearly there's a through line to even what we are doing today. It's like the most easy forms of creation and the things we’re automatically drawn to do haven't changed. We still want to paste our hand print. We still want to have pictures of cool animals that we've seen. You know, we still want you to just you know, we see a wall we want to draw on it. It's amazing how consistent these are.

Betty: And so there, so some of the artworks that I did exclude from my list which other people would consider art—

Quinn: Your professional, definitive list.

Betty: Betty's professional opinion of what is considered art or what is not, excluded—there were some works in my research I found that are even older than this one I just showed you. So they're like 300,000 to 500,000 old, basically, there are some like Venus's, which are the female figures that are in other places like Morocco, but there is, it's really unclear if they were made by a human or if it's like a naturally formed figure. So these are pictures of humanoid figures, but it could have very easily been natural weathering and natural formation. And it just looks like, it just looks like a person, you know, because I'm sure we've all seen like natural formations and you're like, oh, that looks like a cow. Or that looks like a person. So this one is an example. It's called the Venus of Tan Tan, and it looks like a woman, but it also could just be a rock that looks like woman.

Quinn: It kinda looks like a Doctor Who alien. Not a specific one. It just has that vibe.

Betty: Yeah. Well, so again, some people consider this art and I was like, maybe, but I think this is just one of these things that it's too old for us to really know, or at least at this point, we can't really be sure. But this does lead to an interesting phenomenon. And so I read this article that was done recently, or at least it was published recently. It's by Durham University and it's called Visual Paleo Psychology, a cross disciplinary research into the origins of art. And basically this article… I think they were trying to figure out like psychologically like, why do people make art, like what—and obviously this is a really complicated question, but they have a theory that it's because of this phenomenon called paradolia, which is when you look at a cloud and you think you see something. You think, instead of it's just a random formation you're like I see a face, I see somebody riding a horse. I see my cat. So it's, people, our natural pattern seeking brain looking at forms and thinking that we see something. And they think they did some research with modern humans of just showing them like rock formations and people would just end up always seeing something or something. And they also did a study where they took these cave paintings and they digitally removed the actual paintings and they just showed people the bare rock of what it would've looked like before the paintings were there. And a lot of the study participants saw similar to what ended up getting painted on the caves. So they think, or an early human probably walked in, and was like oh, that rock over there? It looks like the deer I saw the other day.

Quinn: Oh my God. That's amazing.

Betty: Yeah. Which is also another reason why a lot of these shapes or a lot of these cave paintings ended up being very minimalistic because quite often it's just a silhouette or a motif, like a curved, you know, a line that insinuates some sort of a figure, or it's an impression. And I really like this because, you know, there’s a lot of, there's a lot of debate, like I mentioned earlier, still, about like minimalist art, like, you know, is it really art when it's just like a curve or it's like an impressionist art and it's not very detailed. And I think some of the origins of art comes from humans seeing these abstract shapes and prescribing a pattern on them, meaning that the earliest art comes from minimalism, then the minimalism is art.

Quinn: I think that's a wonderful conclusion. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this with me today. It's been such a lovely journey to get to see some of this really ancient art and to talk about it.

Betty: Yeah. I learned so much too, like doing this research and I'm glad I decided to kind of go on a few episodes of looking into really old art since we talk a lot about contemporary stuff. So there’s a lot of interesting things from hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Quinn: And you got to bring it back to a defense of modern art at the end there. And so we remain on brand.

Betty: Full circle. 

Quinn: Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of Pictorial, you can find our show notes at relay.fm/pictorial, and you can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @pictorialpod. You can also follow me on Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram @articulationsv. And I am also on YouTube as ARTiculations and speaking of YouTube, we also have a YouTube channel Pictorial Podcasts, where we upload video versions of our audio episodes, usually a few weeks after the audio episode. So for this one that you will be looking at some very old art as we talk about them.

Quinn: Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!