Were Early Cave Artist Females?

I don't intend for that headline to be a loaded question, but an intellectual inquiry (if of low quality). Not more than a minute ago I briefly saw on CBS TV news (5:30) a part of a clip about a cave art found somewhere in Europe. It showed the ubiquitous cave wall hand print having been outlined by color blow over it to leave the shape. There were several shown and all that I saw seemed to be slender wrists and forearms with long slender fingers. They looked like females appendages to my ignorant eyes. (No, they didn't look like ET's!)

Is it the case that the ancient cave drawings (some, many, most) are considered done by females? That seems logical given that gender's psychological imperative for home deco. _javascript:icon('') Seriously, I can imagine the women grouped in a cave, one holding a torch and another doing the drawings, perhaps they were doing a wish list for what the hunters should find and bring back for supper. One of the first grocery shopping lists you could say.

For this to arise to my mind evidently is indicative that I've always had a "caveman" mindset?

a reply to: Aliensun

Interesting thought they might be able to determine that by examining the outlined hands closely as a greater proportion of men have shorter index fingers than ring fingers than do women. However, it is not known if this is a recent trait or one that goes back x number of years.

To my knowledge they were usually done by males. Shamans or priests would usually perform these paintings. A wishlist you could say, but the purpose was likely ritualistic, to promote good hunting results. There are other theories too though, it is the mainstream idea that in those days "society" was patriarchal, like we know it to be now, but some think it was matriarchal, which would mean that indeed, the females could have filled the roles of shamans and could have been the ones to do the paintings. All of this could be regionally different as well obviously.

Whats interesting to note is that there are several cases known where deities are pictured that are believed to represent hallucinogenic mushrooms, indicating these mushrooms might have played an important role in our ancestors pasts. Terence mckenna has some good theories on this, but im going abit offtopic with that info!



This pic has some mushroom men McKenna talks about in his book food of the gods, interesting read for sure

orderofthesacredspiral.blogspot.com...

Aliensun... I see what you did there.

But besides your obvious distorted agenda, who cares if the drawings were made by males or females, or who was holding the "torch"... lol

A - for effort tho... but others may follow your apparently innocent thread.

a reply to: Aliensun

Believe it or not , you're not the first to ask this question.

Pennsylvania State University Archaeologist Dean Snow is reporting to National Geographic that studies he's undertaken of cave art dating back to the Paleolithic indicate much of it was done by women, not men as is commonly believed.

after reading about work done by geologist John Manning—he'd found that average finger lengths in people vary by gender. Men tend to have longer ring fingers than index fingers for example, while the opposite is true for women. Some time later, he reports, he was looking at pictures of cave art and noticed that the fingers on the hands appeared to conform to Manning's description of female hands.

phys.org...

Probably sitting on the stone couch, eating bon bons and doodling on the cave wall.

I always held the view that cave drawing of old were probably done by bored people while sheltering from the elements. I mean imagine being stuck in a cold depressing cave for several days while a storm raged outside. Some drawings are reminiscent of something a child would do to pass the time.
Cave drawings are evidence that our early ancestors possessed the intellect to overcome enforced ennui which suggests to me they would have spent most of their time outside doing things much like we do trying to understand the world about them.
Art evolved out of the need to stave off boredom. I expect there is nothing original about that observation.

a reply to: Aliensun

Yep they must of been done by women since all the great painters were female/sarc

The aliens always came on the full moons to abduct the women in those days.
The natural response would be to try and predict and understand these events.
There were probably cave women that had significant math aptitudes as well.
DUH!

I have seen studies that showed early cave women mainly kept the cave clean and made sandwich's for the cavemen.

Sorry J/K

originally posted by: FraternitasSaturni
Aliensun... I see what you did there.

But besides your obvious distorted agenda, who cares if the drawings were made by males or females, or who was holding the "torch"... lol

A - for effort tho... but others may follow your apparently innocent thread.

I have some sinister motive in mind??????

While I'm typing here I might as well add that if females did the drawings with colors, perhaps there were also doing their faces (eye shadow, lips) to pretty up for when the boys came home with the booty?

And I've been wondering, knowing a little about painting with an airbrush and larger sprayers, if the sizes are not actually exaggerated (wider and thicker) more than the actual size of the hands. Sprayed paint does not "chase" around a round object if it is against a flat surface. Rather it will leave a pattern larger than the actual item blocking the coloring. So rather than female hands, maybe it was thin ET's hands. Whatdoya think (that I have another agenda?)

originally posted by: Hanslune
a reply to: Aliensun

Interesting thought they might be able to determine that by examining the outlined hands closely as a greater proportion of men have shorter index fingers than ring fingers than do women. However, it is not known if this is a recent trait or one that goes back x number of years.

Damn. I knew there was something wrong with me. I just didn't realize it was that my index finger is too long. usually women never complain about things too long.

a reply to: rickymouse
I guess you're just not very manly then.

Harte

a reply to: Aliensun

...the one million pound elephant in the room within many of these caves is… where the hell is all the soot from all the burning fires?

....the way shadows dance right behind the light. Which demands we are all being asked to believe… the person who created those paintings had an incredible amount of painting skills, could build some of kind of supporting device strong enough to hold his/her weight… and then this same person had to either build massive fires extremely close to where those paintings were being painted or used some other kind of advanced lighting system to cut down on all the shadows created by artificial light, (ie… fire or electricity.) If you want to test just how difficult a task that so called primitive cave person had to solved… go into the biggest room in your house and with no other lighting… put a flashlight anywhere behind you and then try to draw something that covers thirty percent of your wall. Just doing that simple exercise will show you how many times you have to move your flashlight just to create one simple painting just so you can stay within the margins of coherency. Or if you have a whole bunch of flashlights how many do you need to help defend against your own shadow casting darkness… let alone how many more flashlights do you need to prevent phantom line chasing? You see when you add it all together, the cave paintings inside that one cave proves either the academic world is either horrifically lost in their own stupidity, or they think you are not smart enough to see that the visual evidence destroys their horrifically ridiculous explanations. The evidence is overwhelming, no modern teaching of what equals a caveman could’ve created those paintings, period! Which means either carbon dating is horrifically flawed, or our truly ancient ancestors are a hell’va lot smarter and more advanced than what we’ve been tricked into believing.

blog.world-mysteries.com...

This is what fascinates me. What was used as lighting? I've read that soot from lamps began to obscure some paintings as soon as recent explorers began visiting the caves. So what did the original painters use for lighting? Bioluminescence?

originally posted by: Kester

This is what fascinates me. What was used as lighting? I've read that soot from lamps began to obscure some paintings as soon as recent explorers began visiting the caves. So what did the original painters use for lighting? Bioluminescence?

From the site you linked:

But subsequent technology has made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself and the torch marks on the walls.

Also, from Chauvet cave (wiki):

Most of the artwork dates to the earlier, Aurignacian, era (30,000 to 32,000 years ago). The later Gravettian occupation, which occurred 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, left little but a child's footprints, the charred remains of ancient hearths, and carbon smoke stains from torches that lit the caves.

Appears not to be much of a mystery.

Harte