Are 'Cave Paintings' ancient graffiti?

I know its a weird thought but it popped into my head just now.

I like to think that there has been advanced past civilisations etc., but the lack of evidence is mind-boggling.. but quite reasonable, had there been a great flood, or nuclear war, or something that knocked man back by 10,000 years... (the Eiffel Tower wouldn't be there in 1000 years if there were no people around, would it?)

So maybe cave paintings are the remnants of ancient teenage vandals? I'm sure we've all done it at some point, drawn or written on a wall somewhere out of mindless boredom..

maybe instead of writing their name and the year, or who they fancy this week, past kids used to draw pictures of what they got up to?
Like spearing boar?

Its a really daft one, but I think its possible... what do other people think?

Actually, there was a scientist who measured the pictures of the hands that you see all the time in "ancient" cave paintings. He noticed that they all had weird hand dimensions, something that one group of people always possess. Know who they were? TEENAGERS!

What do kids today do when they find a cave? They paint graffitti in it. Just like they did 5,000 years ago.

i see your point. however the cave paintings tell stories of their times and their days, while teenagers these days just do it as an idiotic action. ( so an so was here 9t6) you never see pointless painting from thousands of years ago they have always got meaning. ie, hunting grounds or the tales of their tribes.
but it would be funny if they were wrong..

I think it could compare, in a certain way...

Humans have this natural tendency to mark the spot they were in, just like dogs would pee on a pole or a bush... Remember that "Tom was here" or similar that just about everyone has seen on a toilets door or any other place?

It was also the only way to keep information for the future, back then. So those drawings and scriblings may at times be just "graffiti", but honestly I think they had probably a clear use: teach the readers about something (hunting, nature, catastrophy, etc.).

But it's a funny post Star!

I actually think there is a lot to compare here. Not all of today's graffiti is just an idiotic action as the other poster suggested. Gang signs aside, much of graffiti is an artistic response to the modern world. In that way one could draw similar conclusions about from graffiti. For instance there is a famous artist in NYC that only paints hot dogs on walls. It sounds silly but when one thinks about the influence of fast food in our lives it is a significant artistic statement. One can draw similar conclusions from cave art on the Iberrian peninsula depicting neolithic cows. I definitely think this subject warrents further academic study.

Reply to 'Anonymous':

I appreciate that not all graffiti is mindless vandalism.. in fact, my favourite type is when I'm going into a city on a train and I see another train parked on a side line, because somebody has tagged the entire side of it.. not with mindless scribbling, but with a giant work of art

What I was in fact referring to was literally, teenagers bored and scribbling on walls.. just like we see every day now
A friend of mine once wrote his first name on every lamppost between his house and his friends, a distance of about 2 miles.. a 30 minute walk took him two hours, even he doesn't know why he did it. But is that mindless vandalism or art? Its both. Its graffiti.

double post, oops..

[edit on 9-9-2008 by selfisolated]

I have had similar thoughts. Why is it that (almost)no one in the past ever had a sense of humor? I mean, these records that we find left are (almost)always serious.

If our society collapsed and we all died off only to be re-discovered thousands of years from now, what if the history books whithered away and all that was left were comic books and Will Farrell movies? What would they think life was like for us?

Originally posted by selfisolated
I know its a weird thought but it popped into my head just now.

I like to think that there has been advanced past civilisations etc., but the lack of evidence is mind-boggling.. but quite reasonable, had there been a great flood, or nuclear war, or something that knocked man back by 10,000 years... (the Eiffel Tower wouldn't be there in 1000 years if there were no people around, would it?)

Yes, actually, it would... or at least enough of it to know what was there. Same goes for 100,000 years and longer.

And no, there hasn't been a "previous civilization" unless they suddenly landed from somewhere and set up a floating eco-perfect set of cities in the atmosphere. Humans didn't "rise and fall" in a long set of cycles.

So maybe cave paintings are the remnants of ancient teenage vandals?

Speaking as someone who studies this stuff (and is writing a scholarly paper on it), the answer is "in general, no."

The locations are usually regular habitations (such as the Seminole Park cave shelters: www.allacrosstexas.com... ), or sacred spots in very hard to get locations such as Painted Rock ( 3dparks.wr.usgs.gov... -- one place I did some research on) and Painted Cave ( www.sinay.com... ) or the umbilical cord holes in Hawaii ( www.destination360.com... -- also been to this one).

They are also found at traditional trade route crossings www.nps.gov... -- while some are clearly graffiti (particuarly the Christian symbols), others have meaning (like the parrots... since the place was on a route where the Pueblos traded for parrot feathers in pre-Columbian times.)

In those days and those cultures, a youth was considered a "man" or a "woman" by age 13. Far from being "bored teenagers", those teens would have babies to care for and game to hunt to feed their families and tribal responsibilites. Hunting and gathering took most of the day in many areas and were often unsuccesful (not everyone got a deer every day... or every week.) When not hunting or gathering, they had to make things to carry food in (baskets/pottery), plant vegetables (if their tribe did any kind of farming), raid other tribes, prepare meals, make hunting weapons, prepare traditional medicines... and so on and so forth.

They didn't have time to be bored, and they were usually dead by age 30 or 40.

Originally posted by Karlhungis
I have had similar thoughts. Why is it that (almost)no one in the past ever had a sense of humor? I mean, these records that we find left are (almost)always serious.

You just haven't seen enough of the stuff.

Join a rock art society for your state and go help protect the art. You'll uncover some fascinating stuff, including things that refer to humorous tales.

However, it took a long time to do a painting (gather materials, etc) or a petroglyph (peck the image into the rock) so in a number of cases the symbols simply refer to a story that everyone knows and finds significant.

In Hawaii, the story of Kaupe is told by three painted images that look like graffiti if you don't know the tale.