Lascaux Cave Paintings

The Lascaux caves are located in southwestern France.

Map of France and the location of the Lascaux caves.

Cave painters had to know how to paint, use different techniques, get light, mix paint, and many more things. To mix paint, they started out with lumps of clay and grounded those into a fine powder. After this they mixed the fine powder with animal fat or blood. The pigments they used were red, brown and yellow ochres of iron, and black from charcoal and manganese ore.

Yellow ochre, Red ochre, and charcoal powder.

An illustration of a cave artist painting a deer and using a lantern probably filled with animal fat so he can see.

Archeologists believe that the Lascaux cave paintings were painted 16,000 to 17,000 years ago. The oldest cave paintings ever are dated to about 30,000 years ago. The youngest cave paintings are dated to about 10,000 years ago. The paintings give some clues about what life was like back then. No one really knows why they painted in the caves. It might have been part of a religious ritual. It might have been that the artists were hunters who believed that their drawings were magic and if they drew and animal they wanted to catch, they could paint it and the animal would help them catch it later on. Maybe they just painted for enjoyment. Even though we don't have a lot of information on why they painted what they did, what they painted shows us that they were very skillful artists.

The Lascaux cave size in comparison with a person.

Cave painting of people shooting arrows at deer.

Painting of a horse in Lascaux cave.

Cave painters didn't have the kind of art tools that we have today. They didn't have all the different colors, the different kinds of brushes, and all the different materials but they used a lot of things that were available to them and found techniques that were very useful. Some of the techniques might have been things like using bristle or reed brush, wiping paint with a fur or moss pad, using their hands and fingers, or using their mouths to blow paint onto the rock. A painting technique that they used is gradation of value. This is basically shading which is making things look more realistic by painting parts that you want to look closer to you lighter and things that are further away darker.

Rocks they might have used to engrave things in the cave walls.

When cave artists had to sometimes travel for a while in very small dark tunnels, they might have felt sore from trying to crawl in very small spaces, tired from traveling for hours and hours and scared of being killed by things they can't see because it's too dark. I'm not quite sure how they felt after they accomplished what they painted but they probably had a sense of accomplishment, happiness, and contentment.

Classifying this project, I would probably put it at comprehension and application. I think that it more than comprehension because you have to demonstrate things by using pictures. If the project would have been a more in depth project, you would probably have to add evaluation. With this you would have to give your veiwpoint of things, judge things, and give your own opinion about the information given.

Which One Would You Rather Be?

What Lucy might have looked like.

Lucy was an Australopithecine which is one of the many human-like species. They lived about 3.5 million years ago. The species were somewhat like humans. They could walk upright and they had opposable thumbs. Walking upright can make travel easier and faster and have opposable thumbs makes it easier to pick things up. Today, we can walk upright because of this and it makes travel faster. 

A modern human thumb.

Homo Habilis, also known as the Handy Man, were alive about 2 million years ago. They were the first tool makers and made uni-facial tools. They were smarter than species before them but only had the brain size of a modern 2 year old. Like homo habilis, humans today make tools but more advanced tools. Homo Habilis started technology and if they didn't we might not have as much or any of the advanced technology we have today.

Uni-facial tools that homo habilis used.

Tools that we use today.

Homo Erectus was a human-like species that were alive 1.5 million years ago and migrated from Africa. They were more human-like than any other species that had been alive before them. From research, we know that homo erectus domesticated fire. Today, modern humans use fire for many things that they might have used it for and more. People know that homo erectus made clothing because of Ethnographic Analogy which is the study of culture. Modern humans also make clothing today. Unlike Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus could make bi-facial tools which were more advanced tools.

The way we use fire today.

Homo sapiens in a hunting group.

Homo Sapiens appeared 200,000 years ago. Even though they still looked like homo erectus, they had much larger brains than them. Because they had larger brains, they could do a lot more things and think about things more than other species before them. People also know that they cared for others like humans do today. Humans have large brains so we are very smart. 

Neanderthals were alive from 200,000 to 30,000 years ago. They were very much like us. They made advanced tools like we do, buried their dead like we do, and they cared for others like we do. Even though they were very smart, they obviously didn't have enough knowledge to stay alive because they became extinct. I think that humans today are a lot smarter than Neanderthals because we have advanced our technology a lot more than Neanderthals did.

Neanderthal bones found buried.

We bury our dead today.

Cro magnon painting on cave walls.

Cro-Magnon were alive 40,000 years ago. They took over Europe and were the first to have art such as jewelry, They also have social classes that divided them into groups. I think that Cro-Magnons were more humans than Neanderthals because we also still have social classes like they did but our social classes are probably more in-depth. If Cro-Magnon didn't have social classes, we might not have had them today which could be a bad thing or a good thing.

Humans painting today.

A neanderthal skeleton compared to a human skeleton.

Modern humans are very different from other species that were similar. Humans have advanced technology so much from when we were first appeared. Humans have to think a lot less about if they are going to survive today. Years ago, that is one of the most important things that a different species had to think about. They also didn't have much variety in the way they could live. Today, humans have so many different choices on where we live and how we live our lives. Humans also have much larger brains than species that lived before them. Having a larger brain can make you a lot smarter. You can store more information and figure things out easier unlike earlier species which only had the brain size of a modern 2 year old.