Are cave paintings really little more than the testosterone-fuelled scribblings of young men?

nature news ^ | 31 may | some guy

[S0122017]

So i guess it wasn't vandalism after all. Yay!

[S0122017]

ping

[Disturbin]

Who really cares? They used to club each other over the head back then.

[S0122017]

And nowadays we shoot each other in the head. That's evolution!

[Smokin' Joe]

So what makes everyone so sure the women didn't do it?

[LongElegantLegs]

'cause the women were following behind with a scrub-brush and a pail of lye going "Ung, you better get these kids outside before I completely lose my mind! Take them to the tar pits or something!!!"

[smug]

If it was testosterone-fueled young men wouldn't the paintings more likely be some primitive form of Vargas girl.

[Smokin' Joe]

I have an entirely different theory. When Og first got the cave, Oggette wanted to move in. After all, Og was a pretty good provider, hunted well, and had a decent hole in the wall. Well, one day when Og was out chasing Mammoth, Oggette snuck into the cave, cleaned out the old bones and such, stashed his stuff neatly, and painted the walls with a few critters and such to brighten the place up.

When Og came back, naturally, he was enraged that his stuff had been messed with in his absence, and gave Oggette the boot.

But then, he realized he couldn't find his favorite scraper.

Dangit, where was his stash of berries?

So, Og relented and let Oggette back in in exchange for keeping the place clean and finding all his stuff she had squirrelled away.

Thus were born domestic arrangements.

One thing led to another, and little Ogs and Oggettes were swarming the place before long. When they got big enough to re-arrange the cave, Oggette made them get a cave of their own.

Oggette continued to stash Og's stuff relentlessly, especially if he looked like he might want to share the hides with the younger oggette a few caves down, and so the arrangement continued.

Shortly after that, one of the tribe who didn't want to hunt those big, nasty mammoth decided he could paint caves, too, and that is where interior decorators came from, (but that is another story...)

[CougarGA7]

What's worse is that occasionally Oggette would feel the need to rearrange the boulders in the cave. The responsibility of moving the boulders fell on Og when he would get home after a long day of chasing Mammoth.

Og would of course oblige. Now once the boulders were moved, all the cave paintings would be out of place messing up the Che of the room (Che was pronounced "Grunt" back then...as was everything else).

Now the "interior decorator" would have to be called back in to move the paintings. Some enterprising cavemen would actually just carve the paintings out of the wall and move them rather than deal with the decorator (hence the invention of quarrying).

Now to top it all off lil Oggette started dating some Neanderthal. Og was so concerned over this that he cut her hair short to defend her honor.

Tough times back then.

[Smokin' Joe]

LOL!

[SunkenCiv]

Dancing Girls And The Merry Magdalenian (13,000 Y.O. Painting, UK)
The Guardian (UK) | 4-15-2004 | Sean Clarke
Posted on 04/18/2004 1:48:32 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1119916/posts

Were Cavemen Painting For Their Gods?
The Telegraph (UK) | 2-23-2005
Posted on 03/06/2005 6:20:58 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1357365/posts

Macro-Etymology: Paleosigns [writing 20,000 years ago?]
Macro-Etymology Website | prior to May 20, 2005 | the webmasters thereof
Posted on 05/20/2005 2:00:18 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1406892/posts

Humanity's Strange Face
Science News Magazine | 5-22-2004 | Bruce Bower
Posted on 05/25/2004 10:23:49 AM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1141837/posts

French Student Looks For Lefties Among Earliest Cave Painters
The State.com | 12-9-2003 | Alexandra Witze
Posted on 12/10/2003 4:04:23 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1037890/posts

Early Humans Settled India Before Europe, Study Suggests
National Geographic | 11-14-2005 | Brian Vastag
Posted on 11/15/2005 2:47:13 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1522585/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks S0122017 for the ping.

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[Salamander]

Most books I've read on cave art always mention the perfectly preserved footprints left in the cave floor clay as being "small and feminine".
The prevailing theory [as of then, anyway] is that it was predominantly women and children visiting the areas that contain the art.

*shrug*

Who knows?
Maybe guys with tiny feet and hands?


[no Freudian or Jungian stuff about that, please]....LOL!

People break their backs trying to read *something deep* into everything when the possibility exists that then, as now, people created art simply because they were artists....:)

[Salamander]

"Now the "interior decorator" would have to be called back in to move the paintings"

'Guys' like Christopher Lowell had primitive...uh..."counterparts"?


[you knew that was coming].....;D

[Smokin' Joe]

Maybe guys with tiny feet and hands?

Ummm...

[no Freudian or Jungian stuff about that, please]....LOL!

OK. shucks, that might have been fun

People break their backs trying to read *something deep* into everything when the possibility exists that then, as now, people created art simply because they were artists....:)

That is the truth! My wife paints, because she needs to. (She is pretty good, too, imo. )

[PoorMuttly]

Who writes this junk?

So now "they" are sure that the species' ancient "testosterone-fuelled young men" scribble aimlessly, but modern art is meaningful?

I am ashamed that this garbage passes for science.

Testosterone is here for a good reason, as inconvenient as that fact may be to the know-it-all dweebs who write this stuff in their lofty cubicles.

Now I must go out and kill something before I get upset.

[shibumi]

"Who knows? Maybe guys with tiny feet and hands?"

If there's a Tilt-A-Whirl nearby and the smell of cabbage in the air, then it's CARNEYS for sure! (Who's spreading the pixie dust and barking for the Yak Woman?)

(Neither Freud or Jung, just a sampling of those two psychoanalytical giants Mike Meyers and Randy Quaid.)

[bannie]

"testosterone-fuelled scribblings"


Painting with testosterone...hmmmmmmmmmmmm....

[shibumi]

"Painting with testosterone...hmmmmmmmmmmmm...."

Add some blasphemy and you have the beginnings of a Maplethorp revival.