Sortir de l’ombre l’art des cavernes

Abstract

Since we are unable to understand the meaning that Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers gave to their cave art, we are reduced to looking at it from the outside, trying only to decipher its structure, as revealed by quantitative choices and formal procedures. This is the only way we can approach, as anthropologists, the society in which prehistoric man lived and the existential questions he asked himself. Art is a powerful force for creating cultural unity between distant groups. By bringing a non-utilitarian dimension to the exchange networks that played a vital role, art has developed a model of social relations in which men and women learned to share ideas, values, beliefs and a vision of the world. In this sense, Palaeolithic art contributed to the creation of a genuine culture, whose heirs we are today. Through the model of animals, images played a key role in the construction of a society with intangible rules and norms. The exceptional role played by the horse for more than 25,000 years, throughout Europe, shows how a symbol can be used as a marker to unify a vast community.