'They take you out of life, out of time': a journey into Spain's cave paintings

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/02/journey-into-spain-palaeolithic-cave-paintings-altamira

by NaOH • 2 months ago

80 30 2 months ago

ljf• 1 month ago

Stunning, and amazing to consider that these were painted by firelight/flaming torch.

If you've not watched the Herzog classic "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" - I highly highly recommend it - the paintings are amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams

I was recently remembering my son's obsession with trains, buses and dustbin lorries when he was 2 to 5 - a friend tried to explain it as akin the the passion people would have felt for mega-fauna of the past. Did children of the cave-ages obsess over mammoths in the way he did over our local bus?

rigonkulous2• 1 month ago

Stunning, and amazing to consider that these were painted by firelight/flaming torch.

I could imagine the coals, not quite so much flame any more, soft and still in the windless depths, casting a warm glow for eyes to adjust in sanctity, so that the hands could find the lines in the mind and put them out on the wall.

Just a fantastic moment in time, echoing on throughout history.

slg• 1 month ago

If you've not watched the Herzog classic "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" - I highly highly recommend it - the paintings are amazing.

Especially if you have a chance to see it in 3D and/or on a big screen. The paintings incorporate the curves and contours of the cave walls to represent things like the bulging of muscles or even to simulate movement and that's difficult to convey in 2D. They did a remaster and IMAX re-release earlier this year and seeing it that way makes the images even more magical.

ilamont• 1 month ago

What's really amazing is that they still don't know the "why" other than some interesting speculation: religious purposes, places for psychadelic trips, "the creation of surpluses in some kind of hierarchy."

Coincidentally, last week the local public television station was replaying a very old program of Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell, who died in the late 80s and was known for studies of mythology. He had visited Lascaux, and believed that it was used for coming of age ceremonies:

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The message of the cave is of a relationship of time to eternal powers that is somehow to be experienced in that place. Now, I tell you, when you’re down in those caves, it’s a strange transformation of consciousness you have. You feel this is the womb, this is the place from which life comes, and that world up there in the sun with all those … that’s a secondary world: this is primary. I mean, this just overcomes you. ...

Now, what were these caves used for? The speculations that are most common of scholars interested in this, is that they had to do with the initiation of boys into the hunt. You go in there, it’s dangerous, it’s very dangerous. It’s completely dark. It’s cold and dank. You’re banging your head on projections all the time, and it was a place of fear. And the boys were to overcome all that, and go into the womb of the earth. And the shaman, or whoever it was that would be helping you through, would not be making it easy.

BILL MOYERS: And then there was a release, once you got into that vast, torchlit chamber down there. What was the tribe, what was the tradition trying to say to the boy?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That is the womb land from which all the animals come.

BILL MOYERS: I see.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And the rituals down there have to do with the generation of a situation that will be propitious for the hunt. And the boys were to learn not only to hunt, but how to respect the animals and what rituals to perform, and how in their own lives no longer to be little boys but to be men. Because those hunts were very, very dangerous hunts, believe me, and these are the Original men’s rile sanctuaries, when: the boys became no longer their mothers’ sons, but their fathers’ sons.

https://billmoyers.com/content/ep-3-joseph-campbell-and-the-...

TFNA4• 1 month ago

Joseph Campbell is not regarded within anthropology and paleontology as a serious scholar. He is a purely pop-sci phenomenon, boosted by his association with Star Wars and friendship with Bill Moyers. Maybe not exactly a crackpot Graham Hancock kind of figure, but more comparable to that instead of anyone authoritative.

marc_io• 1 month ago

He is still an authority for many people, though, and not without reason. Just not within academia.

IAmBroom2• 1 month ago

That's for the best, but I usually hear him quoted in the context of storytelling. His popularity definitely makes him relevant there, but I think he also started with real insight about hero-quest stories.

Beowulf and Episode IV – A New Hope may not have much direct bearing on any given person's pubescent path, aside from media consumption, but within it: much.

dieselgate• 1 month ago

There's no way to determine a "why" and there probably wasn't a single purpose in my opinion. The most interesting part to me, though, is how a lot of the hand "prints" include children.

IAmBroom2• 1 month ago

It's fascinating to me that "why" is so compelling to us that it nearly always gets answered, and quickly.

"The Sun is a god who is jealous of his sister, the Moon, and once tried to get busy with a really pretty human, but her husband found out and..."

"Electrons are fundamental particles composed of quarks that..."

Having the answer is actually more important than verifing the answer, in most cases. It's part of why our advancement is slower than it could be.

nemomarx2• 1 month ago

If you looked at some current building with a mural, absent all other cultural context, what might you think it was for?

It's genuinely a hard and interesting question. We only get these little scraps of history that far back, there's so much time missing from our view.

petargyurov• 1 month ago

I've been to the Altamira cave reproduction and I was skeptical at first on whether I'd feel immersed but they've done an incredible job of it. You quickly forget it's "fake" and sink back into time... It's marvellous.

It makes me wonder how much palaeolithic art has been lost because it wasn't done inside a cave.

embedding-shape2• 1 month ago

My first reaction upon seeing the article, was to figure out how I can see these paintings in person, and seems you cannot anymore, they don't accept visitor requests unless you have a scientific/research purpose which I don't :/

So this reproduction you're talking about, it's the "Neocueva" from Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira I suppose? I guess it'll serve as a better than nothing, but similar to you, I'm really skeptical it'd be the same for me. Just being aware it's a reproduction I feel like kind of defeats the purpose. I want to feel the spirits of my ancestors when I'm there.

Seems there are more caves with paintings though, another one is Cueva de El Castillo at Monte Castillo, Puente Viesgo, Cantabria. Anyone here from HN that visited those caves before and could share their experience?

nemomarx2• 1 month ago

France has a few like the Lascaux caves, and I really remember my time going fondly. But I think they also had to move to a replica because of possible damage to the art from so much human breathing or similar?

It's hard to find an original one that hasn't already gone through this cycle unfortunately. Maybe ones with booked tours at invitation only fare better?

hilariously• 1 month ago

Most of it. Probably 99.99999% type of thing - when I was in Grotte de Cussac there was external markings and it was clear that weathering was to blame for only having what's in the caves.

dominictorresmo2• 1 month ago

Amazing that some of those paintings have a very good quality. They really trained for a long time before making some of those drawings, so they are much more intelligent than I think they were

_bernd4• 1 month ago

so they are much more intelligent than I think they were

Pardon me, but we are talking about homo sapiens here? Those people would be not different then you and me. If you would raise one of their child's today it would just blend in. They were/are the same species then you and me... I just want to say please don't ride that all cavemen were stupid apes train. That boot sailed a long time ago regarding to modern science.

dominictorresmo2• 1 month ago

ow that's awesome I didn't know that. Sorry but my perspective of them are from movies and cartoons and they always make they look very dumb

strix_mahalo• 1 month ago

Yes, but they didn't have art schools, museums, supplies and they didn't doodle in boring classes or meetings. They didn't have an "art tradition" - or at least not in the way we do now - they had invented it themselves.

If Rembrandt, Raphael or Warhol were born back then they wouldn't have had the cultural milieu to create the same things.

TFNA4• 1 month ago

Those people would be not different then you and me.

We know that good nutrition during childhood has a significant impact on IQ, as does avoiding parasite infections. Those ancients were the same species as us, but it is also known that that they likely suffered from food precarity at times and endemic infections, so the belief they had their shit less together than many modern populations is reasonable.

rigonkulous2• 1 month ago

I feel the same sort of floating disconnected-ness when I am out back in the desert of Western Australia, and come across a rock shelter with paintings and obvious signs of working by human hands.

Its just such a humbling thing, to look at a piece of art that is 10's of thousands of years old, and realize that a human was once there, making it, just so that some day, a human would be there, looking at it.

What it would be to have a way to talk to these old humans and let them know just how inspiring their work turned out to be...

Would that we could have the same impact on humans a thousand years from now, ten thousand years from now. Hello, Future Human.

epiccoleman• 1 month ago

I can no longer see images of cave paintings without having The Caves of Altamira start up in my head. There's worse conditions!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_5MtGCWImE

cjcenizal• 1 month ago

As a couple other comments have alluded, we’re the same essential creatures then as we are now. We create, we appreciate beauty, stories, and art. Sometimes it’s hard for me to feel connected to other humans, but stories like this make me feel profoundly connected to humanity. :)

lokl• 1 month ago

If you are interested in seeing original cave paintings, not reproductions, I recommend Pech Merle near Cahors, France.

'They take you out of life, out of time': a journey into Spain's cave paintings

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