The Cro Magnon

I think they are misreading the importance of the fact that animals were drawn correctly whilst humans were not. This doesn't strike me as being significant in a religious sense so much as it may have been a way to demonstrate to the warriors the best methods to kill the animals quickly. Certainly when I am trying to teach people how to do something I only detail the sections that need to be graphic whilst providing simple representations where possible. We always seem to want to make our ancestors superstitious and religious, something I really don't understand at all.

I don't think they were instructions so much as an attempt at "sympathetic magic." Hunters, not "warriors" ilandrah, learn better if they go out with experienced hunters and watch them hunt. There isn't really any need for instructions that are placed deep within dark, often dangerously inaccessible caverns, where cro-magnon was known not to live.

They may not have been religious drawings, but they were very likely part of important rituals, where the hunters drew what they wanted to happen, hoping that it would.

I'm all for not assuming ancient peoples were more superstitious than they were, but think for just a moment about what life was like for them. It was cruel, brief, and completely arbitrary. They had no idea why it sometimes rained so much that it flooded, and at other times so little that all of their resources dried up and the animals died. They developed complicated rituals to cope with a universe that seemed inscrutable to them, and projecting onto it an agency it didn't have.

Heck, I have to fight the urge to take it personally when I drop something on my foot or break off a nail past the wick doing dishes. Human beings are hard wired to detect agency -- even where there is none (better to be the one that runs away when the wind rustles the grass than the one that knows it could be the wind, but is wrong). Imagine how easy it would be for people who didn't even know the world was round or why there were seasons to just assume that there were forces beyond their comprehension controlling it all. Once you start believing that, and that you have a special place among it all (because we are also very narcissistic and prone to confirmation bias) the idea that you can appease those forces through abstract rituals doesn't seem so strange.

"This same action is shared with the Native Americans, who similarly shot arrows into certain points within the animals to provide the animal with a swift death."

Yeah. You mean, so as to keep the animals from kicking or biting or clawing or stomping them to death.

There's no reason to assume that yesterday's hunters were any more compassionate than today's hunters are, which is to say, not at all.

Cylon/human hybrid.

Artists usually study anatomy to better draw or paint the human form. I'm sure the hunters had extensive anatomical knowledge of the animals they killed, since, yes they did want them to die ASAP, but also because they butchered the animals on a regular basis.

So, technically, I should be able to draw the hell out of a Big Mac.

@fyngyrz

I have to disagree with you, respectfully. I think that Native Americans had an understanding with these animals, as well as the Cro Magnon. It's almost like they discussed what was going to happen to them prior. They had a purpose I guess. There was a mutual agreement.

I'm against the art of hunting, as you've made it abundantly clear that you are as well. However, you can't assume that hunters back then just did it for sport. Of course they had to eat, but I think they had much more respect for the animals. The same can't be said for hunters nowadays. Not all hunters, but many.

Where hunters today will murder the animal and mount it on a wall, back then they used every part of the animals to stay warm, eat, and for spiritual purposes.