A small group of prehistoric people went inside a cave now known as the Axturra Cave, located in Spain. Worming their way through passages, the group finally arrived at their destination: a 40-feet long limestone wall which stood eight feet above the cave floor. With their engraving tools, the group carved images of horses, bison, deer, and mountain goats. The question is, why?
In 2015, two scientists rediscovered this masterpiece, now known as the Ledge of Horses, along with dozens of other carvings and paintings in other hard-to-reach corners of Atxurra Cave. Faded by time, some figures had nearly vanished. Researchers flooded the chambers with LED lights and took photographs, which they ran through software to detect elements not visible to human eyes. They recreated the art in digital form, allowing the modern word to behold it.
But those artists of old did not have LED lights or any sort of modern lighting back when they made their masterpiece. What they had were torches with flickering light, and that may just be the key to how to look at the art in the same manner that these ancient people looked at it.
Over the years, archaeologists have proposed that Paleolithic societies created the art as part of hunting rituals or psychedelic drug trips, or as historical records, teaching devices, or graphic novels, where a series of panels conveyed a continuous narrative. In some caves, animals or parts of their bodies are rendered several times, juxtaposed or superimposed in different positions. The light and shadows thrown by flames may have created the illusion that these figures were moving, according to some researchers, who call this art form “proto-cinema.” At Chauvet for example, the painting of an eight-legged bison might have appeared, by torchlight, to be a four-legged animal striding across the wall.
Marc Azéma, an archaeologist and filmmaker, made this case in his book La préhistoire du cinema [The Prehistory of the Cinema]. In 12 French caves, Azéma identified more than 50 animal figures that might have been drawn to look as if they were galloping, tossing their heads, or swishing their tails.
“The flickering light, the dancing shadows, the warm glow from the fire, many people have argued that this creates a sense of theater, that you’re looking at an ancient version of cinema,” says University of Victoria archaeologist April Nowell.
Nowell himself had this unforgettable experience when he and his colleagues went into the cave with their flame mimicking lamps. He tells his story over at Atlas Obscura.
(Image Credit: Olivia Rivero and Maria Soto/ IÑAKI INTXAURBE/ Atlas Obscura)