Cave Art Shamanism

Cave art also known as parietal art, in the Upper Paleolithic from approximately 40,000 – 10,000 years BP is considered a glimpse into the imagination of modern humans. It can be used as a way to record the symbolic development of early humans giving us a hint to when the behaviour started and more importantly why it was created. This essay will demonstrate the different theories on why and how cave paintings could have been used, why it is more prevalent in some areas such as South Western France and Spain and potential evidence of art before the upper Paleolithic. It will determine if cave art was either a symbolic way of representing their environment (Rice & Patterson.2009:94-100), a mystical practice or way of communicating across social groups (Barton, Cohen & Cohen.2010: 186-189). Based on an article from Krippner (2010:335-338) and book from Berman (2000: 19-21) this essay will be supporting parietal art as a mystical practice surrounding early shamanism and against the idea they were only representing creatures in their environment.
In Pike, Hoffman, Garcia-Diez, Pettitt, Alcolea, Balbin, Gonzalez- Sainz, De Las Heras, Lashera, Montes & Zilhao (2012: 1409-1413) the dates cave paintings definitively commenced was in the Early Aurignacian period, around 40,000 to 28,000 thousand years ago (kya). The evidence being the hand stencil art of blowing pigment around the hand from El Castillo, the large red disk which is one of the oldest known arts from Europe, (Pike et al. 2012: 1409-1413) dating at least 40.8 kya. The article shows the importance of having relative dates of cave paintings to know when the behaviour started and its use. By using dating, we can know the main creators of parietal art were modern humans however more accurate dates are needed to conclude they were the only artists in the Upper