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Despite the tricky and life-threatening relationship
between Paleolithic humans and the megafauna that comprised
so much of their environment, twentieth-century scholars tended
to claim cave art as evidence of an unalloyed triumph for our
species. It was a “great spiritual symbol,” of a time when “man
had just emerged from a purely zoological existence, when
instead of being dominated by animals, he began to dominate
them.” But the child-like and highly stylized stick figures found
in caves do not radiate triumph. By the standards of our own
time, they are excessively self-effacing and, compared to the
animals portrayed around them, pathetically weak.
While twentieth-century archeologists tended to
solemnize prehistoric art as “magico-religious” or “shamanic,”
today’s more secular viewers sometimes detect a vein of sheer
silliness. India’s Mesolithic rock art portrays few human stick
figures; those that are portrayed have been described by modern
viewers as “comical,” “animalized” and “grotesque.” As Judith
Thurman wrote about the artists, “despite their penchant for
naturalism, rarely did they choose to depict human beings, and
then did so with a crudeness that smacks of mockery.”
But who are they mocking, other than themselves and, by
extension, their distant descendants, ourselves? Of course, our
reactions to Paleolithic art may bear no connection to the
intentions or feelings of the artists. Yet there are reasons to
believe that Paleolithic people had a sense of humor not all that
dissimilar from our own.
Barbara Ehrenreich. The Humanoid Stain. Later on.
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