by Jon Lackman | 1 September 2006 | Ancient, Books
So many art-history surveys begin with cave art, that genre for which we have so few facts and so few convincing theories. Zoology professor Dale Guthrie’s new book “The Nature of Paleolithic Art,” which argues that most cave art was made by young men with little but sex and hunting on their minds, seems to have converted few readers but fascinated many.
In the American Scientist, pre-historic art specialist Randall White wrote: “[He] provides plenty of small gems of interpretation of animal behaviors and postures, some of them missed by previous generations of researchers … Disturbingly, Guthrie’s book lacks any theoretical discussion of ‘art’ and ‘meaning’ in cultural or ethnographic terms. His ecological determinism leaves almost no room for metaphor, for the experiential power of caves or for a spiritual understanding of this underground world by ancient humans … [He] betrays limited mastery of recent foreign-language publications, especially by French, Spanish and Russian authors … his identifications of certain images as plants are made without reservation, even though the originals are notoriously ambiguous. He seldom provides alternative readings, and the fact that his drawings are not faithful to details and surface features prevents the reader from independently evaluating his propositions … Guthrie’s natural-history approach to women has been little softened by criticism of his 1984 paper … in which he likened female figurines to the images in Playboy. Of course, that comparison underestimates the cultural context of both the figurines and the Playboy photographs. The study of Paleolithic art has struggled over the years to become the rigorous and meticulous field that it is today. There is considerable food for thought and ecological insight in Guthrie’s approach, and for that reason alone I am happy to have this book on my shelf.”
Archaeologist Paul G. Bahn wrote in Nature: “Much of this study is enlightening and valuable, drawing on the author’s wealth of experience in cold environments and with hunting cultures. Unfortunately, his reading of the images is extremely literal, excessively so in my view. In his quest for ‘clear expressions of the artists’ hunting preoccupations’, he thinks he can recognize depictions of “males with hunting weapons such as spears or spear-throwers’, of hunting parties with men ‘being attacked by wounded game or dangerous carnivores’, of nosebleeds and defaecations, and even of bleeding puncture wounds without weapons. People often see what they want to see in rock art, and I think it is safe to say that few of Guthrie’s interpretations would be readily accepted by most specialists in Ice Age art. The fundamental problem with these claims is that they are based, as so often in theories about rock art, on a small number of carefully selected examples, which are presented as typical … One of the most welcome aspects of Guthrie’s book is its determined shunning of the fantasies and speculations published in recent years about the role of so-called ‘shaman-artists’, ‘trances’ and ‘altered states of consciousness’ in the production of cave art … On the other hand, there can be no doubt that some kind of profound religious motivation — however one defines it — does lie behind some cave art. It cannot all be attributed to sex, hunting and teenage scribbling. Nevertheless, [Guthrie's book] provides a great number of interesting insights into the nature and behaviour of the species depicted, including humans, and is undeniably thought-provoking and challenging. I can recommend it highly, despite my reservations.”
See also Guthrie’s publisher’s blog.
