The first explorers to brave the 7-metre perilous crawl leading to the Chauvet caves in southern France were rewarded with magnificent artwork to rival any modern composition. Stretching a full 3 metres in height, the paintings depict a troupe of majestic horses in deep colours, a pair of boisterous rhinos in the midst of a fight and a herd of prehistoric cows. When faced with such spectacular beauty, who could blame the visiting anthropologists for largely ignoring the modest semicircles, lines and zigzags also marked on the walls? Yet dismissing them has proved to be something of a mistake. The latest research has shown that, far from being doodles, the marks are in fact highly symbolic, forming a written 'code' that was familiar to all of the prehistoric tribes around France and possibly beyond.
     Until now, the accepted view has been that writing appeared to come much later than rock art, with the earliest records of a pictographic writing system dating back to just 5000 years ago. Few researchers, though, had given any serious thought to the relatively small and inconspicuous marks around the cave paintings. Genevieve von Petzinger, then a student at the University of Victoria in British Columbia (Canada), was surprised to find that no one had brought all these records together to compare signs from different caves. And so, under the supervision of April Nowell, also at the University of Victoria, she compiled a comprehensive database of all recorded cave signs from 146 sites in France, covering 25,000 years of prehistory from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.
     What emerged was startling: 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, appeared again and again at numerous sites. Admittedly, some of the symbols are pretty basic, like straight lines, circles and triangles, but the fact that many of the more complex designs also appeared in several places hinted to von Petzinger and Nowell that they were meaningful - perhaps even the seeds of written communication.
     A closer look confirmed their suspicions. When von Petzinger went back to some of the records of the cave walls, she noticed other, less abstract signs that appeared to represent a single part of a larger figure - like the tusks of a mammoth without an accompanying body. This feature, known as synecdoche, is common in the known pictographic languages. To von Petzinger and Nowell, it demonstrated that our ancestors were indeed considering how to represent ideas symbolically rather than realistically, eventually leading to the abstract symbols that were the basis of the original study. "It was a way of communicating information in a concise way," says Nowell. "For example, the mammoth tusks may have simply represented a mammoth, or a mammoth hunt, or something that has nothing to do with a literal interpretation of mammoths."
     The real clincher came with the observation that certain signs appear repeatedly in pairs. Negative hands and dots tend to be one of the most frequent pairings, for example, especially during a warm climate period known as the Gravettian (28,000 to 22,000 years ago). One site called Les Trois-Frères in the French Pyrenees, even shows four sign types grouped together: negative hands, dots, finger fluting and thumb stencils. Grouping is typically seen in early pictographic languages - the combined symbols representing a new concept - and the researchers suspect that prehistoric Europeans had established a similar system.
     Suspecting that this was just the beginning of what the symbols could tell us about prehistoric culture, von Petzinger and Nowell's next move was to track where and when they emerged. The line turned out to be the most popular, being present at 70 per cent of the sites and appearing across all time periods, from 30,000 to 10,000 years ago. The next most prolific signs were the open angle symbol and the dots, both appearing at 42 per cent of the sites throughout this period.
     Yet while long winters spent in caves might have induced people to spend time painting wonder walls, there are reasons to think the symbols originated much earlier on. One of the most intriguing facts to emerge from von Petzinger's work is that more than three-quarters of the symbols were present in the very earliest sites, from over 30,000 years ago. "This incredible diversity and continuity of use suggests that the symbolic revolution may have occurred before the arrival of the first modern humans in Europe," she said.
     The idea would seem to fit with a few tantalising finds that have emerged from Africa and the Middle East over recent years. At Blombos cave on South Africa's southern Cape, for example, archaeologists have recently discovered pieces of haematite engraved with abstract designs that are at least 75,000 years old. Meanwhile, at the Skhul rock shelter in Israel, there are shell beads considered by some to be personal ornaments and evidence for symbolic behaviour as far back as 100,000 years ago. Does this suggest that these symbols travelled with prehistoric tribes as they migrated from Africa? Von Petzinger and Nowell think so. Iain Davidson, an Australian rock art specialist at the University of New England in New South Wales, on the other hand, is unconvinced that they have a common origin, maintaining that the creative explosion occurred independently in different parts of the globe around 40,000 years ago. Wherever these symbols did emerge, the acceptance of symbolic representation would have been a turning point for these cultures. For one thing, it would have been the first time they could permanently store information.
     One huge question remains, of course: what did the symbols actually mean? With no Rosetta Stone to act as a key for translation, the best we can do is guess at their purpose. Jean Clottes, former director of scientific research at the Chauvet cave, has a hunch that they were much more than everyday jottings, and could have had spiritual significance. With no key to interpret these symbols, though, we can't know whether ancient humans were giving false directions to rival tribes or simply bragging about their hunting prowess. Our ancestor's secrets remain safe - at least for now.

Source: New Scientist (17 February 2010)

Scientists unearthed evidence of surgery carried out in ancient times during work on an Early Neolithic tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 65km south of Paris (France). They found that a remarkable degree of medical knowledge had been used to remove the left forearm of an elderly man about 6,900 years ago. The patient seems to have been anaesthetised, the conditions were aseptic, the cut was clean and the wound was treated, according to the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap).
     The revelation could force a reassessment of the history of surgery, especially because researchers have recently reported signs of two other Neolithic amputations in Germany and the Czech Republic. It was known that Stone Age doctors performed trephinations, cutting through the skull, but not amputations. "The first European farmers were therefore capable of quite sophisticated surgical acts," Inrap said.
     The discovery was made by Cécile Buquet-Marcon and Anaick Samzun, both archaeologists, and Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist. It followed research on the tomb of an elderly man who lived in the Linearbandkeramik period, when European hunter-gatherers settled down to agriculture, stock-breeding and pottery. The patient was important: his grave was 2m long - bigger than most - and contained a schist axe, a flint pick and the remains of a young animal, which are evidence of high status. The most intriguing aspect, however, was the absence of forearm and hand bones. A battery of biological, radiological and other tests showed that the humerus bone had been cut above the trochlea indent at the end 'in an intentional and successful amputation'.
     Mrs Buquet-Marcon said that the patient, who is likely to have been a warrior, might have damaged his arm in a fall, animal attack or battle. "I don't think you could say that those who carried out the operation were doctors in the modern sense that they did only that, but they obviously had medical knowledge," she said.
     A flintstone almost certainly served as a scalpel. Mrs Buquet-Marcon said that pain-killing plants were likely to have been used, perhaps the hallucinogenic Datura. "We don't know for sure, but they would have had to find some way of keeping him still during the operation," she said. Other plants, possibly sage, were probably used to clean the wound. "The macroscopic examination has not revealed any infection in contact with this amputation, suggesting that it was conducted in relatively aseptic conditions," said the scientists in an article for the journal Antiquity.
     The patient survived the operation and, although he suffered from osteoarthritis, he lived for months, perhaps years, afterwards, tests revealed. Despite the loss of his forearm, the contents of his grave showed that he remained part of the community. "His disability did not exclude him from the group," the researchers said. The discovery demonstrates that advanced medical knowledge and complex social rules were present in Europe in about 4900 BCE, and that major surgery was likely to have been more common than we realised, Mrs Buquet-Marcon said.

Sources: Times Online, Telegraph.co.uk (25 January 2010), Daily Mail (26 January 2010)

Experts on prehistoric man are rethinking their dates after a find in a southern French valley that suggests our ancestors may have reached Europe 1.57 million years ago: 200,000 earlier than we thought. What provoked the recount was a pile of fossilised bones and teeth uncovered 15 years ago by local man Jean Rouvier in the Herault Valley, Languedoc.
     What provoked the recount was a pile of fossilised bones and teeth uncovered 15 years ago by local man Jean Rouvier in a basalt quarry at Lezignan la Cebe, in the Herault valley, Languedoc. In the summer of 2008, Rouvier mentioned his find to Jerome Ivorra, an archaeological researcher at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). The subsequent dig uncovered a large variety of ancient animal bones: cattle, deer, horses and also of carnivorous animals related to cats and dogs. More importantly however, about 10 metres (yards) down and under the basalt layer, the team found 20 or so tools, most of which bore traces of use.
     The surprise came when argon dating showed the site went back 1.57 million years - substantially older than many other prehistoric sites. It is older, for example, than the Spanish site at Atapuerca, which dates back a mere 1.2 to 1.1 million years. And as the paper pointed out, the existence of such man-made objects in Europe was extremely rare in this period. In comparison, the first such tools in East Africa date back to 2.5 million years ago, while human settlements in the Transcaucasia region date back to a 1.8 million years ago.
     According to a statement from the CNRS, France's Museum of National History and the College de France, more digs are planned for 2010 to discover more about the site.

Sources: Physorg, AFP (15 December 2009)

Cave art seems always to have been thought of, for no especially good reason, as the work of men. Perhaps it is because much of the art lies in deep, dark caverns, or because many of the paintings and engravings are of large food animals such as mammoth and bison, which men might be supposed to have hunted. An American archaeologist has now proposed that at least some of the art is, in fact, the work of women. He has measured outlined handprints found on cave walls in France and Spain, some dating to 28,000 years ago, and he has shown that the relative lengths of fingers fit the proportions of female hands better than those of males.
     "I had access to lots of people of European descent who were willing to let me scan their hands as reference data," said Dean Snow, of Pennsylvania State University. By matching their hand profiles against photographs of paint-outlined hands from the caves of El Castillo and Gargas, in northern Spain, and Pech-Merle in the Dordogne region of France, "even a superficial examination of published photos suggested to me that there were lots of female hands there".
     The handprints were created by placing the palm, or possibly the back, of the hand against the cave wall, taking a mouthful of powdered pigment - usually red ochre - and blowing it. Sometimes a finger appears to be missing. Such absences have been attributed to mutilation, but bending the finger back while spraying the hand with the pigment powder would give the same effect.
     Professor Snow believes that many of these hand prints are those of women. In two examples from Castillo, about 28,000 years old, "The very long ring finger on one example is a dead giveaway for male hands," he said. "The other has a long index finger and a short little finger - thus very feminine." At Pech-Merle, pigment-outlined hands encircle the famous 'spotted horses', the spots on which were created by the same blowing technique. By measuring and analysing the Pech-Merle hand stencils, Snow found that many were, indeed, female in proportion, raising the possibility, to say the least, that the horses were also created by women.
     Handprints are not found in all, or indeed most, caves, however, and since many are those of men, it is so far impossible to say firmly which if any of the great animal friezes in caves such as Lascaux or Chauvet might be women's work. There is also the possibility that children contributed to the painting endeavours. The late Alexander Marshack noted that a zone near the floor in some caves had chaotic 'spaghetti'-like lines traced in the soft surface, and suggested that young cave-persons had been obtaining experience of drawing by torchlight in the gloom.

Source: Ties Online (11 September 2009)

For many years, the mobility of the groups of hominids and how long they spent in caves or outdoors has been a subject of discussion among scientists. Now, an international team headed by researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) in Tarragona has based its studies on the dental fossils of animals hunted by hominids in order to determine the vegetation in the environment and the way of life of Homo heidelbergensis.
     Florent Rivals is the main author and a researcher from the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). "For the first time, a method has been put forward which allows us to establish the relative length of the human occupations at archaeological sites as, up until now, it was difficult to ascertain the difference between, for example, a single long-term occupation and a succession of shorter seasonal occupations in the same place", he explained.
     In the study, the researchers analyze the dental wear of the ungulates (herbivorous mammals) caused by microscopic particles of opaline silica in plants. These marks appear when eating takes place and erase the previous ones. This is why they are so useful. Thanks to the 'last supper phenomenon', the scientists have been able to analyze the last food consumed by animals such as the Eurasian wild horse (Equus ferus), the mouflon (Ovis ammon antiqua) and the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). "This method allows us to confirm the seasonal nature of the occupation", Rivals added. According to the team, the microwear of the teeth is sensitive to seasonal changes in the diet.
     The application has allowed the researchers to estimate the length of the occupation of the site from the Lower Paleolithic Age in the cave of Arago (France) by the number of marks on the fossils and, therefore, the variation in the diet of several species of herbivores, as "each season presented food resources which were limited and different in the environment", the paleontologist clarified. The researchers demonstrated that, if a group of animals is seen during a specific season (a short-term occupation), the signs of dental wear undergo little variation. But if the occupation lasts several seasons, the dental marks are more diverse. In the case of the French cave of Arago, the study of the dental wear confirms that it was occupied in different ways. "With this method, we were able to prove that at the site, which belonged to Homo heidelbergensis, there is evidence of differing mobility, as there were highly mobile groups and others with little mobility", the scientist confirmed.
     The Spanish and German researchers have combined this application with multidisciplinary studies of archaeological sites in order to apply it to other settlements of the Mid-Paleolithic Age such as Payre (France), Taubach (Germany) and Abric Romani (Spain).

Source: ScienceDaily (15 July 2009)

A Summer Solstice event will be held near Carnac, in Brittany (France). For 5 days, starting on June 18th, there will be talks, sunrise and sunset observations, visits to megalithic sites on foot, by boat and by helicopter, workshops, exhibitions, films, story telling and music.
     If you want to know more, you can visit Plouharnel from June 18th to 22nd and for 35€, you will have the unique opportunity to discover one of the most incredible megalithic sites in the world by air and see how these different alignments (Erdeven, Carnac, Plouharnel) and tumulus (Saint Michel, Kercado, Crucuny) are related. This year the organizers are thrilled to welcome back Robin Heath who will talk about his latest work on the astronomical heritage of the ancients. He's coming with his colleague and friend Paul Broadhurst of "The Sun and the Serpent" fame. Howard Crowhurst, who has been living in the Carnac area since 1986, will help visitors discover this amazing site and show how it's related to British monuments. Other speakers include Hugn Newman (Megalithomania), Kate Masters, Regor Mougeot, Audrey Fella, Philippe Gaillard, Pierre Le Labousse, Priscilla Abraham and Bruno Mauguin.
     This event is organised by ACEM (Association pour la Connaissance et l'Etude des Mégalithes), a non-profit making organisation based in Plouharnel. More details on their website www.megalithes.info  or send an email message to solsticefrance@gmail.com

Source: Summer Solstice in Plouharnel (June 2009)

Geologists, biologists and other scientists convened in Paris to discuss how to stop the spread of fungus stains - aggravated by global warming - that threaten France's prehistoric Lascaux cave drawings. Black stains have spread across the cave's prehistoric murals of bulls, felines and other images, and scientists have been hard-pressed to halt the fungal creep.
     Marc Gaulthier, who heads the Lascaux Caves International Scientific Committee, said the challenges facing the group are vast and global warming now poses an added problem. "All of Lascaux's problems have always been linked to the cave's climatization, meaning the equilibrium of air inside the cave," Gaulthier told reporters at a news conference before the symposium. Now, rising temperatures have complicated matters by stopping air from circulating inside the caverns, he said. "It's stagnating, immobile, frozen" inside the cave, he said. This makes sending teams of scientists into the affected caverns risky, as their mere presence raises humidity levels and temperatures that could contribute to the growth of the different fungi, algae and bacteria that have attacked the cave over the years, he said. Other factors behind the stains include the presence of naturally occurring microorganisms and the chemical makeup of the rock that forms the cavern walls, Gaulthier and other scientists at the news conference said.
     For the moment, the cave is completely sealed in hopes that "it will heal itself," Gaulthier said. Two possible solutions to be examined at the conference include the installation of a system to regulate the cave's temperature and the use of biocides, which kill the bacteria and have been used in the cave before, with mixed results.
     In 1963, Lascaux, a top tourist destination, was closed to the public after the appearance of green algae and other damage scientists linked to the visitors. A replica of the main Lascaux cavern was built nearby and has become a big tourist draw. Carbon-dating suggests the murals were created between 15,000 and 17,500 years ago. Discovered in 1940, the cavern is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Sources: Associated Press, Yahoo! News (26 February 2009)

During the Heritage Days held on 20 and 21 September, the Museum of Prehistory in Carnac (Brittany, France) publicly unveiled the exceptional archaeological discovery at Saint-Pierre-Quiberon. They found four long polished axes and a submerged menhir alignment, dating from the early Neolithic period (fifth millennium BCE).      
     The axes were discovered August 2007. While collecting shellfish on the Rohu du Petit-Saint-Pierre-Quiberon beach, two tourists and their child discovered four axes in the water. This discovery led a team of archaeologists to conduct research in the area of Saint-Pierre-Quiberon, which enabled them to find an alignment of 45 submerged menhirs, confirming the importance of the Neolithic site. The curator of the Museum of Prehistory in Carnac, Emmanuelle Vigier, confirmed that it was an exceptional discovery, no other collectioon of this magnitude had been found in the area since the nineteenth century. She said: "The axes from the Neolithic show that there was an elite able to obtain this type of object, a very hierarchical society, much more than previously thought just a few years ago."
     The axes can be admired at the Museum of Carnac (Place de la Chapelle).

Sources: Novopress (23 September 2008), Celtic Myth Podshow (7 October 2008)

A new game developed for Apple computers with Mac OS X operating system does have a prehistoric twist. 'Secret of the Lost Cavern - A prehistoric tale' plunges the player into an inspiring adventure that takes place during the Paleolithic period in prehistoric time, 15,000 years BCE. Wits and powers of observation are needed to survive the vast wilderness as the journey leads to one of mankind’s forgotten wonders. During this Stone Age adventure, the life of a young hunter, Arok, is revealed. During his journey, Arok must survive the rugged wilderness: brave wild animals, learn how to build a "spear thrower", lure a ferocious bear away from his lair. Arok will follow the path of Klem - a painter and a sorcerer - and work with him to recreate the paintings of the renowned Lascaux Cave.
     Also featured is an integrated encyclopedia filled with historically accurate data on the Paleolithic period, and the Lascaux Cave is represented in 3D for the 1st time in a video game. Pristine photo-realistic graphics and environments including rivers, troglodyte caves, and green valleys, will take players back to the dawn of human existence.
     The game will be released across the world in october in retail stores and on legal download plateforms. More info and a demo of the game is available on the Coladia Games website (www.coladiagames.com).
     
Source: Coladia Games (September 2008), MaCNN (29 September 2009)

Experts believe that up to half of the prehistoric art in the Lascaux caves (France) is at risk. Efforts to combat a fungal invasion have been unsuccessful. Meanwhile Unesco, the world cultural body, has threatened to humiliate France by placing the Lascaux caves – known as the 'Sistine Chapel of prehistory' – on its list of endangered sites of universal importance. The Unesco world heritage committee has given the French government six months to report on the success of its efforts to save the Lascaux cave paintings in Dordogne from an ugly, and potentially destructive, invasion of grey and black fungi.
     At the same time, a scientific committee appointed by the French government has conceded that an elaborate treatment with a new fungicide in January failed to stop the mould advancing through one part of the caves. An independent pressure group of scientists and historians claims that up to half of the startlingly beautiful, 17,000-year-old images of bison, horses, wild cattle and ibex are now threatened by the fungal invasion – the second of its kind in eight years.
     The heritage committee requested France to open Lascaux – closed to the public since 1963 – to a visit by independent experts. It also advised France to commission an 'impact study' of all past, and possible future, actions in the caves since the first fungal invasion in 2001-02. Officials from the French government's department of historic monuments and experts from all over the world have been quarrelling for years over the best way to preserve the Lascaux paintings. Some experts have accused the French authorities of a series of blunders, including a change in the air-conditioning system in 2000, the use of high-powered lights in the caves and allowing too many 'special' visits.
     An independent body, the International Committee for the Protection of Lascaux, infuriated Paris by asking Unesco to intervene last September. The French authorities initially denied that the Lascaux paintings themselves had been attacked by the second fungal invasion. They later admitted to some blotching on the paintings but no lasting damage. The independent protection committee, citing information from experts who have visited the caves, insist that some of the images have been irreparably blurred or that their colours have faded.
     Recently, the French authorities admitted a setback. A treatment with fungicide in January appeared to have been successful at first but the black and grey blotches are now spreading once again across one part of the paintings, according to an official statement. Marie-Anne Sire, the head curator of Lascaux,said that the news was disappointing but progress was being made. Studies had revealed that the air which used to circulate in the caves had become immobile. This might explain the fungal outbreaks – and to offer a possible solution, she said.

Sources: Washington Post (1 July 2008), The Independent (12 July 2008)