Upper Palaeolithic population have become familiar to most people more by their art forms than the tools shaped and used.Of the art forms cave paintings are extraordinary and the earliest ones date back to 30,000 years.Typical Upper Palaeolithic paintings are on limestone walls of caves.The preservation of the paintings have been attributed to their absorption by limestone.The subject matter of pre-historic hunters of big game was their prey.The animals depicted on the walls of caves are mammoth,horses,deer, reindeer and other animals.
The most generally accepted interpretation associates the paintings with rituals and magic surrounding hunting expeditions.Figures of animals with spears sticking out of them were probably painted to ensure the success of hunting forays.Another interpretation link cave paintings with the maintenance or increase in the number of animals and plants.Even in historical times,performance of ceremonies by aborigines to ensure perpetuation of plants and animals has been recorded in Australia.
Clusters of paintings have been recorded on some cave walls.In some caves as many as three paintings are superposed on the original.It may be that a particular subdivision of the Upper Palaeolithic society used a particular area of a wall for painting.It is also possible that the paintings on the walls renact successful hunts.Designs and markings of animal bones suggest that Upper Palaeolithic people developed a calender based on the phases of the moon.
The tracing of several small fossilized footprints in an European cavern suggest that the cave could have been the site where young people received instructions in tribal lores from their seniors.Depiction of humans in animal skins is suggestive of the presence of shamans in Upper Palaeolithic society.Spectacular multi-colored cave paintings appeared between 17,000 and 12,000 years ago and the time coincided with the retreat of glaciers from south-western Europe.
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