AR78. 7 June 2004
Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Sharpe. All rights reserved.
In process.
2003-2004 Archaeology Grant Application:
Outline
by
Kevin Sharpe
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, Oxford
Graduate College, Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio
10 Shirelake Close, Oxford OX1 1SN, United Kingdom
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
www.ksharpe.com
Background
Prehistoric finger flutings (the lines that human fingers
leave when drawn over a soft surface) occur in caves through southern Australia,
New Guinea, and
southwestern Europe, and were presumably made over a
considerable time span including some or all of the Upper Paleolithic. Most are
not obvious figures or symbols; flutings of this type are termed ‘severines.’
Lorblanchet (1992:
451) writes about the 120
square meters of flutings that occur in Pech
Merle Cave
in the Lot Department of France: ‘Almost all the clay walls that are accessible
without too much difficulty bare these markings.’ Plassard (1999: 62)
mentions 500 square meters of severines
(‘meanders’ as he calls them; they are also known as ‘macaroni’ and
‘serpentines’ (Marshack 1977:
286)) in Rouffignac Cave in
the Dordogne, France, whereas he isolates 254
figures (animal, human, and other motifs) in the cave; these cover far less
surface area. Leroi-Gourhan (1958:
314) reports that
‘incomplete outlines and bundles of lines…with very few exceptions…exist in
every cave.’ Severines form a major –
if not the largest –
component of Paleolithic ‘art.’
Little is written and known about them, however. Clottes and
Courtin (1996: 59) write: ‘Barely a quarter of the finger
tracings in some seventy European Paleolithic painted caves has been the
subject of surveys and precise analyses.’ Just about the only writings on them
either barely describe them, say that they exist in profusion or are enigmatic,
or mention them only in-so-far as they occur in conjunction with or are used to
create figures such as mammoths (Barrière 1982:
150) and motifs such as
Tectiforms (Barrière 1982: 156; Plassard 1999: 61;
for examples of other motifs, see Barrière 1982:
158). ‘Archaeologists have
not known what to do with this class of marking or image,’ Marshack (1977: 286,
300) says, though examples
have ‘been seen, copied, and published’ for a century.
The reason for this, Marshack continues, ‘is that there has
been no theoretical basis for internal analysis or interpretation of form, no technology
for its study, and no means for relating these forms to the recognizable animal
images with which they are often associated.’ Or, as Clottes and Courtin (1996: 59)
write: ‘This clearly has to do with the indifferent aesthetic appeal of these
depictions, with the technical difficulty their study presents, and with the
uncertain and often insufficiently gratifying results that the researcher can
expect at the conclusion of the task.’
Speculation as to their meaning, therefore, can run
unchecked; they are seen, for example, as representing such things as water
(Marshack 1977: 314), entopic shapes or phosphenes (Bednarik
1982), huts, comets, or
rivers (Leroi-Gourhan 1958:
314), snakes (and thereby
associated with death) (Barrière 1982:
88, 195), psycho-neurological archetypes (Gallus 1977), and hunting marks (Barrière 1982: 184).
Four of the most well-known experts on prehistoric art fall to over-reaching
speculation:
·
Breuil (1952)
describes severines carefully, seeing them in part as the first scribbles by
humans, though intuitive and random. The fluters probably recognized images in
the severines and thus, from them, developed the tradition of simple and crude
outline figures. Breuil’s interest lies in the development of a comparative
typology and chronology of the styles of the ‘art.’ He speaks of severines as
serpentine-meanders and thinks of them as snakes.
·
Using statistics, Leroi-Gourhan (1958) studies the placement and spread of
signs and images within a cave and their association with each other. He calls
these relationships polar, oppositional, ‘sexual,’ or female/male. He speaks of
severines as linear-phallic and thinks of them as a male symbol or as
unfinished outlines.
·
Marshack (1977:
301) not only suggests that
the meaning of severines lies in an association with water, but he also names
an evolutionary sequence of severine forms ‘in which a more formal [form]
begins to give a geometric appearance to the linear, carefully drawn [severine]
structure.’
·
Lewis-Williams (2002: 215)
begins to approach flutings more openly when he writes: ‘finger flutings appear
without representational images often enough to suggest that they had their own
significance.’ However, at about the same time he and Clottes also write:
In some instances, it seems as
if people were trying to penetrate the surfaces, to reach through the walls; in
other instances, people were simply touching – and leaving evidence for their actions on – the walls. Why did they
do this? [For Upper Paleolithic people,] the walls, ceilings, and floors of the
caves were…little more than a thin membrane between themselves and the
creatures and happenings of the underworld. The caves were awesome, liminal
places in which to be: Literally, they took one into the underworld….Perhaps
one could say that the caves were the entrails of the underworld….What people
believe[d] about the walls influence[d] those who made the images [on the
walls] (Clottes and Lewis-Williams 1998:
85-86).
Severines, to restate Lewis-Williams (2002: 215),
‘had their own significance.’ They need to be taken seriously and not dismissed
or subordinated to some other form of ‘art.’ Marshack talks of severines as
intentional systems of markings:
[I proceed] from an assumption that in the Upper
Paleolithic the recognizable image was not derived accidentally from random
[severine] marking, first because the [severines] are not random but, more
important, because the ability to see an image in a random cluster (or a rock
or wall formation) requires culture. It is part of a process of description,
classification, comparison, and naming. It is a human, cultural activity. In
this regard, the ability to initiate and maintain an image system, such as the
[severine], requires naming and language….[This] is, of course, [in addition to
the] basic cognitive, kinesthetic, non-linguistic component in image-making and
recognition (Marshack 1977:
300).
The chief problem is that investigators bring to their study
preconceived, westerner notions as to what is meaningful and what constitutes a
pattern. They introduce what they consider is the meaning of the severines and
how the various forms of prehistoric ‘art’ relate to each other. Previous
investigations try, Marshack writes,
to recognize or interpret images or signs on the basis
of what the modern eye sees or on what historic cultures might offer for
analogic comparison….to seek for the origins of ‘art’ in the recognizable
image, recognizable to us. Because recognizable images such as animals are
occasionally found among the [severines], it was assumed that it was out of
random marking that representational art was eventually born (Marshack 1977: 287,
300).
Should or can nothing therefore be said about severines?
Ucko (1992: 158) states: ‘It is…inconceivable to us
today to understand the nature of [severines].’ Often thought of as
meaningless, they are now usually considered beyond interpretation.
This is too extreme a conclusion. However, it makes sense at
this stage of the study of severines to leave aside the question of meaning;
better would be to see what can be said about the marks themselves as they were
made. Such investigations logically come before subjective-interpretative and
meaning-seeking approaches to severines and may help sort out the various
suggestions as to meaning or lay a solid foundation for seeking meaning.
Marshack, though he defers to his predecessors, pioneers
strategies for this type of research. He writes:
I tried to develop techniques and a theoretical basis
for the intensive internal analysis
of the Upper Paleolithic symbolic materials….My effort was…directed toward…a
study of the cognitive processes
involved in the formation of an image, a study of the sequence of making an image or a composition or the sequence of
accumulating images on a surface….This enquiry was…functional and psychological
(Marshack 1977: 287; see also his 1972; 1975;
1989; 1997).
By placing a development of forms onto the forms themselves,
and by expounding water as the meaning of the markings, Marshack retreats from
grounded analysis to speculation, and does so without clearly differentiating
between the two approaches. The core of Marshack’s methodology needs adopting
and developing, and his speculations as to meaning and the evolution of ‘art’
need putting aside.
This proposed research continues to establish this more
objective and experimental approach to the lines (Sharpe Preprint; Sharpe and
Lacombe 1999; Sharpe,
Lacombe, and Fawbert 1998; 2002; Sharpe and Van Gelder Preprint 1; Preprint 2;
for some of the author’s relevant prior work, see Sharpe 1977; 1978;
Sharpe and Sharpe 1976). In
other words, this proposed work continues the beginning of a remedy for the
situation that Clottes and Courtin diagnose and that Marshack attempts to meet.
Following but developing his methodology come Bednarik (Aslin, Bednarik, and
Bednarik 1985; Bednarik 1986a; 1986b;
1986c; 1987; 1990;
1994a; 1994b; 1994c;
1997), d’Errico (1989; 1991;
1992a; 1992b; 1993;
1994; 1995; d’Errico, Henshilwood, and Nilssen 2001), and Lorblanchet (1984; 1992;
1995; 1999).
Initial work to the proposed research has been carried out
in Rouffignac Cave
in the Dordogne, France.
Three different forms of severines have so far been differentiated: Mirian,
Kirian, and Rugolean flutings (Sharpe and Van Gelder Preprint 1):
·
One thing defines a cluster of finger flutings
as of the Mirian Form: lower-body
movement on the part of the fluters (as opposed to them only moving their upper
bodies). ‘Lower-body movement’ means that the people who fluted the walls or
ceilings in the Mirian Form not only sometimes walked or otherwise moved their
legs while fluting (thus the lines may extend beyond the arm range of a
stationary fluter), but almost always moved their bodies from their hips to
create the flutings by, for instance, bending, twisting, or shifting their
weight.
·
Two things define a cluster of finger flutings
as of the Kirian Form: the fluter
standing in one spot while fluting a unit, and each unit comprising only one
line. The people who fluted the walls or ceilings in the Kirian Form stood still
and marked with one finger.
·
Two things define a cluster of finger flutings
as of the Rugolean Form: the fluter
standing in one spot while fluting a unit, and most units comprising more than
one line. The people who fluted the walls or ceilings stood still, moved their
upper bodies, and marked mostly with more than one finger at a time. The fluter
may have moved between making units, but stood stationary for each unit.
Having recognized and substantiated these distinctions,
further preliminary work (following the methodology described below) has
enabled particular questions to be asked of each of the three forms of
flutings, questions that form the basis for this proposed research project.
Research Questions
The questions underlying this research are broad. Using
severines as the phenomena for analysis,
1.
What can be said about the people who used the
caves, including Rouffignac?
2.
What did they use the caves for?
Following the above-mentioned initial research, three
specific and two exploratory research questions can be asked:
1.
Did children create some of the Mirian flutings
in Chamber A1 in Rouffignac
Cave?
Initial investigations suggest an affirmative answer
(Sharpe and Van Gelder Prepint 2),
but more data gathering both in the cave and from the hands of contemporary
people, plus a refinement of technique so as to minimize potential errors are
in order. It has been found, for instance, that the drawing of fingers held
together over soft clay produces an image, measuring the central three fingers
of which gives a reliable database for comparing with similarly made flutings
in the cave. If the tentative conclusion about children is upheld, this may
represent the first known example of children creating prehistoric ‘art’ in the
European Paleolothic.
2.
What is the precise structure of the Kirian
flutings and how do the various modalities of marking relate to each other?
Though initially appearing simple, some of the Kirian
flutings are complex overlays of single digit marks, applications of clay, and
scoring with sticks. This question has particular importance because of the
possibility of dating the charcoal left by the scoring with burned sticks; none
of the other ‘art’ in Rouffignac Cave
has been dated directly.
3.
Is the numbers of fingers used in Rugolean
flutings a significant variable?
Rugolean flutings can appear ordered. Initial
investigations suggest that the number of fingers used in each unit may be
significant, for instance in terms of the Zipf plots graph from communications
theory that attempts to isolate attempted communications from otherwise
apparently random elements (Nadis 2003).
If these initial suggestions are affirmed after further investigation, and if
the Zipf plot truly does isolate attempted communication from random events,
then Rugolean flutings may be a form of communication. Such a conclusion will
lead to further questions.
4.
Are there other isolatable forms of severines in
Rouffignac Cave?
Many of the severines in Rouffignac do not fall into
the so-far isolated three forms of flutings. By studying the others, it is
hoped that factors may emerge that allow further forms to emerge and then
further specific questions about each form to be asked.
5.
How do the forms isolated in Rouffignac compare
with severines in other caves?
Initial visits to several caves, a literature search,
plus discussions with French prehistorians, have suggested that it would be
profitable to investigate the severines in Gargas
Cave and Baume-Latrone
Cave. Applications have been lodged
with the relevant authorities to undertake this work. Further, Michel
Lorblanchet has suggested that he will collaborate in a
larger study to include Pech Merle and Altamira caves.
He wishes to use the same general methodology to examine the products of human
hands in several caves to which he already has access.
Methodology
The core of the approach adopted is three fold:
1.
Laboratory Experimentation
Research is undertaken in the laboratory to ascertain
what can and cannot be fluted or engraved in the situations of the severines,
to clarify what particular features of the severines still visible may imply
about how they were made and who made them, and to refine data recording
techniques (Lorblanchet 1995:
209-223). For instance, for the study on Miriam flutings
and finger widths, a comparison can be made between contemporary finger marks
in plaster of Paris, finger paints, clay, and outlines of the fingers drawn or
photocopied onto paper, to choose the most accurate and versatile medium to be
used to measure the fluted fingers of contemporary people.
2.
Fieldwork
A thorough examination of the lines is made using
non-intrusive techniques such as varied lighting techniques. Photography with
digital technology, different filters, light sources (including infrared and
ultraviolet), and note taking of the severines are the foundations of the field
techniques (Lorblanchet 1995:
113-128).
3.
Analysis
After the fieldwork, the lines are
drawn and reconstructed electronically. This redrawing often raises points
about the image that need clarification and that only further field work can
answer. From this work, specific questions such as the first three research
questions above can be formulated for further investigation.
Funding Request
A request would be made to fund four years’ of field
research, each year comprising three visits of a total per year of five weeks
in the field. Funding would also be requested for three research assistants for
the field work and for the costs for attending two international rock art conferences
to present the results of the research.
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