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Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Sharpe and Leslie Van Gelder. All rights reserved.
Submitted for publication.
Three Forms of Finger Flutings
(OR Severines) in
Kevin Sharpe
The Graduate College, Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio,
USA
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, UK
Oxford Institute for Science and Spirit, Oxford, UK
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
www.ksharpe.com
and
Leslie Van Gelder
Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Oxford Institute for Science and Spirit, Oxford, UK
leslievg@btopenworld.com
ABSTRACT.
Three forms of finger flutings (or severines) are isolated in Rouffignac Cave, France: Mirian, Kirian, and Rugolean. They are respectively characterized by: lower-body movement by the fluter, standing still and fluting with one finger at a time, and standing still but usually fluting with more than one finger at a time.
KEY WORDS.
Finger flutings, Kirian Form, Mirian Form, prehistoric art, Rouffignac Cave, Rugolean Form, severines.
CONTENTS.
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 (
Little is written and known about them, however. Clottes and
Courtin (
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 (
Speculation as to their meaning, therefore, can run
unchecked; they are seen, for example, as representing such things as water
(Marshack
·
Breuil (
·
Using statistics, Leroi-Gourhan (
·
Marshack (
·
Lewis-Williams (
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
Severines, to restate Lewis-Williams (
[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
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
Should or can nothing therefore be said about severines?
Ucko (
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
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 paper continues to establish this more objective and
experimental approach to the lines (Sharpe and Lacombe
Terminology
The following terminology may help when discussing flutings:
· As said above, the word fluting refers to a line drawn with a finger.
·
The phrase graphical
unit (or, abbreviated, the word unit) refers to flutings drawn with one sweep
of one hand or with one finger (Marshack
·
The word hand
(as an alternate to ‘unit’ for finger flutings) refers to the marks that the
fingers of one hand flute at the same time; so, one can talk of a (left or
right) hand of (
· The word cluster labels an isolatable group of units that exhibit a unity, for instance because they overlay each other.
·
The phrase ideational
element (or, abbreviated, the word element)
refers to flutings that together form a basic element of meaning for the
fluters, equivalent to Marshack’s term, ‘iconographic unit’ (Marshack
The term fluting applies to line markings made with fingers, and the term engraving refers to line markings made with a tool. Within engravings, a difference exist between scratches (animal claw marks), incisions (lines that humans make with flint or other piece of rock), scorings (lines that humans make with a stick), and bone marks (lines that humans make with a bone).
The term severine is suggested for line markings that do not participate in the figurative part of a definitive figure or demonstrable symbol or sign, equivalent to Marshack’s term ‘meander’ but without the restrictive overtones of this word. Thus, the category ‘line markings’ not only comprises flutings and engravings but, coextensively, also severines, figures, and symbols.
Rouffignac Cave
Figure
Figure
To avoid possible inferred interpretations of flutings and
figures, this paper replaces the names Barrière (
Three Forms of Flutings
Marshack distinguishes several styles among the severines of La Pileta Cave:
These include idiosyncratic individual ‘styles’ made in
various contemporary traditions….[Some are] meanders and additions made by one,
two, or three fingers using a yellow ochre. These are in the early,
‘primitive,’ basic style. Although many of the markings present a double or
triple marking, each is a ‘unit.’…The style is clear: there is a basic,
‘central’ meander and then branches or additions are attached or are arranged
in proximity. In some panels…the meander is associated with animals: ibex,
bull, and ‘rhono’ or bear….A later, more evolved meander usage [also exists] in
which a more formal style begins to give a geometric appearance to the linear,
carefully drawn [severine] structure…[a] core meander consisting of doubled
lines and the additions….[An] essential tradition of attached lateral branches,
crossing marks, and linear extensions of the serpentine form (Marshack
The term ‘form’ is preferable to ‘style’ as the latter may imply a cultural difference between the fluters of different styles, whereas ‘form’ may relate not only to that possibility, but also to differences caused by differences between the media fluted or differences between the geographies of the places fluted. Accepting the possibility of different forms of severines, but not necessarily those that Marshack isolates in La Pileta, at least three forms of finger flutings occur in Rouffignac Cave:
1. Mirian,
2. Kirian, and
3. Rugolean.
The sections below will define and describe these forms.
Before embarking on that, though, a more fundamental and theoretical question arises: How might one adequately establish the presence of these three forms of flutings in Rouffignac? To do so perhaps requires:
1. describing the three forms and differentiating them one from the other;
2. the existence in Rouffignac of lines satisfying the three descriptions;
3. the existence in Rouffignac of significant concentrations of each form of fluting, separable from lines of the other forms;
4. the stylistic analysis raising research questions for investigation;
5. the analysis suggesting hypotheses that, if supported, would tend to undermine it; and
6. the analysis making sense of flutings found in Rouffignac.
The sections below will also address this series of points.
Mirian Form
Definition
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.
The flutings in Chamber A
Figure
Figure
Description
Besides lower-body movement, several attributes of Mirian lines sometimes distinguish them from lines in other forms:
· Zigzags or undulations can occur, units that move back and forth from one side to the other down their length.
· Circles and spirals can occur.
· Graphical units usually comprise more than one line.
· Units can extend some distance, up to several meters.
· Units can lay one over the other, obliterating the underlying ones.
· Infants made many of the units, though some evidence of adult-sized hands also occurs.
Distribution in the Cave
Chamber A
Comments
The word ‘undulating’ could apply to those Mirian lines that
undulate; indeed, as mentioned above, other publications call the chamber of
Rouffignac Cave that contains the severines characterizing the Mirian Form the
‘Chamber of Undulating Flutings,’ the ‘Macaroni Room,’ and the ‘Serpentine
Room.’ The word ‘serpentine’ (or any version of the word ‘snake’), however,
suggests too broad a set of meaning for the flutings (that they represent
snakes, literally or metaphorically), though the original namers of the room
may not have intended this (see Sharpe, Lacombe, and Fawbert
An important issue, one that future papers will address (for
instance, Sharpe and Van Gelder In Prep.), concerns the age of the fluters that
the sizes of the flutings suggest. Many of the units occur in three fingers and
measuring across them provides an important indicator. Most are around
Kirian Form
Definition
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.
The left side of the step-down in the ceiling Chamber E
exemplify flutings in the Kirian Form (see Figures
Figure
Figure
Description
Besides the fluter standing still and using one finger, several attributes of Kirian lines sometimes distinguish them from lines of other forms:
·
They often occur in clusters of six or seven (or
· Their fluters appear to have retouched some of them or added to them with clay smears and stick scorings.
· They can include motifs such as spirals, circles, interweaving lattices, and arcs with a common starting point (not all the lines need be parallel or semi-parallel).
· The relationships between units of them in a cluster appear paramount.
· They do not appear multi-layered, not lying over top of one another in an inseparable jumble.
· They were fluted by adults.
Distribution in the Cave
Besides in Chamber E, as mentioned above, clusters of Kirian
lines do not frequently appear in Rouffignac Cave. A possible other instance
occurs in an alcove off Chamber G (that Figure
Comments
Were the Kirian lines in Chamber E made in the Neolithic or
in medieval times? This casual suggestion merits elucidation by dating the
charcoal deposited in some Kirian lines from the ends of burned sticks scraped
over and under them. Further, multi-fingered units (called Rugolean lines; see
below) lie over top of the Kirian lines in Chamber G
Rugolean Form
Definition
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.
The units within and to the right of the two facing mammoths
in Chamber G (Mammoths
Figure
Figure
Description
Besides the fluter standing still and using multiple fingers, several attributes of Rugolean lines sometimes distinguish them from lines in other forms:
· Units of them are predominantly vertical moving downward, though with an occasional diagonal unit also moving downward.
· They tend to lie from shoulder to waist height, the reach of a stationary fluter determining the arcs made.
· They tend to appear on walls, not ceilings.
· They are rarely multi-layered, not usually lying over top of one another in a jumble.
· They appear neat, decisive, and methodically executed.
· Few units appear fluted by small (children’s) fingers; adults made most of them.
Distribution in the Cave
Rugolean lines appear in many chambers of the cave, often on
walls of Moonmilk under bands of flint nodules. Particular concentrations of
them occur within and to the right of the two facing mammoths
Comments
The idea of finger flutings may raise Rugolean Form markings
in many people’s minds. One needs to distinguish this form, though, from other
yet-to-be-defined forms; it is easy to lump many of them together. For
instance, Rugolean lines tend not to lie over top of each other in a jumble,
whereas most of the flutings in Koonalda Cave, South Australia – while they otherwise
look like Rugolean lines –
form a mesh of overlying and frequently inseparable lines (Maynard and Edwards
Questions
The key distinguishing factors used here to define the Mirian, Kirian, and Rugolean Forms are, for a cluster of units, lower-body movement on the part of the fluter and whether single or multiple fingers comprise most of the units. Several matters arise from these definitions:
1.
It remains to see whether other features of the
forms are decisive; at first glance, for instance, it appears that Mirian
severines can extend longer (several meters) than Rugolean severines (about
2.
Other forms besides Mirian, Kirian, and Rugolean
Forms may occur in Rouffignac Cave and further investigations may help to
isolate them. For instance, the zigzag lines within some of the drawn mammoths
may indicate a form (see Figures
Figure
Figure
3. Could telling if a fluter stood still or moved her or his legs or hips while fluting a unit depend on the investigator’s subjectivity? How can one objectively ascertain the difference between the fluter moving her or his lower body and standing still? It may appear obvious when a unit moves way beyond any stationary person’s reach or with a vertical unit that would move sideways if the fluter moved. However, other circumstances may be more complex. The issue requires further investigation, but probably it needs the isolation of further indicators that relate to the fluter moving or standing in one spot. One avenue that may prove fruitful is to seek what might be called ‘jogs’ in Mirian lines, where the continuity of the fluting may be interrupted when the fluter takes a step while fluting.
4. This raises the broader question of subjectivity in the analysis or in isolating the forms. The division of flutings by fluter lower-body movement and the use of one or more fingers may hopefully prove a useful tool for the study of flutings. It may, however, prove more confusing than helpful. The stylistic division offers a hypothesis that may prove itself of use or may not.
5.
Forms coexist in some chambers in the cave (for
instance, in Chamber E), sometimes intermingling on a room’s wall or ceiling
(see Figures
Figure
Figure
Several other, more general questions and lines for investigation also arise:
1. Does the stylistic analysis extend to other caves, locally in the area of Les Eyzies or further away, within southern France and northern Spain, or further afield? In other words, do the three forms that this paper suggests make sense of at least some of the flutings in other caves? Is it universal? Investigations have yet to answer this question. This paper only claims that this stylistic analysis may pertain to Rouffignac Cave. It may or may not shed light on the flutings in other caves and form a useful platform for understanding the fluting phenomenon in general.
2. Both children and adults appear importantly involved in the fluting, children especially in flutings of the Mirian Form. Further, children apparently primarily fluted the Mirian lines and adults those of the other two forms. Does anything characterize the children’s markings – as opposed to the adults’ markings – other than the flutings’ width? Can adult markings be separated into those of women and those of men? If so, are women’s flutings more often associated with those of children? This general line of research requires further investigation.
3. Another line of research would explore the lines that humans engraved (as opposed to animals scratched) in Rouffignac to see if they bear any resemblance to fluted lines and, if they do, to the forms suggested (see Sharpe, Preprint).
4. The lower-body movement involved in the Mirian markings and its absence in the Kirian and Rugolean markings may suggest that Mirian fluters considered the act of fluting more important than did fluters of the other forms, and that Kirian and Rugolean fluters considered the final appearance of the severines more important. The analysis does not prove this, but it may suggest it.
5. Why do the three forms exist as opposed to only one or none? Perhaps the forms relate to different cultures or traditions, each advocating a different way to flute cave walls. Or perhaps the different forms relate to different behaviors, or to fluters employing different forms for different purposes or in response to different needs. On the other hand, does the physical geography of the room or its position in the cave (or the medium employed) more directly relate to the fluting form(s) used in it? This type of question could lead to a discussion on the meaning of the flutings, premature at this stage of the research. On the other hand, that three forms do exist – as opposed to only one or none – and that Mirian and Kirian severines exist together in Chamber E in the same medium, suggests the deliberate socially-informed nature of the fluting phenomenon at least in Rouffignac Cave.
Conclusions
Referring to the six points raised above, this paper:
1. describes each of the three forms (Mirian, Kirian, and Rugolean) and differentiates them one from the other;
2. shows that lines satisfying the three descriptions do exist in Rouffignac;
3. points in Rouffignac to significant concentrations of flutings in each form, separable from severines of the other forms;
4. from the stylistic analysis, raises research questions for investigation;
5. suggests hypotheses that, if supported, would tend to undermine the analysis; and
6. with the analysis, makes sense of many of the flutings found in Rouffignac.
The paper, therefore, probably establishes the existence of different forms of finger flutings in Rouffignac Cave, at least as a starting point for continuing investigation. This marks a step toward understanding the phenomenon of finger fluting.
Research now needs to turn to:
· a more detailed study of flutings of each form,
· the relationships that exist between clusters in different forms, and
· flutings that do not readily fall into one of the three suggested forms.
Perhaps sub-forms of one or other of the above three forms exist (for instance, when in association with figures), that other variables than fluter lower-body movement and the number of fingers prove more important, or that this stylistic analysis becomes more confusing than helpful.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the many people who have helped support this research:
· Jean and Marie-Odile Plassard, for their support and for permission to work in Rouffignac Cave.
· Our guides while in the cave: Sevérine Desbordes, Frédéric Goursolle, and Frédéric Plassard.
· Union Institute and University, for financial support through its faculty research grants.
· Robert Bednarik, Jean Clottes, Francesco d’Errico, Sandor Gallus (now deceased), Michel Lorblanchet, Alexander Marshack, and Hallam Movius Jr. (now deceased) for discussions and support over many years.
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