Amir D. Aczel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Books by Amir Aczel

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 - The Adventure of Niaux

  Chapter 2 - The Greatest Mystery

  Chapter 3 - The Neanderthal Enigma

  Chapter 4 - The Roots of Language

  Chapter 5 - Abbé Breuil

  Chapter 6 - Font-de-Gaume and Combarelles

  Chapter 7 - The Tale of a Missing Dog

  Chapter 8 - The Sign of the Bull and the Legend of the Minotaur

  Chapter 9 - Rouffignac and Pech Merle

  Chapter 10 - The Discovery of Lascaux

  Chapter 11 - The Enigma of the Pit

  Chapter 12 - The Groundbreaking Work of Annette Laming-Emperaire

  Chapter 13 - Prehistoric Objets d’Art

  Chapter 14 - The Sign of the Hand

  Chapter 15 - The Legend of the White Lady

  Chapter 16 - Shamans of the Tundra

  Chapter 17 - Stonehenge and Signs in the Sky

  Chapter 18 - The Mediterranean, Australia, and Patagonia

  Chapter 19 - Leroi-Gourhan’s Theory

  Chapter 20 - The Relationship between Signs and Animals

  Chapter 21 - The Chauvet Cave

  Notes

  References

  Illustration Credits

  Index

  Books by Amir Aczel

  The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution,

  and the Search of Peking Man

  The Artist nd the Mathematician: The Story of

  Nicola Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician

  Who Never Existed

  Descartes’s Secret Notebook: A True Tale of

  Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand

  the Universe

  Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, the Stock Market,

  and Just About Everything Else

  Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics

  Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science

  The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention That Changed

  the World

  The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and

  the Search for Infinity

  God’s Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding

  Universe

  Fermat’s Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient

  Mathematical Problem

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Copyright © 2009 by Amir D. Aczel. All rights reserved

  Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646--8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

  Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Aczel, Amir D.

  The cave and the cathedral: how a real-life Indiana Jones and a renegade scholar decoded the ancient art of man / Amir D. Aczel.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  eISBN : 978-0-470-63811-8

  1. Paleolithic period. 2. Magdalenian culture. 3. Cave paintings.

  4. Painting, Prehistoric 5. Niaux Cave (France) 6. Lascaux Cave (France)

  7. Chauvet Cave (France) 8. Antiquities, Prehistoric. I. Title.

  GN771.A28 2009

  930.1-dc22 2009006816

  2009006816

  To Miriam, who ventured into

  the depths of Combarelles

  Preface

  One of the greatest mysteries of the human experience on Earth—if not the greatest mystery of all—is the appearance, around 32,000 years ago, of magnificent paintings, drawings, and engravings of animals inside deep and often almost inaccessible recesses of large Ice Age caverns in France and Spain (and a small number of cases in southern Italy). The art seems to have followed very specific norms: It almost exclusively featured animals; there were only a few humanlike figures, never portrayed in as much detail as the animals. There was absolutely no terrain—no trees, no rivers, no mountains, no ground whatsoever; the animals appear to be floating in space, and their images often overlap.

  Stunningly, this specific practice had remained perfectly unchanged for 20,000 years—from 32,000 years ago until around 12,000 years ago; the art found in all of the decorated caves followed this exact format. Then, around 11,500 years ago, the fecund artistic activity in deep caves inexplicably came to an abrupt end. The mystery of cave art is the question “Why?”

  Why would the Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers of Europe expend so much time, effort, and resources to penetrate into deep, dark, and dangerous caverns, where they might encounter cave bears and lions or get lost and die? Why would they often crawl on all fours for distances of up to a mile or more underground, over mud and sharp stones, through narrow jagged fissures in the stony entrails of caves, aided only by the dim glow of animal-fat-burning stone candles, to paint amazing, haunting images of animals?

  The discovery of the first decorated caves in the 1870s shocked the world. Attempts to solve the mystery of the purpose, the meaning, and perhaps the hidden symbolism of Upper Paleolithic cave art in Europe began after the first decorated caves were discovered in the late nineteenth century—but these attempts were made only when people became convinced that the art was authentic. (The Paleolithic is the “Old Stone Age,” lasting from about 2.5 million years ago, roughly when stone tools appear—although some are even earlier than those and were made by early hominids—to about 11,000 years ago. The latter part, from 45,000 to 11,000 years ago is called the Upper Paleolithic, a period from 45,000 to around 11,000 years ago. Then comes a short intermediate period called the Mesolithic, and it is followed by the Neolithic, or the “New Stone Age.”) For a long time, they assumed that it had been produced by modern-day artists, perhaps as forgeries made to appear ancient.

  The first explanations of cave art were logical deductions people made by extrapolating from beliefs and practices of present-day hunter-gatherer societies, such as the magic of the hunt, shamanism, and “sympathetic magic,” or drawing animals as a way to induce them to be captured. These early hypotheses were prompted by observations of modern-day hunter-gatherer societies in Africa, Australia, and the Arctic and were supported by the finding that some of the animals depicted in caves (although not many) appeared to be wounded. In addition, in very few cases, the humanlike beings drawn in caves appeared to be wearing animal masks or to have features with animal characteristics, and this reminded scholars of the shamanistic practices of some modern-day societies.

  Yet it soon became clear that there must have been some mysterious and much deeper reason for the art, because the animals most often depicted in caves were not the most frequently consumed game. And the art was accompanied by strange, undecipherable signs, whose meaning was assumed to have something to do with the purpose behind this whole enterprise. Scientists were baffled; many proposed theories to explain the phenomenon, but all of these attempted explanations were found to have limitations.

  Then an intellectual giant of prehistoric studies, the French scholar André Leroi-Gourhan, developed a bold theory—one that went far beyond simple implications based on a comparison with modern-day societies.

  I became captivated with European cave art when I visited my first cavern: the famous cave of Niaux in the French Pyrenees a few years ago. Thereafter, I pursued an extensive effort aimed at solving the mysteries of this ancient artistic activity. After years of research and visits to most Paleolithic caves that are still open to the public, I became convinced of the power and depth of Leroi-Gourhan’s remarkable theory, even though his writings on cave art have bee
n criticized by some who came after him.

  But later is not always better. I believe that this French expert, who wrote in the 1950s, had it right, whereas those who came after him got it wrong. It’s unusual in science that a later theory should be seen as less correct than an earlier one; what is new usually supersedes the old way of thinking. But in the case of European Paleolithic cave art, I believe that what happened here bucks the trend, thus making it an even more interesting story.

  This book explores the deep mystery of Paleolithic cave art—perhaps the greatest of all mysteries of our ancient past, because it can potentially tell us something meaningful about where we came from and who we are and perhaps even shed some light on where we are going.

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to Professor Alfred I. Tauber, the director of the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University, for his continuing support and interest in my research. I thank the Center personnel and the librarians at Boston University for their help in my work of researching this book.

  Many thanks are due to the French Ministry of Culture for its permission to reprint various images of prehistoric art found in French caves. In particular, Frantz Delpla and Norbert Aujoulat have been especially helpful in providing images. I also thank the Plassard family, of Rouffignac, for an image from that cave.

  I thank my friend the artist Thomas Barron very warmly for the excellent drawing of The Sorcerer of the Chauvet cave, for the signs table, and for his deep insight into the art of the caves. I thank Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History for a discussion of cave art. I thank Julie House for information on aboriginal societies.

  I am very grateful to my agent, John Taylor (“Ike”) Williams of Kneerim & Williams in Boston, for his unwavering support throughout this and many previous projects, and my deep gratitude also goes to Hope Denekamp of Kneerim & Williams. I am especially indebted to my editor at John Wiley & Sons, Stephen Power, for all of his help, suggestions, and insights into the mystery of Paleolithic cave art. I greatly appreciate the help given me by Ellen B. Wright at the editorial department of Wiley. I also thank very much the production editor, Lisa Burstiner, for her superb editing of the book.

  Finally, I thank my wife, Debra, for her many ideas and suggestions and for her marvelous photographs of cave art.

  1

  The Adventure of Niaux

  THE CAVE OF NIAUX, IN SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE, IS ONE of the greatest prehistoric treasures of the world. It contains stunningly beautiful art created thousands of years ago. The cave is still open to the public, but in a very limited and controlled way.

  When my wife and I visited Niaux, waiting was hard, but we knew we didn’t have a choice. Being allowed to see this cave was a great privilege, one that might some day cease to be offered. The cave’s treasures are too fragile to expose long term to human beings and the carbon dioxide they invariably bring with them, along with body heat and bacteria. All of these are injurious to this pristine environment, which for millennia has been sealed off from the outside world. To be allowed the privilege of entry, you must apply weeks in advance and await your turn.

  So we waited in the beautiful countryside of southwestern France, enjoying this peaceful part of the world, with its small tradition-following towns and picturesque villages perched on hilltops. The French Pyrenees are a rustic, heavily forested mountain region where wild game is served in rural inns, along with regional wines made in small family vineyards on the foothills of these mountains.

  This is the region of the Cathars, a secretive religious sect that split from mainstream Catholicism in the Middle Ages. Its members were brutally persecuted by the Inquisition and found refuge in inaccessible chateaus they built on desolate mountain-tops in the twelfth century. These ruins can still be seen today, dotting the lower reaches of the Pyrenees.

  The Pyrenees are not quite as high as the Alps, but they are imposing mountains, steeply rising to about ten thousand feet. There are deep ravines here, and much water from melting snows flows through streams. These mountains are teeming with wildlife, such as birds of prey, deer, ibex, and even some bears, which have recently been reintroduced.

  What is amazing about this land is the antiquity of its habitation: people have lived on the lower slopes of these mountains almost ever since our Homo sapiens ancestors first arrived in Europe from Africa by way of the Middle East. The oldest finds in caves in the craggy mountain slopes date from 30,000 years ago. The cave of Niaux, however, is only half as old; it was decorated by prehistoric artists about 14,000 years ago.

  Finally, the guide called us. We rose early the next morning and drove uphill from the village of Tarascon, on the turbulent, muddy Ariège River, to the entrance of the cave of Niaux. The cave is situated in a thick forest above an ancient riverbed on a lower slope of the mountains.

  The morning mist was just starting to dissipate as our young French guide called us to assemble. She had a tough, commanding demeanor. “Stand here,” she ordered, “and everyone take his own electric lantern from the pile. Do not turn it on.”

  We were a small group, since only a handful of people are allowed each day to enter this primeval cave. There was a Dutchman, middle-aged and attentive; a young French couple in their twenties who wouldn’t give up their cigarettes until the last moment; and then there was George, an Englishman in his seventies who had introduced himself to me at the gift shop, accompanied by his daughter and a grandson. I worried about George, since I already had an idea about what our guide would say next.

  “So, remember,” she told us, “you have to walk fast. We have a very long way to go underground: eight hundred meters [half a mile]. And it is on rocks and sand, and up and down. And the rocks are very, very slippery. And you cannot see very well inside the cave. Every day, somebody falls. Do you want to be that somebody? No? Then you must be careful. And do not get behind. If you do, you fall or even get lost and we never find you.”

  We looked at one another. Some smiled, others shrugged their shoulders. Then we turned on our lights and filed, one by one, through the narrow, jagged cave entrance. I had a feeling that our guide was not exaggerating. “Remember,” she continued once we were all inside the cave, “you are not allowed to touch anything. Never ever touch the cave walls—even if you are about to slip and fall. These walls have been here millions of years, and if you touch them, you give them bacteria that can destroy the art. Okay? So let’s move.”

  Water was slowly dripping from the stalactites above onto the cave floor, and we all started to slip here and there, barely catching ourselves from falling as we progressed ever deeper into this dark cavern. The lanterns did not provide enough light to see everything in front of us. If you focused your attention too much on the ground, you might not see a sudden lowering of the cave ceiling in front of you in time to duck and avoid smashing your head.

  About fifteen minutes into our brisk march through this tortuous, dark, and narrow rocky corridor, our guide suddenly stopped. The French couple, my wife, and I were right behind her, but the Dutchman and George and his family were somewhere behind. The Dutchman finally appeared, but no Britons. I feared that perhaps George couldn’t walk as fast as required, and his daughter and grandson had to stay behind with him. Tense moments passed: had they inadvertently taken a wrong turn?

  This was a very tricky underground trail. Few people traverse it, and there are no aids to finding your way: no cleared paths, no steps or pavement, no electric lighting—aids that almost all caves that are open to the public now have. There were several branching points along the trail, leading to distant dead-ends, and you could walk or crawl for miles only to realize that you were completely lost. (Judith Thurman, in an interesting article about cave art in the June 23, 2008, issue of the New Yorker, described an experiment in which the guides who have been working at Niaux for years tried to see if they could find their way out of the cave without light; not one of them could.) In addition, it was cold: a constant 51 degrees (outside, it was in the mid-80s). We had all been instructed to bring sweaters and other warm clothing, as well as good walking shoes, or else we would not be allowed to enter. The dampness, the constricted space, and the nearness of forbidding cave walls made it feel even colder than the actual temperature. I could see that some in our group were shivering.