4 hours ago
Credit, University of Durham/PA
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Furniture restorer Ben Bacon spent hours deciphering cave paintings
According to a new study, Ice Age huntergatherers who lived in parts of Europe used cave paintings to record information about animal life.
Experts had already noticed markings on these paintings many of them dating as far back as 20,000 years but their significance had never been identified.
Thanks to the work of furniture restorer and amateur archaeologist Ben Bacon, it has now been discovered that the markings on the drawings are related to the life cycles and reproduction of animals, many of which were hunted by our ancestors.
Bacon has teamed up with two scientists to report the findings, published in the Cambridge Archeological Journal.
The cave paintings on the cave walls depicted animals such as reindeer, fish, bison and aurochs (an extinct species of cattle). But the dots and markings present in the paintings left archaeologists baffled.
Bacon analyzed hundreds of these paintings in his spare time and came to the conclusion that they could refer to some kind of lunar calendar, that is, records of the reproductive cycles of animals.
Bacon said it was “surreal” to decipher what the huntergatherers were saying.
Credit, Henri Breuli/Durham University/PA Wire
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Spots like this, created 23,000 years ago, helped Ice Age huntergatherers survive
The furniture restorer spent hours online and in the British Library, sifting through photos of cave paintings and looking for repeating patterns.
In particular, he examined a Yshaped mark on some paintings. He believed the symbol meant “to give birth” because it showed one line growing out of another.
Credit, Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann/Durham University/PA
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These wild horse drawings were made about 30,000 years ago
In the course of his research, he shared his findings with friends and scientists. They encouraged him to continue his investigations, even though Bacon was an amateur in the field.
He worked with a team that included two professors from the University of Durham and one from University College London. By calculating the birth cycles of similar animals in our time, they concluded that the number of markings on cave paintings was a record of the animals’ breeding seasons per lunar month.
Credit, Berenguer, M/Durham University/PA Wire
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The reproductive cycles of the animals were recorded with dots and markers.
Professor Paul Pettitt of Durham University said he was “glad to have taken Bacon’s findings seriously”.
“The results show that Ice Age huntergatherers were the first to use a systemic calendar and markers to record information about important ecological events within that calendar.”
Credit, Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann/Durham University/PA
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These drawings and markings were made 15,000 years ago
“We managed to show that these people who left the Lascaux caves left a legacy of spectacular art [na França] and Altamira [na Espanha]also left an early record of timing that would eventually become the standard in our species.
Bacon said that our ancestors “were much more like us than we previously thought. These people, separated from us by many millennia, are suddenly much closer.”