Cro Magnon People and Art SUMMARY AND REVIEW The inhabitants of Europe du

Traditionally, archeologists interpreted the images as forms of hunting magic, fertility magic, and meaningless doodles. It was assumed that the primary purpose of such artwork was little more than rituals dedicated to successful hunting and survival.

Alexander Marshack developed a different approach to inter-preting ice age art. His purpose was to seek out the motives of the artists, and perhaps gain some insight into their state of mind. His methods included the use of a microscope and infrared and ultraviolet lights combined with photography. His sources of data were various artifacts and French caves which contain some of the best samples of ice age cave paintings.

Cro Magnon art was usually made by a combination of surface etching and the use of pigments to add color. Various oxides were used for the purpose of pigmentation. Marshack's use of special lights made it possible to analyze cave art in new ways, because the lights could read through surface layers to reveal paintings underneath. This allowed him to determine the sequence of layers in a complex composition. By sorting out which elements were added first

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ns were absent. It seemed to reflect the abundance that follows the spring thaw -- the annual return of the salmon, the seals that feed on them, and the regeneration of plant life. Another assumption which may be questioned was made with reference to female images. A series of images of female buttocks, with images crossed, led the author to conclude that they may have been used to count monthly cycles or months of gestation. Again, this cannot be proven conclusively, but it is a logical assump-tion and it makes more sense as a record of gestation. Particu-larly when one considers that some images were crossed out or marked "as many as nine separate times." (p. 82) If these people did make the association with the cycles of the moon as being a recurring measure of time, recording the lunar cycles during a pregnancy would have revealed that gestation took nine months. Generally, Marshack's work appears to have few weaknesses. Any approach would have to make use of some assumptions, and those that were made appear to be reasonable. While some of his colleagues do not agree with his conclusions, his work is likely to make an important contribution because of its many strenghts. The use of infrared and ultraviolet rays was on
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1610
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)