The Wall Art of the Franco‐cantabrian Deep Caves

Rethinking the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition

“…The appearance of personal ornaments and long-distance exchange and the possibility of rising population densities may be regarded as signs of people living under pressure and in the process of forming wider associations. In this context the spectacular increase in cave art and ceremony may represent an effort to reduce conflict or, more positively, to create allegiances beyond those of kith and kin, and status burials may indicate the emergence of individuals specializing in the organization of ceremony (Eastham and Eastham 1979;Denis Vialou, personal communication, 1980). I have only one small bone to pick with this paper, specifically with the last paragraph, where White states that "there are undoubtedly other constructs" to account for the Middle/ Upper Paleolithic transition and refers to his own as a "house of cards."…”

Pleistocene Prelude: The Implications of the Way Things are Drawn by Ice Age Draftsmen in Europe

“…Further east, Altamira, in Santander, has polychrome bison and other animal depictions on the big ceiling which resemble animals resting in a neighboring doline (sinkhole or depression). Ekain in Cantabria describes part of the valley of the Urola and the junction of the valleys of the small tributaries Sastarrain and Galcibar on which it is situated (Eastham and Eastham 1979;Altuna and Maria Apellaniz 1976). Parts of the huge caves of Niaux and Trois Fréres, above tributaries of the Ariège, reproduce local features and in the early 1960s a hunter is said to have taken a red deer stag moving northward from the Pyrenées across valleys and into a position that is perfectly emulated by the stags head in the Camarin in le Portel (Vezian, personal communication, 1975).…”

Pictures, jargon and theory—our own ethnography and roadside rock art. In F.D. McCarthy, Commemorative Papers (Archaeology, Anthropology, Rock Art), ed. Jim Specht

“…Ground-lines are a step in the evolution of renaissance perspective (see Baines, 1985;Clegg, 1981:138-161;Eastham & Eastham, 1979;Gowans, 1979;Kemp, 1978;Schafer, 1974; and the various dictionaries of art mentioned above). The only possible ground lines in my observed sample were some words which had been underlined.…”