The Caves of Religion

[Free Blog #1]

I am not unfamiliar with the paintings at Lascaux. I remember in 6th grade when my English/History teacher covered the walls of a side classroom with brown paper and had us draw animals in chalk on it during our prehistory unit. However, it wasn’t until I was reading our assigned article, “Paleolithic Art and Religion,” that I started thinking about those paintings (and any similar paleolithic art) in a religious light. When Will mentioned his similar thought in class, I started thinking some more about it.

We tend not to think of prehistoric people as religious, and usually only see practicality in their tools and aesthetic pleasure in their art. I think we generally think of the dawn of religion beginning around the time that forms of writing were being developed, but it doesn’t make sense to think that religion only sprung up once people were able to record it through symbols. Surely, the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Indians had rich religious practices even before their writing systems were developed. The Celts had very strong religious beliefs and practices and conquered much of Northern Europe, but had no widely-used system of writing.

I just find it really interesting that when people think of “cave art” they generally only attribute it to the doodles of the people of that time, as something that they did for pleasure. It seems so obvious to me now that, of course, there was more too it than simply drawing as a past-time. Perhaps the reasons most people don’t claim that the drawings are religious or shamanistic in nature are because we can’t know for sure, and also because we don’t want to force religion onto a people who can’t defend themselves. Either way, it’s intensely interesting to think about what their intentions might have been, and what was passed on from their practices to ours.