GARGAS

cave in southern France containing important examples of Late Paleolithic mural art, paintings and engravings dating from the Aurignacian Period, the oldest phase of European Stone Age art. The cave and its decoration were discovered in 1887. Many macaroni, or finger tracings, appear on the clay walls and ceiling of the cave; some are simply tangled lines, representing the most ancient attempts at art, and some are primitive but lively outlines of animal forms. From a somewhat later stage are a number of engraved animal pictures cut with a sharp tool into the rock of the cave: wild horses, ibex, stags, oxen, bison, and mammoths were rendered in a vigorous naturalism that is typical of Aurignacian art and probably functioned as magical images relating to hunting and animal fertility. The distinctive feature of the decoration at Gargas, however, is the large number of silhouettes of human hands painted on the walls of the cave. These are negative imprints of real hands, achieved by blowing paint around and between the fingers while the hand is held pressed to the wall surface. Hand silhouettes of this type are the oldest form of painting known, the earliest examples dating from about 30,000 BC. They occur throughout the cave art of France and Spain, both as negative and as positive prints made by hands dipped in paint and pressed on the wall, but they are most numerous at Gargas, where more than 150 have been found. At Gargas, red and black pigments were used, the red being earlier, and the prints are often arranged in horizontal rows, revealing, even at this early stage, a feeling for artistic composition and rhythmic repetition of motif. A curious feature of these silhouettes is that many are representations of mutilated hands with one or more finger joints missing, most frequently the last two joints of the last four fingers. Often the same mutilated hand is stenciled repeatedly over an area. This mutilation may have been the result of voluntary sacrificial amputation or, more likely, of disease associated with malnutrition and exposure to cold. The significance of these handprints is unknown. The motif is widespread in Stone Age art, appearing not only in Ice Age Europe but also in the art of primitive hunter cultures in Africa, Australia, and America. It may have served primitive man as a sort of personal signature, defining his relationship with his tribe or with supernatural powers or perhaps sealing some promise made to his companions or to the gods. The imprinted hand may also have been a symbol of possession.