Ice Age Cave Art: Unlocking the Mysteries Behind These Markings | Nat Geo Live

[@hell-hollowfarmer41]

Hey Nat Geo, bring her back for more content! Genevieve Von Petzinger put on a great presentation as always!

[@gbeatsmacedonia]

but she has no clue about this she mislead nd assume only this is utter bs

[@bigbensarrowheadchannel2739]

We should give our ancestors more credit than we do. Their achievements are phenomenal.

[@billrobbins5874]

Wish it were that easy to communicate. 🐘

[@thuy-locvu4539]

Look like there is drawing of windows in the cave?

[@bimfred]

check out the Chauvet Cave!

[@ticket2space]

Definitely

[@kevinhoward9593]

It's amazing how vibrant the colors are even 40,000 years later.

[@ramencurry6672]

I think the ink or markings is basically some type of natural chemical based or earth based along with being an environment that’s sealed. If I spray painted a rock and kept it sealed the markings will probably last for thousands of years as long as it’s sealed

[@bimfred]

check out the Chauvet Cave!

[@Known-unknowns]

Maybe these are just the ones left. Maybe they painted on trees and walls everywhere, but they’ve all gone. Maybe there were many paintings up the front of the cave, but they’ve all gone. Now you’re only left with the ones right at the back. I suspect their world was covered in their art.

[@tomcollins5112]

The vast majority of their art was probably above the surface. They would have painted a lot on hides, bark, wood, etc... Like how the Native Americans painted on their teepees. You can tell their art was well developed before they made these paintings on cave walls.

[@Known-unknowns]

@@tomcollins5112 I suspect they knew exactly what they were doing. They saw their art being rubbed off, fading and washed away. They went to the back of the cave to ensure it stayed on the wall. They wanted us to find it . . .

[@forestdweller5581]

iMAGINE THE WOODWORK THAT WA LOST.

[@lemonjuice3551]

@@forestdweller5581 IMAGINE WHERE THEY GOT THEIR VITAMIN C FROM

[@bigsawdust4726]

@@lemonjuice3551FROM LEMON JUICE? DID THEY HAVE LEMONS?

[@raccoonresident5760]

5:48 are directions from one feeding ground to another. It is writing it is words and sounds.

[@alexheyd5385]

Is absolutely fascinating!! I'm going on a research binge all about cave art!!

[@tisbutascratch2045]

To me, walking so far into the cave likely was meant for the people going there to believe as if they were entering another world. To get to the sacred messages on the on the wall, one should walk far into the caves depths out of respect as a kind of pilgrimage. Making it less accessible keeps it better preserved and having to walk so far to see it makes its reveal far more fantastic. I also think maybe they would use the time walking to tell stories or maybe they were in complete silence. Either way, it would be a transcending experience.

[@johnishikawa2200]

People from across time reaching up to us . Nobody had any written language , as far as is known , and everyone on the planet lived in hunter gatherer communities . Life was simple and short for our ancestors from those times , but the constellations that they saw in the night sky - not considering light pollution - were virtually unchanged from the ones that we can see now .

[@markjennings2605]

Those human figures at 3:04 are amazing.

[@TexRenner]

It just dawn on me, these aren't the only ones our ancestors made. They are the few we've discovered of those which lasted. They may have painted everything, everywhere.

[@Mrkyrwy]

I saw some animation about caves and for 4 hours straight I watched these documentaries, I'm high af too

[@prettylights8873]

Me too, I need more.

[@TexRenner]

So were they.

[@mmmsbc3]

Ice Age Art is amazing! Going into the caves and seeing the art and the symbols is something I will never forget. I was fortunate to go into 5 different caves and sites in 1991. Those experiences have stayed with me forever. Each cave is different and has a unique personality. It is amazing though how many times the abstract symbols are similar at different sites. Thank you!

[@deandeann1541]

The abstract art near animal figures - I wonder if it sometimes could record what time of year certain prey animals migrated through the local area? And/or recorded how many were seen?

[@Parker_Douglas]

Fascinating indeed. In Scotland there’s standing stones leftover from the Celts & Picts with cracking art on them.

[@petergrant6973]

I think the key to understanding all of this prehistoric art is to consider it as part of the education system of people with no written language. With no written language, all knowledge must be transferred from 1 generation to the next verbally. As demonstrated by the Australian Aboriginal culture, this can be done very effectively by encoding knowledge in the form of colourful stories which can be very memorable. Such stories can be very effectively supported by music, dance, rituals, actions and pictorial supports. Such an education system is far from simple. While it is age graduated, much like modern education systems, it is not divided into 'subjects'. Cultural, religious, scientific, family, historical, geographical, botanical, zoological, etc. etc, are all blended into holistic knowledge appropriate for the age group and gender. Cave and rock art can (at least in part) be viewed as visual aids and actions to support the education system. Of course, despite surviving very effectively for tens of thousands of years, the education system fails when whole generations and cultures are destroyed. The stories, language, music, dance and meanings of art and symbols are lost together with all the knowledge they conveyed. The loss of this world knowledge is the legacy our colonial history leaves.

[@tomcollins5112]

I would lay more blame on the transition from the paleolithic to the neolithic than on "our colonial history". These cave paintings are paleolithic, and the culture changed when they gave up the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for farming.

[@thegoodthebadandtheugly579]

I think thinking about it as “educational system” is an anachronism. It might be something along the lines of marking your land, clan or something similar.. if these people didn’t really have a proper language you can easily imagine how difficult it was convey anything verbally without some sort of drawings.. the funny thing is - we are left with these long-lasting cave paintings and stone carvings, but it’s easier to draw on sand or mud.. and I bet you they did so - we just don’t have any of that surviving..

[@ralphstern2845]

Oral traditions amongst the Celts were similarly transmitted with many mnemonic devices.

[@oldmech619]

A challenge and this is my mark.

[@FacesintheStone]

There is a Complex Multifaceted Style of art within lithic Artifacts that is the recorded history of these ancient people. We’re learning more about it every day, I just found out about it four months ago when amount was being destroyed near my house and I started finding little bird artifacts. We found possibly the last of this type of lithic art, calling them the gateway examples because they have photo realistic Painted images on them like the one in my avatar with the left side profile. That picture is from an actual artifact that I collected and showcase on this channel. It’s all about trying to raise awareness, not for profit.

[@hardworkhardplay]

I don’t like blank walls in my house either.

[@mver191]

Does your house start 1.2 km into a dark cave?

[@domc3ltu671]

@@mver191 :DD

[@RobertJarecki]

​@mver191 My house starts 0.7456 miles into a cave but I prefer statuary.

[@JohnMacFergus-oz5cp]

Thank you for adding your insights into this beautiful puzzle we call human creativity.

[@SeanGelarden]

As an artist i salute their line quality reminds me of Mattise

[@alecbrown66]

There was what could be called a neolithic Rosetta stone deciphered recently on a rock outside, that was full of geometric patterns, that the archaeologists discovered was an accurate 3D map of the area ( i believe it was adjacent to the river Gironde in south west france. That used geometric designs for the rivers, streams, mountains, and possibly farmsteads and settlements, including pathways and tracks. It too used the geometric forms discussed in this fascinating lecture.

[@walterbenjamin1386]

Can you please say more about this or direct us to a source? I tried to find info on this but wasn’t able. Thank you.

[@bonnitaclaus2286]

The lines at the angle or the diagonal remind me of tattoos found on the iceman from The Alps.

[@corneliusdinkmeyer2190]

I didn’t even know he had tattoos!

[@MrSRCOCPA]

It is, I suppose, human nature for us modern people to think of our ancient ancestors as unintelligent when nothing could be further from the truth.

[@JosephFuller]

Could the geometric patterns be adopted by tribal or family groups to mark out the 'exploits' of family groups? My ancestors did something similar with patterns on buffalo hides; some symbols were adopted by a family and then around that they would paint buffaloes to show large kills made by a family hunter or triangles to show houses built by family members, perhaps the hands would be as part of a rite of passage into adulthood as reaching that age was likely difficult and the habit went out as the family died or the culture changed, etc.

[@michaela.8307]

That's an interesting hypothesis. If each tribal or family group adopted a particular geometric pattern (or a specific arrangement of patterns) almost like a coat of arms, then it would follow that these would be localized to certain areas. But if the same patterns or arrangements occur over a much larger area than could be occupied by a single tribe or family, this hypothesis becomes unlikely and it's more probable that they were symbols with a widely understood meaning. So it's a testable idea, but I don't know enough about this topic to be able to know if the available data would tend to confirm or rule it out.

[@michaela.8307]

I also think that it would be a great idea for some Native American archaeologists to investigate European prehistoric sites. The prehistoric European lifestyle was quite comparable to that of pre-contact Native Americans. They may be able to inject some new ideas into the discipline based upon analogies drawn from their own history. Besides, people of European descent have long been researching the Native American past; it would be nice to turn the tables a bit.

[@flexstitch6014]

Kinda like game of thrones

[@deandeann1541]

@@michaela.8307 Australean natives may have something to add also.

[@missourimongoose8858]

If you would like to see some unknown rock art made by the mississippians I made a video showing a bluff around my families land on my channel that has a bunch of red paintings of people, animals,, shapes and 2 filled in caves

[@GrandmaBev64]

Hey, at 3:20, I see animals and even people, carved into the wall. A bird, on the right, below the red paint. Above the red is a deer or horned animal and to the left, on the top, looks like stick men. I absolutely love this kind of stuff.

[@flightographist]

Interestingly, in Columbia, the recently discovered ice age rock wall glyphs have hands! Dated to approx. 12.5 k yr old, depicting mammoth, ground sloths, horses and more! The site is the most extensive collection of ice age art in the world. The snake symbols, the zig zag, the dots and circles are all there too.

[@writerconsidered]

My thoughts on the dots is could it be some kind of crude abacus?

[@d.b.cooper8178]

Counting something yes! Days? Seasons? Moons? Kills? Who knows?

[@barbusie4764]

They were using the length of the cave as a time line..

[@auletjohnast03638]

Barbusie, Your god hillary lost. he he he, ha ha ha! Viva Trump!🇺🇸

[@myronbirdsong4493]

@@auletjohnast03638 oh that reply didnt age well 😌

[@aytheonashhelm3450]

@H lol u lame

[@ArawalliTrekker]

Nice information such types pre historic art found in Arawalli mountain

[@brianaallbright3525]

This is cool :D I'm a sophomore high schooler in AP World History and we've been learning about this kind of thing. It's super interesting. Thank you for uploading!

[@jsmcguireIII]

I like how National Geographic posts "No mature content" on this. Tell me what is more mature than 14,000 year old art?

[@therealbigfoot3076]

?????

[@sfdgdrgdvxff]

Nice knee slapper, dad joker

[@samiyahcorelli7688]

ok boomer

[@dward8024]

ha ha h a aha

[@bennolee348]

I put on my big boy pants every time I look at cave art

[@pleromicpastry5445]

Abstract Expressionism wasn't as avante garde as we thought it was. Rothko and company just had a better variety of pigments.

[@johanengelen8979]

about the dots a British amateur archeologist Bennet Bacon a furniture conservator has come up with a possible explanation about the dots. His theory was supported by professionals and has since been published Each dot or line, they suggest, represented one month, with the number of symbols indicating how many months after the start of spring each animal’s mating season began. For example, horses were often accompanied by three marks, while mammoths had five. No sequence contained more than 13 symbols, and there are 13 months in the lunar year. The placement of the Y-shaped mark indicates the month that the animal gives birth,

[@LiveFreeOrDie2A]

Maybe they didn’t start their art until 3/4 of a mile into the cave for very obvious common sense reasons.. like the fact the outside world was harsh and dangerous, so it wasn’t until being able to venture that far into the cave did their guards drop enough to fully relax and get creative/artistic. Perhaps this cave was used as a nursery of sorts when needed? The women would be brought to this cave near the end of pregnancy, give birth, and remain for a while when mother/child were most vulnerable.. being so deep in the cave helped muffle the cries of a screaming infant that may alert rival clans to your vulnerable location. They would revisit over the years, adding more art to the nursery walls, and use as teaching tools as their children grew.. passing on knowledge to the next generations. The added benefit of not starting any of their cave art until so deep in the cave, would also be that any outsiders who happened upon it would have to venture as deep as they did before being alerted to a prior presence- and- even any cave art created by outsiders as deep as 1/2 mile in the cave would be spotted by them and let them know outsiders had been in the cave since they last were. Anyways, I don’t know!.. those are just a couple of reasons off the top of my head for why the art doesn’t start until 3/4 mile in!!- it’s not hard to imagine a ton of potential reasons why! I just didn’t understand the speakers perplexity at the thought of logical reasons

[@woody500z]

Listened to this lady before! She is amazing! We should be funding her research!

[@Foxglove963]

Big MAWman. Why should we? She knows nothing.

[@inigoromon1937]

The greatness of science IS that an Australian woman can crawl miles and miles of Spanish and French caves to Review the remmants of our common great great grandparents.

[@lindamclean8809]

Excellent

[@eric_hates_the_poor]

I’d rather see funding go toward finding out where we came from than to exploring outer space.

[@peterpan58]

i have seen something like this in a canyon here in laguna new Mexico

[@jonathanryals9934]

Ignored: microlithic imagery deemed "just rocks". Sure, not every rock face was carved, but if we can see faces in the rocks so could they. There's something to it. I believe they are part of teaching stories to help guide people through the reduction sequence to make proper tools from various types of stone.

[@anafreitas1646]

I am so adding her book to next Christmas list... that is some amazing work.

[@UrMahm]

Truly amazing! Thank you for helping us see a glimpse from all of our pasts! That was incredible.

[@dudabaltar]

I love Genevieve so much! She’s so incredible and inteligent!! I would spent hours listening to her

[@Matthew-vu7su]

These questions seem to have been answered in the BBC documentary "How Art Made the World: The Day Pictures Were Born"

[@raccoonresident5760]

True most dots shown are landscape features.,

[@raccoonresident5760]

When those trees were painted were no trees present during the ice age.

[@Kenshiroit]

dots are people, en masse. Sticks are warriors. source Aboriginal Australians, they still cave paintings similar to this and their is the world longest continuos culture spawning 30.000 years at least, perhaps even double that.

[@SenorPescadorJohnson]

nice, explains maybe some of what I have seen in Yucatan caves and a couple others, old old places in 'central america' I know of, cheers

[@bimfred]

Crazy to do a talk like that without mentioning the Chauvet cave!!?

[@shahzebfarooq1256]

One thing is for sure, these cave people can paint much better than me

[@raccoonresident5760]

Ok the first phots she showed enhanced, gave the whole explaination. It shows they came off the glacier. Following the animals on the left. The animals on the left are going to new feeding grounds. The animals they were following or herding were horse and..the caves were shortcuts. The caves collapsed tho where’s the rest of the story? The geometric shapes represent hilltops. Or gouges in the ground filled with water. These are glacial land features. And language. The strait lines represent ice or challenge, or an ice challenge.,

[@thepadonthepondbythescum]

Good grant pitch. Here is my wacky theory; In line with recent "tic tac" videos, the geometric shapes are time traveler messages! Seriously, why so far into the cave? Security. You would need good light to travel that far back into a cave where you would not be disturbed. Just having some fun with it!

[@raccoonresident5760]

7:17 the bits are in the wrong order. I can’t read them right. Where were they found?

[@CatherineSTodd]

What is the beautiful short piece of music at the very end of the video? Would like to hear more!

[@mongolchiuud8931]

This is how Weyland found the Engineers colony on LV-223.

[@isaiahclayton3131]

#aliencovenant

[@nowaout8014]

im just seeing video and was thinking the same thing👍

[@themechanictangerine]

It's the Cantabrian Mountains not the Pyrenees.

[@hugo2374]

Since she was there,it is an error that she says the cave,Cullalvera,is in the Pyrenees Mountains. It is not,the Pyrenees end in the border with France.The cave is in the Cantabrian Mountains.

[@Foxglove963]

It so happens the Pyrenees form the border between Spain and France.

[@petyrlafloure215]

Many drawings seem to be showing how to hunt certain things.. Using different camouflage

[@thatstherecipe]

what paint material did they use ? are there any finger prints ?

[@JohnDoe-mk9nf]

I found some portable rock art in western pa that is almost identical to the cave painting except it's much more detailed..it shows a sabre tooth tiger following a large mastodon in distress.and on the reverse is just a baby mammoth. I have pics if anyone wpuod like to see.same people I'm pretty sure

[@DiegoRedeemedLover]

Oooh that sounds fascinating please share it!

[@kellydittus4772]

I don't understand why these paintings were not painted over hundreds of times over the thousands of years. How come those caves aren't totally littered with pics. After being used for many generations.

[@joyful-dc9gn]

They were possible education centers. Pertaining to calendars of the world they lived animal migration seasons ect. The thing that caught my eye was the z next to two slightly curved lines hasn't been used for a long time in the Americas in oral stories its a tattoo on left side of the face signifying the status of a spirit shaman a very very rare title indeed

[@ibeetellingya5683]

It's funny that there's plenty of modern art that we don't understand what the maker was thinking unless they tell us.

[@tarzxan4615]

Caves was a place of refuge . Some stayed in there and didn’t delveop melotine

[@aserrodriguez6609]

It shouldn't be too hard with the technology we have now. Awesome idea let's do it. I'm sure it will show some kind of language or consistency

[@Foxglove963]

Aser. It's called SYMBOLISM it does not need words. In the initial stages of TRANCE are seen specific patterns which are the same the world over.

[@travisknight6359]

I've seen the same kinds of geometric signs carved in stone in the bush near Sydney Australia. I still know where they are but don't tell people so they stay preserved as long as possible.

[@theduppykillah]

Love this….you must be thrilled by the new lunar calendar hypothesis that is really gaining traction…I suggest that the reason someone would go in as far as they could was either to inscribe some crucial glyphs / knowledge in a place that would never see traffic lest it be disturbed…OR it was the Ice Age equivalent of an “own”, perhaps some cheeky child wanted bragging rights?

[@arslan9793]

There are similar cave paintings discovered in Baluchistan, Pakistan. A military personnel told me once.

[@geoffwalters6055]

I follow Desert Drifter on KZbin. Took a screenshot of the symbols chart. All over the American Landscape. Ancient Puebloan

[@liwoszarchaeologist]

well yeah... Lewis-Williams (and Dowson) established a 3-stage model of image acquisition, progressing towards iconic and stylistically conventionalized forms recognizable from the painters' cultural training. Surely seriation on such a small set of motifs should demonstrate more standardization within each motif, and an increasingly broad lexicon of motifs, over time. How does the dataset compare with this prediction? I want some stats, stat!

[@CT-qx8nl]

I guess no one is gonna talk about not only the obvious red and black dashes @1:17 but the ghostly figure standing behind a Buffalo that looks to be charging something. I can't be the only one who see it!

[@jollyroger7624]

Very strange to say symbols don't represent language?!

[@beforeoriondotcom]

A more complete picture of Paleolithic cave art can be found at kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKKpnIZopr6DhKc

[@alesjamsek2324]

5 woods calendar is algo Celtic Viking Slavic prechristian tradition.

[@aaronfisher4111]

What if they were characters for the 32 things they only felt relevant enough to symbolize.

[@jeffreypaul734]

If I start painting on the walls of a cave they call it defacing public property..... We're not free.

[@michaelgonzalez9058]

Spain is the area we explored

[@jchrg2336]

How to fit the puzzle..key pieces, key stones..what humans saw why they raise their hands was for worship and to defend at the same strange time

[@michaelgonzalez9058]

It's a map of the cave surrounding geography

[@abacus749]

0.17mins re the 'geometric signs.' Look at Chinese paintings of animals ,these have 'geometric signs' in red or black but are the signature of the artists. Were MAGIC LANTERNS used to project slides {made by missionaries ) of Chinese ink paintings onto the walls? Those assisstants [perhaps to Henri Breuil a French Missionary,Archaeologist and finder of Paleolithic cave paintings] doing the tracing may have reproduced the 'geometric signs' without knowing that they were signatures.

[@rickybrown689]

The tall black penniform looks like an arrow or a spear with fletchings or possibly an important staff and the red behind appears to be dancers or people celebrating.

[@ricoochie9149]

Culleveras Cave is in Cantabria, not the Pyrenees

[@Ntmoffi]

I wonder how they can get a date from these drawings.

[@routeman680]

+Glorywhole No need to wonder: you can find that out. For example, if charcoal has been used in the drawing, then it can be dated from the proportion of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in the charcoal. If the drawing is covered by limestone flow, then that postdates the drawing. The flow can be dated by Uranium/Thorium dating.

[@warriorprincess7046]

They can’t really they are just guessing.

[@Myacckt]

tania L they can it is called carbon dating

[@ErgoCogita]

@@warriorprincess7046 _"They can’t really they are just guessing."_ No Tania... you are guessing.

[@GODISALL-LOVE]

I can’t think of the exact name of it. But some sort of crustaceans forms over the drawings over time. This is what they date. It don’t really mean thays when the painting was drawn big means it has to have been there for at least that long.

[@jenniferwhittamore2372]

I'm pretty sure the E with two short lines at 5:40 actually was writing because over time people have gotten lazier and maybe the E was actually an older C, it just lost the two lines. For example this sign $ used to have two lines through it but not anymore because people got lazier.

[@Foxglove963]

Lazy you say. Look at the massive works done in the Neolithic, 5.000 years ago, great chambered mounds, stone circles, dolmens, landscape art.

[@xxulitimawolfxx7939]

What does the spirals they drew represent?

[@VikingMuayThai]

listen to Lateralus by TOOL

[@dragonfox2.058]

the caves are the womb of the Great Mother. We went in there there to implore Her to return the animals next year. It was the ancient religion. I think there was a college/clan of sorts for the artists as the styles stay pretty much the same for thousands of years, at least in Europe. It was sorta like the school of the impressionists only lasted far longer. And I suspect that most of the artists were women who were Her priestesses. There is a deep vibrational thrill in me when I see these paintings, a sort of genetic memory....❤

[@jadawin10]

Speculation on speculation...

[@greenteambc]

Those dots look like andromeda galaxy

[@bethbartlett5692]

This clip looks very much like a "Ted Talks" ......."?" *"Is it cost prohibitive to upload an entire Nat Geo film?"*

[@JiveDadson]

What is the biggest rock?

[@suzanbradford3014]

Imho these large individualized abstract triline forms represent especially great perihelion comets and the varying dot tallies of same..check the NASA website of great comets in history to compare recent comet tallies of great length.The immense expanse of time covered here would also provide a bit of timeline for the oral tradition populations. The critters are sometimes constellations which also may indicate seasons. A previous article indicated a majority of hands were from females.

[@tikiirving]

aboot she's Canadian lol but very interesting! thank you for sharing. i find pictographs and petroglyphs all over my local area and it's fascinating to see and compare from around the world.

[@fryertuck5375]

GRAHAM HANCOCK doesn't make as many assumptions as this woman.

[@kathyb2562]

Not a description of life but fond memories...?!

[@margo3367]

I think they spoke some kind of language, but writing? Perhaps symbols that were universally understood; I can't rule anything out because we just don't know. I like the idea maybe the dots were representing constellations.

[@Foxglove963]

Counting system came early.

[@jchrg2336]

Every living thing has energies

[@geneauger]

How do they put an age on these drawings, they are shown to have been at various dates, it is mind-boggling.

[@Foxglove963]

It is only mind boggling to YOU.

[@HallieWiseleyCraig]

In some cases, at least, they can carbon date the inks and other materials found in the cave.

[@keithtomlinson128]

Its not a cathedral entrance,,its a hole in the side of a hill

[@patrickbush9526]

Many ancient alien theorists believe National Geographic is from another planet

[@TVBasil]

"Unlocking the Mysteries." No, mysteries still locked.

[@IV94704]

That very first image enhanced looks like a flying saucer and a humanoid hiding behind a crack in the wall

[@corneliusdinkmeyer2190]

How were they able to see anything inside the cave??

[@Ppurk]

Perhaps "Killroy was here"?

[@thetawaves48]

How did they light their way that far into the cave?

[@Thornspyre81]

Little plate type things that have a clump of animal fat and different types of kindling

[@petercoleman7882]

Ships with sails? maybe.

[@SunRabbit]

They put those drawings very deep into the cave so they would be protected. The subject matter pertained to land ownership and hunting rights by family groups, and these would have had the same significance as legal agreements. The meaning is immediately obvious to a stupid guy like myself. A drawing of an auroch with a feather or tree simbol having 9 branches is real simple: for every 9 people of [this, not that] clan indicated by [this] hand can hunt 1 auroch on [this, not that] side of the river. The handprints were signatures.