Caves Niaux - Summary of reading:
Caves Niaux
Prehistoric Art in Ariège
By Jean Clottes
For Seuil
Michel Begon - December 1995
Today Heritage Curator in the Department of Cultural Affairs, Mr. Jean Clottes was long a professor at Foix and member of the caving club of Ariege and Aude . The passion of underground cavities has not left since the relevant publishes monographs on prehistoric caves, first Cosquer cave and caves of Niaux, pending the Chauvet cave in the Ardeche.
It Niaux of his book that this is a beautifully illustrated study of 160 pages on the topography, history and rock art galleries of the famous Vicdessos same time an overview of other prehistoric sites in the Ariège. Say right away that this monograph is an exceptional scientific relevance and interest consistently supported. We must add that it is first hand, Mr. Clottes have explored or visited several hundred times the caves of Niaux once and sports like caving, indifferent to prehistoric times, later as prehistorian converted to underground archeology. We can not comment on such a work that betrays a little or a lot, so we do not want to incite here to find out in full, by pricking the interest in this grand.
***
History caves Niaux is exemplary in many respects, because first it served and still serves as an example to the major theories that have succeeded in interpreting Paleolithic art, because then it was and remains the cons-example of all the mistakes we made and he must now avoid, if one wishes to maintain the vestiges of a so-distant past.
For a few million years, the torrents of the Ariege and Vicdessos infiltrated the limestone separates them again today to dig one of the largest underground network of world , including linking the caves of Niaux than Lombrives. Then, the level of rivers lowered by erosion, these cavities dried up. Towards the end of the Würm glacial period about 10,000 years before our era, ie after the period known Magdalenian (from Cave de la Madeleine in the Dordogne) and just before the phase known Azilian (d According to the grotto of Mas d'Azil), some individuals dressed the walls with paintings or signs and clay engravings, most of a beautiful aesthetic effect. The dating that has made by examining samples show that carbon decoration extended over a thousand years. This is especially bison, aurochs, horses, goats, fish and mustelids without any human representation.
The Magdalenians explored virtually the entire network of Niaux, to gut the most difficult of access, by leaving traces everywhere painted. It is estimated that they even beat the world record for underground exploration prehistoric times, venturing up to 2,000 meters from the entrance and crossing several underground lakes. The reason for such boldness is that they had oil lamps, easier and more reliable than flashlights softwood. Perhaps they were also more accustomed than their successors in the cool temperatures, since contemporaries of the last ice age inhabitants of steppes and near-lights. If the most beautiful paintings and many more adorn the Black Room, we find others that do not visit, even in the network Clastres, whose entrance was perhaps at the time by the Caougno small.
After the end of the Ice Age, around 9000 BC, the deciduous forest replaced the tundra in the foothills of the Pyrenees and hunted herds of bison migrants or aurochs much farther north. Attendance Niaux almost ceased, except for rare incursions Azilians or Neolithic, which was found traces. It seems that the cavities have been visited on three occasions at least ten millennia, to 7,000, 5,000 and 2,500 years before our era, especially by a couple with three children. How do we know? These people were using torches of pine, whose remains have been found on the ground and traces of soot on the walls, allowing their exact dating. They have left no picture painted, but footprints in the clay, which makes the cave Niaux the world's richest prehistoric footprints. It follows the antics of Floor three children barefoot. It is also found the oldest shoe print that is.
Afterwards, civilizations Gallic, Gallo-Roman or medieval no longer appear in Niaux. Are we to believe that the successive layers of humus have blocked the entrance? Should we rather attribute this reservation to the superstitious dread of entering the underworld and come face to face with the Devil? The fact is that Cave Tours resumed especially in the 17th century, at the time of Cartesianism and just after the Royal Justice has banned witchcraft trials. It deciphers the graffiti of the reign of Louis XIV, including the signing of a Ruben Vialle, dated 1660. Curiosity getting bolder by degrees, we was a multiplication of wild scribbles.
The great era of tourism in the Pyrenees and the mode of water was the most devastating. The spa-les-Bains Ussat had its maximum in the second half of the 19th century. For spa guests who were bored, we proposed the tour of the caves. Then the tramp of thousands of visitors took away the layers of ruins Magdalenian engravings and possible ground in the main adits. It was also then that systematically broke stalactites and stalagmites to sell to this customer as memories of Ariege. Both galleries are open to the public it is now almost completely denuded of these concretions, while other galleries are more difficult to access, retain their magnificent set of sails, embroidery needle and limestone. Jean Clottes concludes that we now deny the public access cavities prehistoric and was well placed to wall, newly discovered, the Chauvet cave, drawing the lesson Niaux.
These early visitors saw the Magdalenian paintings, but they have not seen, still less admired as it is true that we do not distinguish what is expected to see. Recall that in the 19th century yet, the ideas of Lyell and Darwin evolutionists remained suspicious and did not imagine that man off the monkey. It was believed that the human migration out of Eden had at most six thousand years of seniority were placed at the beginning of Pharaonic history and was no place in prehistory. A scholar Ariège, Dr. Felix Garrigou, noted in his notebooks in 1861: "There are drawings on the wall, what can that be?". Visitors to the 19th century thus remained puzzled by the cave paintings, to the point of fun is to erase them, either to imitate or complete them. Prehistorians have sought to remove these parodies lately, only a few photographs we retain the image somewhat grotesque, unworthy of genuine masterpieces.
Glory Niaux assumed an intellectual revolution.
***
Early this century, Niaux was at the heart of the scientific debate on the interpretation of rock art. From the Second Empire, Boucher de Perthes had certified the existence of primitive man before the Flood Universal. But we saw these primitive beings as brutal, ignorant and unkempt, though unable to artistic tastes. We postulated a gradual humanization. Genetics we now teaches that homo sapiens is identical to itself for a hundred thousand years already with the same IQ. When it was discovered at various sites like those paintings of Altamira in Spain, the controversy was at most: he was of recent frauds, inspired by American bison? If not, where and when the authors had they seen these animals, extinct in Western Europe before the Gauls? The prehistorian Emile Cartailhac scored first skepticism, and then in 1902 changed its position and acknowledged his mistake. Yes, these paintings and engravings were antediluvian! This shift marked the famous tilting of scientific opinion, which now recognized the reality of a Paleolithic civilization. Once opened eyes by official science, and its commander Molard son, who lived in Sabart, noticed the drawings and made Niaux Emile Cartailhac alert, which authenticate the Black Salon in 1906. In remembrance of this event, the name of Cartailhac was given to one of the deepest galleries. Therefore, researchers poured the Abbe Breuil, Begouen brothers, husbands Mandement, Leroy-Gourhan, etc.; discoveries of prehistoric remains were multiplied; cavers finished off in the years 1950-1960, to recognize the unity of the underground network.
Visiting the Black Lounge, where the figures are 80%, became a must for the educated public. It was not an easy shipping! I remember my first visit in 1953 Niaux. It was necessary to prevent the sole guide and guardian, René Clastres and make an appointment with him. Village Niaux, we climbed to the cave by a narrow path, under the vast porch is broke down the acetylene lamps whose sweet smell excited emotion, we crept through a cumbersome hose, now abandoned, we walked in single file, carrying the lamp divided by interval, we shivered in the freshness and is floundering gours in muddy bat hovered low over the hair, to sigh urbanites; drip down from the damp vault was the "floc" which appeared in the silence, ominous shots, and finally Mr. Clastres stopped and lifted her lamp, for the appearance here and there, red dots, a sign clavate or an entire bestiary of masterpieces. This guide if deserving has also given its name to the gallery's most recent discovery.
Today, the craze is such that the cave opens only to a privileged few, but in more comfortable conditions for development. The Black Room was reproduced at the Centre of Prehistoric Art Tarascon-sur-Ariege.
***
But all is not settled, it remains to interpret the signs and drawings Niaux, which is no small matter scientific and, indeed, unleashed considerable controversy.
one ideology, we went to another. Formerly it was believed that before writing, there was no history, but only antediluvian era, populated by stupidity and cruelty. Today we recognize even the possibility of primate behavior symbolic structuralism is any set of signs to look like a closed system, abstract, timeless and self-serving. Most historians therefore consider the cave Niaux and especially his Black Lounge as a sanctuary where we had left Magdalenians esoteric message, that we belong to decipher. Even without aliens, Niaux becomes a UFO (unidentified visual object), carrying a mysterious revelation.
Jean Clottes reviewed with deference somewhat mocking interpretations were authoritative successive turns, but always temporarily.
Early this century, the Abbe Breuil imagined that the paintings were votive acts on the religious model. Magdalenian hunters have shown, on the walls of caves, hunting actions they wanted the happy ending. Both signs barbed wire, embedded in the sides of the painted animals, it seemed they appear arrows darting game. But the Magdalenian bison consumed little or preferred the horse and goat, they rarely painted. Would we not have the same instincts for goats and taste the same admiration for the big beasts? The explanation propitiatory, whatever she s'imposât long, did not.
Leroy-Gourhan proposed a structuralist interpretation, relying heavily on the case Niaux. Each decorated cave have formed a closed system of symbols and structured, meaning a belief or devotion. In this framework, the couple of bison and horses seemed to represent the opposition of female and male. Though she was free, this theory reflects the intellectual fashion of the years 1960-1970, which made its success. But the scientific dating of the paintings by the method of carbon-14 revealed that they were not contemporary and that the decoration of the Salon Black Niaux spread over a thousand years. Difficult in these circumstances to imagine a comprehensive approach in the Magdalenian artist!
Jean Clottes made some comments which are likely to return to reality. The figures were painted or carved not the stylization of the symbols, but are instead a striking realism. In their view, zoologists and hunters American Indians recognize not only the age and sex of the animal represented, but also the reasons and intent of its attitude. Moreover, the prospect is suggested by the depiction of fine details on the side facing the viewer and their omission on the other side of the animal. This would tend to prove that is neither religious acts, or abstract signs, but works of art for aesthetic contemplation. So the show would not be a Black Sanctuary, we can bring our Romanesque churches, including the frescoes have, in effect, double votive and symbolic character.
An examination of morals among the primitive peoples certifies that possession of images painted or carved everywhere was and remains an essential attribute of political power or magic, it demonstrates the uncanny ability to communicate with 'beyond, where reign the Beautiful and Good. Superstitious or not, this ancient practice has come down to us. In the twentieth century yet, the Power button to the imagination, is affirmed by the imagery and abolished by the destruction of his images: recent examples are in our memories. Without going to close the caves Niaux of Plato's Cave, one can speculate that the chiefs or shamans Magdalenian have legitimized their power through the provision of painted rooms, where they solemnly gathered their followers to strike their fancy. Of all the explanations, it is more plausible because it fits the facts and does not succumb to the anachronism.
***
The lesson that finally draws the fine work of Jean Clottes is a lesson in science and humanism. Science, because only the technical and methodical study of the remains Niaux was able to dispel the fantasies and come to rational conclusions. Humanism but also because it shows men and women of the Magdalenian period much more like us than we thought, that is curious, greedy, clever, athletic and aesthetes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment