NEW Study Proves PALAEOLITHIC Cave Art Encoded A Calendar!

Experts have known for some time that non-figurative signs in Palaeolithic cave art must represent a numbering system. However, up until now, they were not sure what information was encoded. Many of these signs are found alongside animal images which suggested a connection, but the meaning was elusive. A new study appears to have finally solved the mystery! Analysing data from more than 400 caves in Europe, researchers have found statistically significant evidence that these markings were a lunar calendar designed to mark biological events in the lives of different animal species.

They found that signs such as dots, lines and the Y symbol, were used by hunter-gatherers to record when their prey, such as aurochs, bison, and mammoths were birthing, mating or migrating. The notational system was geographically widespread and in use for tens of thousands of years! To what extent it can be classed as a proto-writing system is debatable, but it's also quite possible that the Y sign represented the verb 'to give birth.' In this video I discuss this exciting new study.

#ancienthistory #paleolithic #prehistory

✨ JOIN MY CHANNEL

✨ SUPPORT VIA PATREON

✨ FOLLOW ME ON SOCIALS

Instagram & Facebook: @MegalithHunter
Twitter: @Megalith_Hunter

✨ REFERENCES

Bacon, B., Khatiri, A., Palmer, J., Freeth, T., Pettitt, P., & Kentridge, R. (2023). An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 1-19. doi:10.1017/S0959774322000415

✨ MUSIC CREDIT

License code: YD3SKFJMVNDTLWEX

✨ PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS

Social media pages, credit: Claude Valette
Chauvet Cave, credit: Claude Valette

Cave art images with encircled markings taken from Figured 1 and 2 of the paper referenced above.

La Pasiega Cave, credit: Gobierno de Cantabria

Public domain
Altamira Cave
Lascaux Cave

[MegalithHunter]

If you liked this video, maybe you will enjoy this one too:
Did Prehistoric People Paint VOLCANIC Eruptions?

[jamesaspinall]

I had literally only just today heard about this - your explanation was much clearer than I had read/seen elsewhere so thanks once again for your work! Amazing that this kind of calendar may have been widespread among Palaeolithic peoples

[ZiggyDan]

Isn't it good that anyone can make a difference. Fab presentation.

[barrywalser]

I missed the chat. 😢 Running late. This immediately reminds me of the Quipu system of the Incas. Where the knots are tied in a cord as an accounting system. There is also some speculation that their system could also be used to convey language. Anyway…very cool stuff. Thank You Laura!

[coolhandluke]

You did a fantastic job of explaining this system in a clear and concise way.

[tc]

Every livestock farmer can immediately relate to having a calendar recording breeding and birth times 🤔 of animals.

[wiretamer]

As a notation system designer, this is of enormous significance to me. It demands a complete reassessment of every pre-historic mark on every artefact described. This could be the beginning of whole new paleo-science. It could have ramifications for the development of human culture, as well as the contextual significance of this art in general.

Many aboriginal cultures have a profoundly different perception of time. 'Mythical' characters and narratives can co-exist with 'now'. I've heard it argued that a linear perception of time was not possible until humans had a deed for time codes in long manuscripts.

What we have here is evidence that suggests the concept of basic math (counting) predates the concept of an open ended linear perception of time. Its not hard to imagine a world dominated by the seasons, but to imagine a world that it many ways was a kind of Ground Hog Year, is whole different level of strange.

Today it is easy to project open ended linear time as a series of overlapping rhythms of different duration. But if your only reference points for the passage of time are repeating, the idea of open ended time is not something we can assume.

Animal body language is not as ephemeral as sound, an animal can continue to utter 'I want food' without having to transmit it in a repudiative transmission sequence: there enormous economy in visual communication. I picture can tell an entire story in an instant.

Combine this with the lack of precession needed for a seasonal calendar: there is no utilitarian imperative to fine tune its accuracy, or discover the difficulties that come with building an indefinite open ended chronology. Only major climate events and other natural disasters with prolonged climatic impacts, would brake the eternal dream of the seasons: floods earthquakes and volcanic eruptions etc. Old perceptions of cause an effect would be thrown into high relief. The birds don't necessarily bring the rain. The are far worse things than storms and floods.

How many generations can people go around and around, before major disruptive events clock up and can no longer be ignored: 'The sea is swallowing the land of our grandfathers'. Fresh water fish and now gone from the river, and now salt water fish prevail. Trees are rotting and retreating from the water. The old patterns no longer work! That was then, this is now. We need to make new landmarks. The children need to remember this!

[KerriEverlasting]

Every single one of your videos is an exercise in imagining the unimaginable. To try to think like we aren't who we are, while being and thinking like who we are.
Such an interesting point in the comments about perspectives drawn from current life experiences which are possibly completely removed from the people we are studying.
Like thinking about none of the numbers going above 13 so they could represent months... but that's OUR months. Did they have the same months as us? What if the meteorological difference between then and now isn't what we thought? What if they went by 2 seasons? Wet and dry like tropical areas? What if they had 13 months? What if they had 3 seasons and everything we ever thought was completely wrong?
What if the animals represent seasons depending on how they are used by the people? Could the unexplained notations represent natural disasters?
Great video as usual, keeps the mind active while remembering the vast expanse of time and how fleeting our human lives are.
History, art, language, calendars and an existential crisis. This channel has it all. 💖😂💖

[spokenme]

I was on cruise so I only heard about this yesterday.This is amazing and who knows what they'll find relooking at other signs.

[alisoncross]

I am so glad that you made this video - when I saw i in the press, I immediately thought of you!

[paoloviti]

Again you have done a very interesting video on the Paleolithic cave arts that is encoding a Calendar but also apparently a form of proto writing that has not changed much for a long time, sometimes it could be similar in China in various areas with very different languages but all of them can read Chinese characters. That said we must not forget that those so-called cavemen or women are not stupid at all and as you stated, developed their calendars, seasons and depicting animals extinct long time ago. Yes, I agree with you that we still have much to discover and perhaps we all looking the wrong way. Hope you had a nice X-Mas and a great New Year 👍👍👍

[vulpesvulpes]

We constantly down play the intelligence of these people. “They don’t need a calendar” because they don’t farm. If you look at any modern subsistence hunting culture they hunt “in the season”. Most have some system to exclude taking gravid females, who provide less meat and lower quality than a male. More so you reduce the population of game over time this way. I would suggest that hunting societies “managed” the take of game to maximize their potential numbers. Just as farmers do their flocks. Remember they had been hunting for eons and were smart enough to have developed some complex survival skills. In dire times I’m sure they killed the first animal that came to hand, male or female, but in better times I suggest that they could be selective. Just as we are today.

In that light your presentation makes sense. They had some system to track the seasons. They may have even “counted” the game population.

When I first was exposed to ranching I could not understand the fetish cowboys had with counting. Every morning when they get up they count animals. After moving them they count animals. And they keep “tally books” with obscure and arcane marks and scribbles. The differentiate the bull from cows and heifers, from steers. The steers get sold or eaten. The rest are breeding stock.

So I can’t read the marks in your picture. But they don’t look too different from some tally books I’ve seen. Some drivers are illiterate but they can count cattle and tally a record that they understand. Some even use bits of string or leather with knots to keep a tally.

And I’ll bet you that the archeologists that are trying to decipher those marks have never hunted, never worked a herd, or talked much with anybody who has done either of those things. Kind of like the nuns offering practical advice to the hookers on customer relations.

Just a few random thoughts…..

Fox out

[floydriebe]

here, i thot i was first comment but, Fox and Barry both beat me. dang!
missed premiere but, watched asap. i agree with Fox, those later, more modern humans, even Neanderthals and Denisovans, etc, were more intelligent than had been thot. after surviving for hundreds of millenia, they surely learned to count and communicate. among other, more or less "modern" skills.
thanks, Laura! very interesting, as always! gotta watch your last one, too. was in hospital since New Years Eve and no wi-fi. got some catchin' up to do. next time, maybe the premiere?
see ya then, my dear!

[vallaurent]

Another example of the origins, European civilization and it’s true, authenticity and uniqueness only to Europe. It is the beginning of civilization. they are the authentic authors of civilization..❤

[chrisrosenkreuz]

When noticing such discoveries one's thinking is to instantly ask the purpose of such depictions, but I think it would be more interesting to look at what allowed them to come about i.e. cause rather than purpose..
For instance, how do we know that our imagination had been developed until then? For all we know the first cave drawings could have been the first time people actively used their imagination.
An interesting adjacent theory to this is that of the bicameral mind and how our internal voice was once heard as separate, and thought to be of God's.

This puts it into perspective how the first ones to draw these had immense power over the others, and were considered to be priests of the devine since they could literally beam another reality into the minds of others by way of stick figure depictions of animals... I mean at that particular moment in time our detail brain faculty had not yet developed as far as to be able to discern reality from their own imagination and so they looked at the stick figure and were figuratively transposed in front of it. Who knows maybe these priests employed this to rule by fear, but this is pure speculation and I digress. The discoveries you presented add to this tremendously by way of actual detail, linking the figurative with the practical, conferring even more power to the priests wielding the images

[yvonnesmith]

I’d love to mention that these groundbreaking findings were made by an amateur archaeology enthusiast called Ben Bacon. Good for Mr. Bacon, glad he was taken seriously and he was listened to

[vallaurent]

Wow, from the oldest calendars to the oldest boats to the oldest annotation, beginning writing systems to some of the oldest tools and innovative technologies. Wow the origins of European civilization.😊

[johanengelen]

I remember a campfire discussion after visiting several musea in the south of France 3 decades ago with my then girlfriend guessing what these dots meant and we came came to the conclusion that it was some sort of counting or calendar Nice to know that our wine infused discussion had a correct conclusion

[judewarner]

I am absolutely convinced that these prehistoric notations comprise a stable system of information, but this is not a new thing. I have a book "Northumberland's prehistoric rock carvings" by Stan Beckensall (1983 Pendulum publications) which illustrates patterns pecked into rocks and rock faces. The book makes the point that many of the repetitive patterns, (circles, singular and concentric, with and without dots in the centre and spirals) can be found across Europe as well and almost certainly convey ideas or concepts which we can no longer interpret.

This latest analysis from prehistoric cave art suggests, on the basis of a statististical treatment, that the signs on them are of a biological / calendrical nature. The only aspect that I would take issue with is the claim that it is "proof". "Suggests" is NOT proof and to make such a claim is unscientific. IMO it IS an informational notation system, but even MY opinion is not proof.

[frankmitchell]

As a side though, how well ventilated were these caves? Did using fires to see by result in Carbon Dioxide build up thus affecting the painter's level of conscious?