Back in 1879, the very notion of
‘prehistoric cave art’ was unheard
of. The famous Palaeolithic art
galleries inside such caves as at
Altamira, Trois Frères and Lascaux
still lay undiscovered in the womb
of the earth. Enter the Spanish
gentleman, jurist and amateur
archaeologist, Don Marcelino Sanz de
Sautuola (1831-1888). De Sautuola
owned the land in which the cave of
Altamira was found in 1868 and began
exploring the caves in 1875. In
1879, a chance discovery revealed
the marvellous images to the world –
while Marcelino was digging in the
cave floor, searching for
prehistoric tools of the type he had
examined at the Paris Exhibition a
year before, his daughter Maria,
still a child, was “running about in
the cavern and playing about here
and there” when, suddenly, she “made
out forms and figures on the roof”.
Her eyes were the first in more than
10,000 years to perceive the cluster
of great polychrome bison on the
ceiling.
De Sautuola instantly sensed the
antiquity of this parietal art. In
the following year, his careful
conclusions received instant acclaim
when a professor from Madrid, Juan
Vilanova y Piera (1821-1893),
checked out the site, lectured on
the discovery, including at the
International Congress of
Anthropology and Prehistoric
Archaeology in Lisbon, and inspired
crowds of people to visit – among
them king Alfonso XII. Clearly, de
Sautuola had ushered in a new era in
archaeology.
Or had he? Professor Vilanova y
Piera was a geologist and
palaeontologist, while the
enthusiastic members of the public
were lay people. Specialists in the
archaeological community painted a
very different picture of de
Sautuola. In the words of Paul Bahn
and Jean Vertut, two modern writers:
“One would think that such a
remarkable find, albeit
unprecedented and unexpected, would
have met with interest – even
excitement – …; that there would
have been a stampede of specialists
to see the site; that Sanz de
Sautuola would have been fêted and
congratulated. It is to
archaeology’s undying shame that the
very opposite occurred, and that it
helped to bring about his premature
death in 1888, a sad and
disillusioned man still under
suspicion of fraud or naivety, with
his discovery rejected by most
prehistorians. He had taken the
hostility personally, as an attack
on his honour and his honesty.”
The French élite of archaeologists
at that time treated de Sautuola’s
proposition with extreme contempt.
At the great Congress in Lisbon, a
doyen, Émile Cartailhac (1845-1921),
walked out in disgust upon de
Sautuola’s exhibition of drawings of
the Altamira figures, suggesting
afterwards that the painted animals
were anatomically incorrect. Amid
universal rejection in the wake of
this conference, the only known
person to conduct a personal
inspection of Altamira was once
again not an archaeologist: even so,
the French engineer, Edouard Harlé
(1850-1922), apparently had already
made up his mind regarding the
recent manufacture of the paintings
prior to his visit in 1881. The
paint was too well preserved.
Eventually, the well-credentialled
naysayers had to cave in. With the
discovery of additional cave
paintings at La Mouthe, Dordogne, in
1895, followed by a steady stream of
others, de Sautuola’s name simply
had to be inscribed in the annals of
archaeology. In 1902, Cartailhac
finally cleared de Sautuola of all
blame, commenting later that 'we
were blinded by some dangerous
spirit of dogmatism'.
Fast forward a century or so and
another amateur archaeologist and
lover of hiking is seen engrossed in
a systematic exploration of
prehistoric rock art, from caves to
exposed rocks, working in ever
greater circles from the direct
surroundings of his home. Although
most of the logged sites still carry
Spanish names, New Mexico is now the
centre of action. Amassing what is
arguably the largest database of
petroglyph and pictograph images
worldwide, this collector makes
another discovery that should rock
the academic world. This time, the
thought revolution does not concern
the exquisite naturalistic art of
Palaeolithic times, but the crude
and angular images produced in the
Neolithic – and some time
afterwards. A mixed group of
electrical engineers and
mythologists are quick to offer
support and spread the word to a
sympathetic audience. Fully aware of
the importance of his findings and
with an unwavering zest for
knowledge, the researcher
unabashedly lectures at a
prestigious university to an
audience of archaeologists and other
specialists. But he is greeted with
derision. A decade on, not a single
archaeological publication has
addressed his work, not a single
archaeologist has picked up the
gauntlet and gone out to test the
new idea. A stunning silence is the
collective voice of scholarship.
Sadly, de Sautuola did not live to
see the public vindication of his
work. The joy to see his
premonitions corroborated by the
discovery of countless similar caves
was not granted to him. Accelerated
by the acrimonious reception of his
disclosures, his premature death
preceded Cartailhac’s apology by a
full 14 years. To fear a similar
fate for that second pioneer, doctor
Anthony Peratt, is not rocket
science – it is rock science.
Rens Van der Sluijs
http://mythopedia.info
Books by Rens Van Der Sluijs:
The Mythology of the World Axis
The World Axis as an Atmospheric
Phenomenon
New
DVD
The Lightning-Scarred
Planet Mars
A video documentary that could
change everything you thought you
knew about ancient times and
symbols. In this second episode of
Symbols of an Alien Sky, David
Talbott takes the viewer on an
odyssey across the surface of Mars.
Exploring feature after feature of
the planet, he finds that only
electric arcs could produce the
observed patterns. The high
resolution images reveal massive
channels and gouges, great mounds,
and crater chains, none finding an
explanation in traditional geology,
but all matching the scars from
electric discharge experiments in
the laboratory. (Approximately 85
minutes)
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