Perhaps future historians will call it the Stoned Age: prehistoric cave painters were so starved of oxygen deep underground that they may have been euphoric and hallucinating when they got to work, archaeologists claim.
A study speculates that, not unlike the hippies of the 1960s, the artists made a deliberate effort to harness the mind-altering effects of hypoxia so that they could “connect with the cosmos”.
Israeli researchers observed that many palaeolithic cave paintings in Europe are hundreds of metres from caves’ entrances, either in chambers accessed via narrow passages or in the passages themselves. These spaces were not used for daily domestic activities, raising questions about why early artists ventured into such claustrophobic corners to get creative.
In a paper in Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture, the researchers argue that entering these deep, dark areas was “a conscious choice, motivated by an understanding of the transformative nature of an underground, oxygen-depleted space”. Specifically, the team believe that oxygen deprivation induced a state “very similar to when you are taking drugs”.
The paintings and engraved images, created across a wide area from 40,000 to 14,000 years ago, depict animals such as mammoths, bison and ibex. While they have been celebrated for their artistic merits, their origin and purpose remain contested.
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To study whether the physiological effects of oxygen deprivation may have played a role, the researchers ran a series of computer simulations based on the sites of artworks deep within cave systems in France and Spain. These include Rouffignac in the Dordogne, where paintings and engravings are about 730 metres from the entrance, and El Castillo in Cantabria, where most depictions are within narrow two-metre passages about 200 metres from the entrance.
The models indicate that oxygen would have fallen rapidly to levels inducing hypoxia — a shortfall of oxygen in the body’s tissues — when humans carried burning torches or lamps into the spaces. In many of the scenarios studied, oxygen concentration in the atmosphere — normally 21 per cent — would fall below 18 per cent, the threshold for hypoxia, within 15 minutes. In cases of low ceilings, they would fall below 11 per cent, leading to severe hypoxia similar to that associated with acute mountain sickness.
The researchers note that hypoxia has been shown to increase levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, resulting in hallucinations, feelings of euphoria, near-death experiences and out-of-body sensations of floating or flying. According to their paper, images envisioned in such a hallucinatory state may appear to float on a cave’s surfaces.
Yafit Kedar, of Tel Aviv University, the lead author, said: “The symptoms of hypoxia are very similar to when you are taking drugs and it occurred to me that maybe we are talking about alternate states of consciousness.”
She and her co-authors, Ran Barkai and Gil Kedar, argue that these alternate states of consciousness could have been a trigger for the creation of cave art, conceived as “a means of communicating with the entities on the other side of the wall”.
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Based on analysis of more recent societies’ beliefs, the researchers suggest that caves and rock shelters are likely to have been viewed as portals to an underground world associated with prosperity and growth.
They suggest that the rock face itself was seen as a “tissue” connecting the here-and-now and the world beyond, “allowing early humans to maintain their connectedness with the cosmos”. Among later cultures, they refer to the Inca, who considered caves as portals enabling contact with ancestors and the underworld.
Previous researchers have suggested that entering the underground environment of cave systems could have disoriented prehistoric people, leading to altered states of consciousness reflected in the cave art.
Opponents argue that altered states of consciousness are achieved mostly through psychoactive plants, which are not proven to have been used in Europe at this period. Objects depicted in later cave art in Spain and Algeria have, nevertheless, been identified by some researchers as magic mushrooms. The Israeli study, first reported in Haaretz, is the first to identify the possible role of deliberately induced hypoxia in achieving drug-like effects.
Researchers have put forward various explanations for the creation of cave art. These range from suggestions that it was “art for art’s sake”, created for aesthetic and expressive reasons, to viewing the paintings as an attempt to gain control over animals and advantages in hunting.
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The very old masters
Cave artists were picky
Analysis of fragments of charcoal used in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in France indicates that artists favoured pine charcoal, despite the availability of other woods, as it was ideal for smudging and blending.
Art didn’t only depict the everyday
People who lived in the Lascaux caves in France mostly ate reindeer, which are not depicted in paintings. This has led to theories that art showed the animals people hoped to catch more of, and may have been painted for hunting rituals.
A 45,000-year-old tradition
A painting of a pig in Indonesia, from 45,000 years ago, is said to be the oldest known figurative art. The earliest Indonesian works show similarities to those in Europe, with speculation that both traditions could have developed in Africa.
