Paleolithic Murals and the Global Wildlife Trade

“A are history defaced,” argued Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon in The Advancement of Learning; they are “...remnants of history which...escaped the shipwreck of time” (1). These remnants, battered by the elements and scattered around the globe, are all we have to piece together human heritage. In recent years, radiocarbon dating techniques (e.g., accelerator mass spectrometry) have allowed us to date samples of pigment from cave paintings and not rely solely on evidence from surrounding artifacts. These techniques shed light on the chronology and evolution of prehistoric art and show that cave painting began much earlier than believed, as early as the Upper Paleolithic period (2). The Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age), the earliest stretch of human history 2 million years ago, saw the development of the human species. Nomadic hunters and gatherers, who lived in caves and crafted tools out of stone, progressed during the last ice age to communal hunting, constructed shelters, and belief systems. The Upper Paleolithic (end of Old Stone Age) marks humanity's cognitive and cultural, as well as artistic, beginnings (3). When, why, and how precisely humans moved from rote tool-making to symbolic self-expression is not known. Evidence gathered in the past 200 years indicates that graphic activity (figurative and nonfigurative marks) began as early as 40,000 years ago, preceding the development of agriculture. It coincided with human migration around the globe, the production of implements from multiple materials, and the building of simple machines. Images carved, etched, or painted on stone, clay, bone, horn, ivory, or antler were found in Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and Europe, and portable sculptures of animal and human figures were more common and widespread than cave paintings (4). The first discoveries of Paleolithic painting (40,000 BC-12,000 BC), which were greeted with skepticism and disbelief, were made around 1835 in France and Switzerland (5) and later in Spain, Australia, South Africa, and other places. The western edges of the Massif Central region of France and the northern slopes of the Pyrenees are dotted with more than a hundred Paleolithic caves, among them renowned Lascaux. Naturally blocked for thousands of years, these deep caves maintained sufficiently stable temperature and humidity to preserve, untouched, not only paintings but also footprints and handprints of their inhabitants. After the discovery of Lascaux in 1940, environmental conditions changed. A fungus (Fusarium) began to grow inside the cave, and algae spread on the floor, walls, and ceiling, threatening the integrity of the paintings. The threat was contained, but access to the public was curtailed (6). The cavern “gave onto a steep slope, slippery and slimy...with flakes of worked flint of poor quality, some fragments of reindeer horns and many pieces of conifer charcoal...” recalled speleologist Abbé Breuil about the initial opening to Lascaux (7). The ground was different 17,000 years ago. The cave had sunk and was difficult to reach, the entrance obscured by millennia of erosion and sediment.