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Vent: My visit to the cave paintings site left me unsure about the hunting story
I went to see those old cave paintings in France last month. Most guides say they show hunting scenes, but some shapes look like maps or stars to me. Do you think we might be reading them wrong?
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riley_park377mo ago
Check out the recent work by experts on this. Some now think those shapes are maps of the land or pictures of the sky. I read a paper that matched cave dots to star groups from back then. It changes how we see what they were trying to show.
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lilyh547mo ago
What if these markings served a dual purpose, both mapping and memory? I've considered that they might be visual aids for oral storytelling, helping elders pass down knowledge. The dots could represent key events or people, not just celestial patterns. This would mean the caves were social spaces, where culture was built through shared stories. It shifts the focus from pure observation to community interaction. We might be seeing the roots of how humans connect through narrative.
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bethwhite7mo ago
Oh great, so the experts went from "hunting" to "maybe it's a map, maybe it's the sky." Sounds like they're just guessing.
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