Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:24:27.411Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sexual Dimorphism in European Upper Paleolithic Cave Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Dean R. Snow
Dean R. Snow*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, 409 Carpenter Building, University Park, PA 16802 (drsl7@psu.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Preliminary research on hand stencils found in the Upper Paleolithic cave sites of France and Spain showed that sexual dimorphism in human hands is expressed strongly enough to allow empirical determination of the sexes of the individuals who made some of them. Further research increased the sample of measurable cases from 6 to 32, a large enough sample to show that persons who made hand stencils in the caves were predominantly females. This finding rebuts the traditional assumption that human hand stencils in European parietal art were made by male artists, either adults or subadults. Findings further suggest that the sexual dimorphism of hands was more pronounced during the Upper Paleolithic than it is in modern Europeans. Attempts to apply the same algorithms to a sample of North American Indian handprints confirms the view that different populations require separate analyses.

Resumen

Resumen

La investigación preliminar sobre los estarcidos de mano que se encuentran en los sitios rupestres del Paleolίtico Superior de Francia y España demostró que el dimorfismo sexual en las manos de los hombres y las mujeres se expresa con fuerza suficiente como para permitir la determinación empίrica de los sexos de los individuos que hicieron algunos de ellos. La investigación adicional incrementó la muestra apreciable de casos a partir de seis a 32, una muestra suficientemente grande como para mostrar que las personas que hicieron los estarcidos a mano en las cuevas eran en su mayorίa mujeres. Este hallazgo refuta la suposición tradicional de que las plantillas de la mano humana en el arte parietal Europeo fueron hechas por artistas masculinos, adultos o jóvenes. Los hallazgos sugieren además que el dimorfismo sexual de las manos fue más fuerte durante del Paleolίtico Superior que en los Europeos modernos. Los intentos de aplicar los mismos algoritmos a una muestra de las manos de Indios Norte Americanos confirma la opinión que las diferentes poblaciones requieren analiza por separado.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 78 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 746 - 761
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Barrière, C. 1976 L'Art Pariétal de la Grotte de Gargas, Vol. 2. BAR International Series 14, British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.Google Scholar
Berenguer, Magin 1994 Prehistoric Cave Art in Northern Spain, Asturias. Translated by H. Hinds. Frente de Afirmacion Hisponista, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Black, F. L. 1992 Why Did They Die? Science 258:1739–1740.Google Scholar
Breuil, Henri, and Lantier, Raymond 1980 The Men of the Old Stone Age: Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Canby, Courtlandt (editor) 1961 The Epic of Man. Time Incorporated, New York.Google Scholar
Chazine, Jean-Michel, and Noury, A. 2006 Sexual Determination of Hand Stencils on the Main Panel of the Gua Masri II Cave (East-Kalimantan/Borneo-Indonesia). International Newsletter on Rock Art 4:21–26.Google Scholar
Clottes, Jean (editor) 2003 Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Delluc, Brigitte, and Delluc, Gilles 1991 L'art pariétal archaïque en Aquitaine: XXVIIle supplément à Gallia Préhistoire, Paris.Google Scholar
Formicola, Vincenzo, and Giannecchini, Monica 1999 Evolutionary Trends of Stature in Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. Journal of Human Evolution 36:319–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane 1993 You Can Hide, but You Can't Run: Representations of Women's Work in Illustrations of Paleolithic Life. Visual Anthropology Review 9:21–41.Google Scholar
Groenen, Marc 1987 Les representations de mains négatives dans les grottes de Gargas et de Tibiran : Approche méthodologique. Faculté de philosophie et lettres/Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels.Google Scholar
Dale, Guthrie, R. 2005 The Nature of Paleolithic Art. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Holt, Brigitte M., and Formicola, Vincenzo 2008 Hunters of the Ice Age: The Biology of Upper Paleolithic People. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 137 (Yearbook Supplement 47):70–99.Google Scholar
Leroi-Gourhan, André 1967 Treasures of Prehistoric Art. Harry N. Abrams, New York.Google Scholar
Leroi-Gourhan, André 1986 The Hands of Gargas: Toward a General Study. October 37:18–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorblanchet, Michel 1991 Spitting Images: Replicating the Spotted Horses of Pech Merle. Archaeology 44:24–31.Google Scholar
Mallory, James P. 1989 In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. Thames and Hudson, New York.Google Scholar
Mallory, James P. 1992 Migration and Language Change. Peregrinatio Gothica III 14:145–153.Google Scholar
Manning, John T. 2002 Digit Ratio. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Manning, J. T., Barley, L., Walton, J., Lewis-Jones, D. I., Trivers, R. L., Singh, D., Thornhill, R., Rohde, P., Bereczkei, T., Henzi, P., Soler, M., and Szwed, A. 2000 The 2nd:4th Digit Ratio, Sexual Dimorphism, Population Differences, and Reproductive Success: Evidence for Sexually Antagonistic Genes? Evolution and Human Behavior 21:163–183.Google Scholar
Manning, J. T., Scutt, D., Wilson, J., and Lewis-Jones, D. I. 1998 The Ratio of 2nd to 4th Digit Length: A Predictor of Sperm Numbers and Concentrations of Testosterone, Luteinizing Hormone and Oestrogen. Human Reproduction 13:3000–3004.Google Scholar
Napier, John 1993 Hands. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Nelson, Emma C., Manning, John T., and Sinclair, Anthony G. M. 2006 News Headlines: Using the Length of the 2nd to 4th Digit Ratio (2D:4D) to Sex Cave Art Hand Stencils: Factors to Consider. Before Farming 6:1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pradel, L. 1975 Les mains incompletes de Gargas, Tibiran et Maltravieso. Quartär 26:159–166.Google Scholar
Prideaux, Tom 1973 Cro-Magnon Man. Time-Life Books, New York.Google Scholar
Ramesh, A., and Murty, J. S. 1977 Variation and Inheritance of Relative Length of Index Finger in Man. Annals of Human Biology 4:479–484.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin 1987 Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Ripoll López, Sergio, Perelló, Eduardo Ripoll, and Giraldo, Hipólito Collado 1999 Maltravieso: El Santuario Extremeño de las Manos. Memorias del Museo de Cáceres 1. Junta de Extremadura, Consejería de Cultura, Cáceres.Google Scholar
Sahly, Ali 1966 Les mains mutilées dans l'art préhistorique. Ministère des Affaires Culturelles, Toulouse.Google Scholar
Sahly, Ali 1969 Le problèm des mains mutilés dans l'art préhistorique: Thèsis de doctorat ès letters, University of Toulouse, Toulouse.Google Scholar
Semino, Ornella, Passarino, Giuseppe, Oefner, Peter J., Lin, Alice A., Arbuzova, Svetlana, Beckman, Lars E., de Benedictis, Giovanna, Francalacci, Paolo, Kouvatsi, Anastasia, Limborska, Svetlana, Marcikiae, Mladen, Mika, Anna, Mika, Barbara, Primorac, Dragan, Santachiara-Benere-cetti, A. Silvana, Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca, and Underhill, Peter A. 2000 The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective. Science 290:1155–1159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharpe, Kevin, and Gelder, Leslie van 2006 Evidence for Cave Marking by Paleolithic Children. Antiquity 80:937–947.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sieveking, Ann, and Sieveking, Gale 1962 The Caves of France and Northern Spain: A Guide. Vista Books, London.Google Scholar
Snow, Dean R. 2006 Sexual Dimorphism in Upper Paleolithic Hand Stencils. Antiquity 80:390–104.Google Scholar
Sollas, W.J. 1914 Cró Magnon Man. Nature 93:240.Google Scholar
Solometo, Julie, and Moss, Joshua 2013 Picturing the Past: Gender in National Geographic Reconstructions of Prehistoric Life. American Antiquity 78:123–146.Google Scholar
Thomas, David H. 1978 Arrowheads and Atlatl Darts: How the Stones Got the Shaft. American Antiquity 43:461–472.Google Scholar
Van Gelder, Leslie, and Sharpe, Kevin 2009 Women and Girls as Upper Paleolithic Cave “Artists”: Deciphering the Sexes of Finger-Fluters in Rouffignac Cave. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28:323–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, James Z., Weina Ge, Dean R. Snow, Prasenjit Mitra, and Giles, C. Lee 2010 Determining the Sexual Identities of Prehistoric Cave Artists Using Digitized Handprints: A Machine Learning Approach. In ACM Multimedia Conference, pp. 1–8. 2010 ACM 978-1-60558-933-6/10/10 vols. ACM, Florence, Italy.Google Scholar
Wright, Rita P. (editor) 1996 Gender and Archaeology. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar