From Room 3:  Birds as Teaching Tools

Art History and Exhibit n 1985, while deep-sea diving 110 feet (35 meters) below the surface at Cape Morgiou, near Marseilles, France, Henri Cosquer discovered the small entrance to a cave. Venturing 450 feet (135 meters) inside, he discovered an expansive, air-filled chamber. When he returned six years later, he discovered the chamber’s gallery of Paleolithic cave art, including this outline of what appears to be a Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), painted with charcoal on a vaulted ceiling not far from two smaller images that also appear to be Great Auks.

The Science The underwater entrance presented two obvious questions. What was this decorated cave doing in deep water? Could the pictures in its gallery possibly be authentic? The story that emerges from subsequent research is almost as remarkable as the art. Assessments of the tiny, slow-growing calcite crystals coating the images established that the images had been painted at a much earlier time and were therefore authentic. When the Paleolithic artists painted in the cave, it appears that they were working on a cliff some 250 feet (75 meters) above the Mediterranean shoreline and several miles inland. The explanation for the dramatic shift in the cave’s elevation lies in climate change that affected sea level. In fact, the series of climate changes that have taken place over the past 30,000 years have shifted the location of the cave entrance from above to below sea level and back again numerous times. Researchers have taken samples from charcoal drawings in the cave for radiocarbon dating. These tests apparently confirmed that two major production phases: one about 27,000 years ago, when finger tracings (by the thousands) and stenciled hands (at least 55) were created; and a second phase between 18,000 and 19,000 years ago, when most of the animals, including this one, were completed.32 The second production phase came shortly after the last glacial maximum, when much of the Earth’s water was tied up in great ice sheets, and sea levels were lower than today’s by 300 feet (90 meters) or more. The cave’s entrance would have been high and dry at that time, but progressive warming over the past 10,000 years--during the Holocene period--eventually immersed the entrance.

The depictions of marine life in Cosquer Cave provide an indication of the possible value of particular organisms to our forebears. For example, numerous seals are shown, often speared. Evidence of hunting is not limited to seals--28 percent of the animal images include arrows or spears. The Great Auk was surely known to the Paleolithic residents of the region. The 29-inch (74-centimeter) flightless bird, also known as the Northern Penguin, became extinct in its modern northern range in 1844 following several generations of ruinous overharvesting. It had been an extraordinarily effective diver, like some of its smaller relatives, like Razorbills (Alca torda) and Puffins (Fratercula arctica), that are still found in the region today. But the Great Auk could well have been called the Great Awkward for its clumsy gait on land. That feature made it easy prey for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century hunters and, much earlier, presumably for Paleolithic hunters as well. One of the clues identifying this bird are its stunted wings, which, though usually held clamped tightly to the body, were apparently held “a little out (so that light shows under it) when it began to run” (Plate 18).[33] In those colder times the auk occurred in France and the Mediterranean and probably dove within sight of the historic cave found by Cosquer.[34]

This painting not only indicates the former species’ former distribution in the region but also suggests that it had a special value to the artist and the local human community. Perhaps it was valued as food, but the presence of this image in the recesses of the cave offers possible alternative interpretations. Early hunters in historic times took advantage of the extremely dense oil and fat layers that protect the Great Auk against icy water. These lipids made the Great Auk inflammable, and nineteenth-century hunters may have burned piles of their carcasses as fuel.[35] Also, more than 130 natural and modified limestone lamps have been found at Lascaux, along with torches, spare wicks, and flints, suggesting the possibility that our Cosquer Cave artists may have used these flat, fat-burning lamps, too, and fueled them with auk oil.[36]
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Plate 17
Auk in Cosquer Cave,Alpes Maritimes, France, c. 17,000-16,000 BCE. Charcoal on rock wall.
© Photo: J. Clottes. In J. Clottes, J. Courtin, and L. Vanrell, Cosquer Redécouvert (Paris: Le Seuil, 2005). Science Art--Birds.

Plate 18
Modified Detail of Auk in Cosquer Cave,Alpes Maritimes, France,
2005/2007, by Darryl Wheye.
Ink, watercolor, and pencil drawings digitally placed over photograph.
© Darryl Wheye. Science Art-Birds
Photo courtesy of J. Clottes.