We have no verbal
evidence of this early stage in man's history, except for some
traditions repeated by the African Bushmen and the Australian
aboriginals. But we have a quantity of visual evidence, going back
to the stone age, in the remains of painting on caves like
those at Lascaux and Altamira. These are popularly known through
dishonest reconstructions by archaeologists, which give an entirely
false impression of them. In fact they are little more than blots
and scratches; but amongst them are undeniable likenesses of bison
and other animals. We may ask what induced man, who lived by
hunting, to cover the walls of his caves with these most vivid and
accurate depictions of his antagonists. Prehistorians give
different arguments. These paintings, they say, were intended to
give men power over the animals, and so increase their success in
hunting. That the representation of a creature may be treated as a
substitute for that creature, and confer magical powers, was, and
has remained, true. Witches and witch doctors transfix models of
the person they would destroy, and in at least one of the early
caves, known as the Trois Freres, the animals are shown pierced
with spears. But can this be true of the lively, energetic animals
that can be dimly discerned on the uneven walls of Altamira? The
few men who appear in Lascaux cut very poor figures compared to the
vigorous animals. Can we seriously believe that they thought they
were gaining power over their magnificent companions? Are they not
rather expressing their envy and admiration? We must suppose, and
Bushmen within living memory confirm it, that in prehistoric times
the relationship between men and animals was closer than we can
imagine. Man had barely learnt the use of tools, and his speech was
rudimentary. Animals were in the ascendant, and distinguished from
man less by their intellectual limitations than by their greater
strength and speed. The message from the cave artists may well be
'This is what we want to be like, these are the most admirable of
our kinsmen'.