Stone Age

How old are cave paintings roughly (many appeared as long ago as 30,000BC)? What was happening on our planet tens of thousands of years ago (different phases of the Stone Age: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, as people moved from using stone implements, hunting and gathering food, to farming, domesticating animals, making pottery)? What tools were used (axes, arrow heads; try flint napping, chipping flintstones to see how such tools were made - look out for flying fragments, they can get into children’s eyes!)? Why are animals often depicted in cave paintings (source of food, quasi-religious reasons if caves used for sacrifice or ceremonies)?

Cave paintings

Where are cave paintings found (all over the world; four boys discovered the Lascaux cave paintings in the Dordogne in France in 1940; many caves closed, as algae and bacteria can fade the paintings)? What do they often depict (people, animals, hunting scenes, handprints, symbols)? Are any creatures shown which are now (a) still in existence (for example, bison), (b) extinct (for example, mammoths, which were hunted to death)? Paint a picture in the style of cave paintings, showing life as you imagine it to have been then. Make handprints using the technique the cave dwellers used, blowing pigment through a straw; can you tell anything about their owners?

Identities

Tourists sometimes leave their signatures on walls or in visitors’ books, so why do many people like to see their names, identities on public display (prove they have been there, tell their friends, prolong their memory since we are mortal)? How did people identify themselves before writing (finger, thumb or handprint; cross or other agreed mark)? When are signatures needed (on financial matters such as cheques, receipts, accounts; official documents such as wills, marriage certificates; letters, autographs)?

Writing

(a) Imagine you and some friends are the first to discover these paintings - describe how you feel and what you do; (b) find out as much as you can about them and write about what life must have been like living in a cave, with no electricity or modern luxuries; (c) describe the people whose handprints we see: who were they and why did they daub the cave wall?

Ted Wragg is professor of education at Exeter University

TALKING POINTS

Is it right to ban the public from seeing certain cave paintings?

For

Relics such as these have escaped pollution for thousands of years. They are irreplaceable, so it would be tragic if they faded away forever because one or two generations were too selfish. Exact copies can be constructed in museums, and photographs are effective in bringing our ancient heritage to a wider public.

Against

Copies are not the real thing. There is a sense of awe when we stand in the very place where something historical took place which no copy can replace. There are ways of protecting the paintings, such as banning smoking and photography, covering them with glass. Income from visitors will easily pay for the protection.