The study of several tracks of hands found alongside cave paintings prove that the artists were women rather than men, says an American researcher. Many indices have already shown that the rock art was not confined to males.

The “Paleolithic men” who drew the cave paintings were instead “Palaeolithic women”, says Dean Snow, professor of anthropology at the archaeological PennState University (USA). The revelation came to him by studying negative footprints of hands of the cave of Pech Merle, in France.

Dated back 25,000 years, these representations of hands are surrounded by well-known figure of a horse decorated with points. The American researcher have carefully measured the dimensions of these drawings, made by the technique of stencil key set, the artist blowing the paint on his hand to leave a trace on the stone.

Financially assisted by the National Geographic Society, he then compared with those measured proportions of men and women currently living in Europe and who were willing to put their hands on his scanner. According to him, most traces of hands found at the site of Pech Merle were those of women, contrary to what archaeologists assumed previously. However, “even a surface examination of the images of these prints suggested me that there were many hands of women,” affirms the researcher in the magazine National Geographic.

Dean Snow supports his demonstration on the observation of three other caves, one of Gargas, in France (Hautes-Pyrénées) and in Spain, those of Maltravieso (Extremadura) and El Castillo (Cantabria). All these works are dated between 20,000 and 30,000 years, from the Upper Palaeolithic period. Again, the imprints of hands that he studied were women. If the statements of Dean Snow is correct, they call into question the vision of the Paleolithic artist, always depicted as a man.

Software to determine the sex

However, the discovery is not so surprising. The hands of the cave of Gargas, for example, dated from Gravettien (-29,000  to -22,000 years), have been attributed to both sexes and even to all ages since hand footprints of babies were also found.

The assumption of women artists have repeatedly been mentioned. But the determination of sex by the proportions of the fingers is not so obvious that Dean Snow seems to think. At CNRS, a special software, Kalimain was developed and is beginning to yield results. It has been used for a beautiful set of rock paintings recently discovered in Papua.

Kalimain showed that the fingerprints were those of the hands of women. Associated with the presence of many women’s symbols and other elements, this discovery led to the hypothesis that these paintings, on an island, had been carried out by women’s groups who came together for a ride.

The news is not a scoop but a confirmation that women have played an important role in demonstrations of Paleolithic art …

Prehistoric Rock Art