Searching for Rock Art Evidence for an Ancient Super Aurora
For tens of thousands of years, humans have expressed themselves artistically on their surroundings—painting, etching, carving, and molding designs, decorations, and imagery on surfaces ranging from portable, often hand-held objects (such as animal bone and stone) to more stationary features of the landscape, such as scattered rocks, caves, and cliffs.
The most famous early examples of this so-called rock art are the fabulous Paleolithic cave paintings from southwestern France and northern Spain, which date to about 15,000 years ago (see Expedition 47(3):20-24). Less well known, but far more common, are the petroglyphs (drawings or etchings carved on stone) that have been identified around the world.
Besides a general human fascination with visual representation in different media, these rock art images can tell us not only about the people who made them—a broadly anthropological question—but also about environmental conditions of the past.
For tens of thousands of years, humans have expressed themselves artistically on their surroundings—painting, etching, carving, and molding designs, decorations, and imagery on surfaces ranging from portable, often hand-held objects (such as animal bone and stone) to more stationary features of the landscape, such as scattered rocks, caves, and cliffs.
The most famous early examples of this so-called rock art are the fabulous Paleolithic cave paintings from southwestern France and northern Spain, which date to about 15,000 years ago (see Expedition 47(3):20-24). Less well known, but far more common, are the petroglyphs (drawings or etchings carved on stone) that have been identified around the world.
Besides a general human fascination with visual representation in different media, these rock art images can tell us not only about the people who made them—a broadly anthropological question—but also about environmental conditions of the past.
For tens of thousands of years, humans have expressed themselves artistically on their surroundings—painting, etching, carving, and molding designs, decorations, and imagery on surfaces ranging from portable, often hand-held objects (such as animal bone and stone) to more stationary features of the landscape, such as scattered rocks, caves, and cliffs.
The most famous early examples of this so-called rock art are the fabulous Paleolithic cave paintings from southwestern France and northern Spain, which date to about 15,000 years ago (see Expedition 47(3):20-24). Less well known, but far more common, are the petroglyphs (drawings or etchings carved on stone) that have been identified around the world.
Besides a general human fascination with visual representation in different media, these rock art images can tell us not only about the people who made them—a broadly anthropological question—but also about environmental conditions of the past.
