by Virginia Hughes
Three-quarters
of handprints in ancient cave art were left by women, study finds. This
overturns the dogma that the earliest artists were all men.
Archaeologists
have found hundreds of hand stencils on cave walls across the world. Many
researchers have proposed that they were made by male hunters because
many of these early paintings also showcase game animals—bison, reindeer,
horses, woolly mammoths.Women made most of the oldest-known cave art paintings, suggests a new analysis of ancient handprints. Archaeologist Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University analyzed hand stencils found in eight cave sites in France and Spain.
He compared the relative lengths of certain fingers as
according to John Manning’s work women tend to have ring and index fingers of
about the same length, whereas men's ring fingers tend to be longer than their
index fingers. Snow's study determined that three-quarters of the handprints
were female.
Experts
expressed a wide range of opinions about how to interpret Snow's new data. Some
experts are skeptical. Other researchers are more convinced by the new data.
The new work raises many more questions than it answers. Why would women be the
primary artists? Were they creating only the handprints, or the rest of the art
as well? The question is why these ancient artists left handprints at all.
Difficult
words:
ancient ['eɪn(t)ʃ(ə)nt]
древний
arch(a)eologist
[ˌɑːkɪ'ɔləʤɪst] археолог
cave [keɪv] пещера
convince [kən'vɪn(t)s] убеждать
determine [dɪ'tɜːmɪn]
устанавливать
game animal охотничье животное
interpret [ɪn'tɜːprɪt]
объяснять
overturn опровергать
propose [prə'pəuz]
предполагать
raise a question
поднять вопрос
showcase ['ʃəukeɪs]
демонстрировать
stencil ['sten(t)s(ə)l]
узор
wide
range of opinions широкий диапазон мнений
