Sometimes called the Well Scene owing to its
location in a deeper, less accessible area in the caves of Lascaux, France.
This is a good image to use early in the semester to encourage class
participation concerning the various ways historians obtain information. As this is a
prehistoric image, historians have to interact with anthropologists as well as art
historians to arrive at reasonable interpretations of its meaning. We must also stress
that with any prehistoric art any such interpretations are educated speculation and could
be totally incorrect.
General background: The artists were hunter-gatherers who, using
flickering torchlight, painted such images in relatively inaccessible areas of certain
caves. Because of their location most scholars believe that the paintings were meant to
serve magical/religious purposes. It should also be noted that images of humans were rare
and this is one of the first depictions of one of our early ancestors.
