Paleolithic menagerie

The UNESCO organization entered into its list of “World Heritage Objects” (as they are officially called on the international bureaucratic argo) cave painting in the Show Cave, located near the small French city of Valon-Pon-D'Arc . The oldest of the drawings that have survived there were made about 32 thousand years ago. Scientists are arguing about dating, but one thing is clear: the treasures of Shove are the most ancient work of art, officially included among other “masterpieces of human genius” worthy of eternal protection.

The cave, in which I had the first time to get acquainted with the primitive art close, was located at the border of the three countries - France, Spain and Andorra. But neither the first nor the second, not to mention the third, have nothing to do with what is happening in this wilderness. Even the road here is so cool that you want to click on, which you should not do behind the wheel in the mountains. Those who are lucky to get to the entrance receive rubber chobots and a lantern on the forehead. Then, at a once flashed jamb, tourists are lined up with a goose, enters the darkness and wanders along the wet path, without analyzing the road. Sveta is enough exactly on the back of a neighbor, so you can not make an idea of the contours of the arch whose sizes give out an echo. Half an hour of walking in the darkness deprives all self -confidence, which we were awarded with light and civilization. Simply put, it becomes scary. We climbed into the bowels of the mountains that were here before us and instead of us. But the cave is an ideal place for a meeting of geology with paleontology, evolution with history, a person with someone who seemed to be not yet.

Finally, we stopped, where it was said to gain the spirit before presentation. When a restrained (so as not to spoil) light flashed, the Paleolithic menagerie opened before us. Most of all there were bison. The artist grabbed animals on the run. Generality gave their movement strength and inertia. A boldly sketched outline, infinitely smooth - "Matisse" - a line, the explosive energy of the posture. An economical pattern gives the imagination more than the eye.

This painting is more than 30 thousand years, but the dates here are meaningless, like kilometers in astronomy. The authors of this museum lived for so long that we really do not know anything about them. In addition to the fact that art was more important for them than life. This is evidenced by a chain of petrified traces - an adult and a child. The former lead there and back, the latter - only there. That's when it turned out for the first time that art requires sacrifice. (The other is humane - the hypothesis believes that the child was tired and carried him back in his arms so as not to roar).

I can’t forget the bison from the cave, because they are birching birth memory. Now, when biologists have been speaking to us that a person shares 99% of genes with a monkey, it is especially important to understand how we are still different from it. In the end, in the world of our ancestors there was nothing that forced them to invent spirituality. She is an optional supplement. What is the meaning of this excess? Is he - the purpose of evolution, or - its by -product? After all, there is no need for a ritual, God, Bach. Without them, a considerable part of my friends is still perfectly. But even they are the fruit of the spiritual revolution, the reasons for which are argued by theologians and scientists.