From: tcbruno@athena.mit.edu (Tom Bruno)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Cave Paintings, Magic or Instruction ?
Date: 17 Apr 92 01:35:41 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <mmHwupp6@cs.psu.edu>, okunewck@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Phil OKunewick) writes:
|> 
|>    Cave painting is a practice which is still carried on today.
|> 
|>    Unfortunately.
|> 
|>    But, if one believes that a better understanding of the past can be
|> drawn from what's going on in the present, then ancient cave painting
|> can possibly be compared to modern cave painting.
|> 
|>    There are two reasons why vandals paint a cave.  First, to mark a
|> way back to the entrance.  (Ironically, there's usually a much easier
|> route than the one the arrows point to.  Tossing a coin at an
|> intersection often has a higher probability of finding the easiest way
|> out.)
|> 
|>    Second, the painter wants to leave a mark of what he feels is a
|> great achievement - namely, he feels that he did something that few
|> other people can do, and decides to leave a monument of his passing.
|> This is usually his name, his organization's name (fraternity symbols
|> aren't unusal), or a nickname he has given himself or his group
|> ("Sniper Team").  Bathroom-wall type grafitti is almost nonexistant in
|> caves, unless the vandals specifically want to annoy somebody. (e.g.
|> If the owner gates the cave to protect it, and vandals break in, they
|> sometimes write nasty messages to the owner.)
|> 
|>    Inner-city grafitti is similar.
|> 
|> 
|>    So, if we use what's happenning today as a way to draw an
|> understanding of the past, then we might suspect that primitive man
|> had a similar motivation - if you can't write your name, what do you
|> put on the wall as a monument to what you do?
|> 
|> 
|>    Incidentally, modern cave painting (a.k.a. grafitti) is highly
|> illegal in many states.  A teen-ager near Pittsburgh just paid $500 in
|> fines and court costs for putting his initials on the wall of a
|> western PA cave.  And the people who caught him got a $400 reward from
|> The Robertson Association (a caving group, dedicated to preserving
|> caves and having a good time).


A little more along the lines of ethnographic analogies...
Here at MIT there are students who like to find little nooks and crannies
inside, on top of, and under the buildings of the Institute.  Going under the
collective term of 'hackers,' they have formed their own subculture here.
(Hackers do a lot more here than cave around inside the empty spaces between 
walls- they engineer lots of spectacular stunts such as the weather balloon
exploding on the 50-yard line at the yearly Harvard-Yale football game... =) )

One of the most prestigious things a hacker can do is find a place that no
student has ever crept into before- usually a crevice 3 feet wide and forty feet
above the floor in a steam tunnel.  When the hacker gets there, he leaves his
'mark'- usually an exceptionally florid name or symbol, with the accompanying
date.  It's absolutely amazing where these writings WILL turn up- hackers will
risk life and limb to 'go boldly where no one has gone before.'  Some walls in
the old steam tunnels have names and dates stretching back to the original
construction of the Institute in Cambridge (circa 1910).  It's a long standing
tradition which shows no real sign of slowing (save for the ever-increasing
use of infrared and motion detectors in areas the administration would rather
not have explored!).  

I doubt that our prehistoric ancestors had the exact same things on their
mind when they painted in caves, but there certainly could be some sort of
prestige system going on- perhaps paintings or certain representations signified
a certain tribe or culture?   (Just a guess.  I don't know the first thing about
the details of cave painting... but still, it's interesting...)

tom bruno
department of archaeology
mit
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology