The first time that the archaeologist Diego Garate wanted to enter the caves with only a torch in his hand, he understood the enormous challenge of prehistoric art. “It was difficult for me to progress inside the cave, used to seeing them with very powerful flashlights. With the torch you see everything red; there is no color scale, only a red scale ”, explains Garate. That simple gesture that served to open his eyes was part of a series of experiments designed to better understand cave paintings: to understand the motivations of these artistic expressions, it is also necessary to know the logistical complications that this work involved.
“To produce this art they needed important operational chains and that production is our focus: they required a knowledge of caving, some lighting technologies, a knowledge of the underground environment.
They required an investment of time and people that had to be very expensive for the group, ”says the archaeologist.
That is the line of work of the project that he directs, Before Art, and with that perspective they studied what the lighting of that artistic process was like.
“The light of the flames is alive, it is very dynamic and constantly changing.
It is another experience that we had not calibrated in all its importance "
Diego Garate, University of Cantabria
“It is a light that is alive, that is very dynamic and constantly changing. The flames of the torch are alive, which is another experience that we had not fully gauged ”, explains Garate. "I had not appreciated enough how the lighting of the moment conditions the observation of artistic work, with such a limited range of reds, you wonder how they bet on different colors," adds the archaeologist, from the University of Cantabria. Researcher Mª Ángeles Medina, from the University of Córdoba, agrees that this way of seeing art is among the most revealing of this work, because the lighting conditions favor the perception of long wavelength colors, such as red and yellow. orange: "The play of shadows turns out to be the most relevant visual perception inside the cave with the lighting of the time,much more than the perception of colors ”.
The team has reached these conclusions through experimental archeology, using the different technologies of that time and environment, and measuring the light data of these ways of using fire, to apply them to computer programs that help analyze the caves. Archaeologists have a record of the remains of tools used for lighting, found in caves with paintings such as Atxurra, a cave sanctuary found in Lekeitio (Vizcaya), which Garate found vandalized with graffiti from Extremoduro. Half a thousand coals generated by torches - "like traces of crumbs in the story of
Hansel and Gretel
", according to Medina - three remains of bonfires and a lamp on a sandstone were the base on which to work.
Medina, left, tries out a marrow lamp on a sandstone base.
On the right, Garate shows the debris emerging from the torch. IIIPC
They had to learn to build torches and lamps with Paleolithic materials, to use them in a cave very similar to and close to that of Atxurra, but without archaeological remains that could be damaged by smoke and flames.
For example, they made torches with a series of woods tied with lianas in the upper part of the artifact, which makes it easier for the flame to be oxygenated and keep alive, rekindling with movement.
Depending on the dryness of the wood and other conditions, the torch lasted between 20 and 60 minutes burning.
"It is the first time that these remains have been analyzed in this way, which provide very rich information," says Medina about this study, which is published by PLOS and was part of his doctoral thesis. They have observed that the ideal combination is the use of vegetable torches and animal fat lamps. The former are perfect for moving around the cave, with good light in all directions, while the latter allow a prolonged stay in a less ventilated closed space, because they last longer and do not generate as much smoke as bonfires and torches. "You can't get into a cat flap with those torches fuming or you don't get out of there," warns Garate, but the lamps shine much less.
"The play of shadows turns out to be the most relevant visual perception inside the cave with the lighting of the time, much more than the perception of colors"
Mª Ángeles Medina, University of Córdoba and the International Institute for Prehistoric Research of Cantabria
These factors, added to the conditions of each cave, allow us to imagine what the experience of those artists would be who, as in Atxurra, walked up to 38 minutes through the cavern until they reached the wall where they painted the mural. “They had to carry spare torches, a couple of kilos of wood, fuel ... All of this entailed an economic and social cost. We want to be able to estimate how much effort it required, because measuring the effort is essential to understand what this art meant for these societies ”, indicates Medina, from the International Institute for Prehistoric Research of Cantabria.
The archaeologist Marcos García (Complutense University of Madrid), who has not participated in this study, considers that it is a very interesting and necessary line of work, but from which he expects more progress. "The good is going to come later, this is a proof of concept that serves to show what can be done from an experimental point of view, but then you have to be able to reproduce it in each case and different cave," says García. “Everything that involves the production of art, traffic, accessibility, visibility, lighting has never been systematically studied. This global perspective has not been considered, this is a very good case study that allows us to move in that direction thanks to current technological applications ”, he points out.
Garate believes that it is a research framework that departs from the traditional approach of Palaeolithic art, which was close to that of art history, with analysis of the aesthetic and technical characteristics of a painted bison. "We are far from that old-fashioned image of the archaeologist waiting for inspiration in front of the painting," says Garate with a laugh. “We see that those who painted the cave made life difficult to paint in dangerous places because they felt like it, there is a logistical investment that involves risk and effort. Before that risk and effort were analyzed in subjective terms, with opinions, but now we have technological resources to study it ”, he says.
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