They claimed to be unrelated to this tribe and denied knowledge of their meaning. He writes that when the Spanish Jesuit missionaries were establishing missions on the southern peninsula at San Ignacio and Santa Gertrudis in the early 18th Century, they heard stories from the native Cochimí about a race of giants from the north who had inhabited the land long before them and who had painted the gigantic murals. Francisco Javier Clavigero was one of the first to describe the paintings in his book A History of Baja California published in 1789. From then on Palaeolithic art was reinterpreted in a symbolic-religious key, at the time when the age of parietal art was accepted," concludes the researcher.Much speculation exists about the people who created the cave art.
"At this time, the conception of the origins and the nature of art that the westerners and scientists had at the time was redefined. "All this produced a transformation in the concept of art itself," pointed out the expert. Artistic theory and practice that was being made in Europe changed with postimpressionism, the appearance of Art Nouveau or the generalisation of photography in addition, with the mass arrival to museums of the metropolis of artistic pieces from non-Greco-Latin cultures and "primitive arts" of the colonies. Anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of Art started to consider other possibilities. It was understood that such complex art could not have been done by primitive man something that did not occur with mobiliary art."īetween 18 the conception of art changed in western society. Palacio explains how these studies went unnoticed: "They were heard, but little attention was paid to them because the format of the paintings was too spectacular and too "perfect" due to their naturalistic nature.
The international scientific community ignored its Palaeolithic origin for 20 years," states the researcher. This art composed of paintings and engravings on the walls and the ceilings of the caves, was not included within the archaeological deposits and it was unknown if it was so old. "The problem came years later with the discovery of the paintings in the cave of Altamira (in 1879), published by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and spread by the Spanish geologist Vilanova and Piera at a scientific conference held in Lisbon in 1880. These discoveries, that spread through the scientific community from 1864, are dated to the same period as the rest of the archaeological material and there was "practically no doubt about their Palaeolithic origin." Palaeolithic art is composed of so-called mobiliary art -pieces of stone, horn and bone sculpted or engraved- that are included within archaeological deposits. The history of the discovery and study of this art is long and complex.
His investigation, published in the last edition of Oxford Journal of Archaeology, reveals the reasons for the move from this recreational-decorative interpretation of Palaeolithic art to different one of a religious and symbolic nature.
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"Initially scientists saw this art as the way that the people of the Palaeolithic spent their free time, sculpting figurines or decorating their tools," Palacio points out. Up until then, Palaeolithic art had been interpreted as a simple aesthetic and decorative expression.
This idea appeared at the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century. "This theory is does not originate with the prehistorians, in other words, those who started to develop the idea that the art of primitive peoples was linked with beliefs of a symbolic-religious nature were the anthropologists," Eduardo Palacio-Pérez, author of the study and researcher at UC, said.
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