Abstract
Drawings, engravings, sculptures and similarly constructed art forms rely on our unique ability to internally process visual information and identify recognizable patterns. This same ability processes imaginary patterns, such as faces of people and animals in geological formations, clouds, and groups of stars. This phenomenon of identifying imaginary patterns is referred to as “pareidolia.” The ability to find pareidolia in the natural world is apparently innate to humans and logically should have preceded our earliest known drawings, engravings and sculptures. We have records of pareidolia in ancient times and worldwide among animistic hunter-gatherers who held their observations in sacred traditions. In this study, previously published Upper Paleolithic images from caves in Northern Spain were compared with prominent geological formations observed outside of caves in the region. The findings demonstrate that Upper Paleolithic cave artists in Northern Spain found pareidolia in geological formations outside of caves and projected those visualizations onto the walls of deep caves. In this presentation, five panels in four caves are shown to represent pareidolia observed at two geological formations outside of the caves. These pareidolia-based cave images are animated and retained in mythology that originates in cultures that have been present in the region since before ancient times.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
ART HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, ART THEORY, ARCHAEOLOGY
