These days there is much talk of women breaking the glass ceiling but a recent analysis of cave art suggests women were making their mark much earlier than previously thought.
The analysis, conducted by Pennsylvania State University archaeologist, Dean Snow, draws on previous findings that established a difference between the lengths of males’ and females’ fingers.
Snow expanded on research by British biologist, John Manning, who found that women tend to have ring and index fingers around the same length while men have ring fingers longer than their index fingers.
Snow first recognised the relationship between Manning’s research and cave art after noticing a hand stencil in a book on the Pech Merle cave in France.
Subsequently, Snow and his colleagues created a method of determining gender by applying modern machine-learning technologies to relative measures obtained from images of human hands. This algorithm was established using a reference set of hands from people of European descent using measurements of finger lengths, hand lengths, and index to little finger ratios.
In turn, the algorithm was used to predict the gender of ancient hand prints, painted 12,000 to 40,000 years ago in caves in southern France and northern Spain.
Snow’s algorithm predicted the gender of a modern sample with about 60 per cent accuracy, but the hand prints from the caves appeared to fall on the outer limits of the scale, suggesting a more precise correlation between the algorithm and the hand proportions of Paleolithic human beings.
This distinction is known as sexual dimorphism – two distinct forms within the same species – and researchers found it to be more pronounced during the Upper Paleolithic period (roughly 20,000 to 40,000 years ago). They were able to utilise this finding when analysing the cave art of the Upper Paleolithic era and consequently noticed the prominence of women’s hands in the art.
Snow was able to conclude that as much as 75% of hand prints present in caves around the world, most predictably in southern France and northern Spain, were made by women.
While the specific purpose of cave art is unknown, many evidence-based hypotheses have been developed. These include art being a method of communicating with others or as being part of a religious or ceremonial process.
The Bradshaw Foundation, which focuses on ancient rock art, explains a variety of ways hand prints have been created, such as using the hand on the rock as a stencil and spray paint from the mouth or charcoal powder through a reed, outlining the hand with a paint brush, or by painting the hand and then placing it on the rock.
Some experts are skeptical of Snow’s research. One such person is evolutionary biologist R. Dale Guthrie, from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Guthrie performed his own analysis focusing on differences in the width of the palm and the thumb and concluded that adolescent boys were most likely to have created the cave art. He supported his finding in saying that adults would have found caves uninteresting while young boys would have found them both exciting and inviting.
But whoever the artists were, they sure knew how to mark their place more gracefully than some people today who scratch ‘I WOZ HERE 2013’ into freshly poured pavement.
Image: Ancient cave art at Pech Merle
