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Archaeologist Marc Azema of the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail and artist Florent Rivere have reported their findings after 20 years of researching Stone Age animation techniques, A new study of cave art across France suggests prehistoric artists used cartoon-like techniques to give the impression that their images were moving across cave walls. The research claims when the images, in which animals appear to have multiple limbs, heads and tails, are viewed under the unsteady light of flickering flames they can appear to move as the animals they represent do. It is also believed that prehistoric relics previously thought to have been used as buttons were actually designed as thaumatropes: Double-sided pictures that can be spun to blur the images into an animation. Archaeologist Marc Azema of the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail and artist Florent Rivere reported their startling findings in the June issue of Antiquity, the Daily Mail reported. After 20 years of researching Stone Age animation techniques, Azema has identified 53 paintings in 12 French caves, which superimpose two or more images to apparently represent movement. They show animals trotting, galloping, tossing their heads or shaking their tails. "Lascaux (a complex of caves in south-west France] is the cave with the greatest number of cases of split-action movement by superimposition of successive images," Azema was quoted by Discovery as saying. "Some 20 animals, principally horses, have the head, legs or tail multiplied," he said. When these paintings are viewed by flickering torchlight the animated effect 'achieves its full impact', he added. Azema and Rivere claim their remarkable theory is backed up by the discovery that ancient engraved discs were used as thaumatropes - formerly claimed to have been invented in 1825 by astronomer John Hershel. A popular toy in Victorian times, thaumatropes (literally meaning 'miracle wheels') were discs or cards with a picture in each side attached to a piece of string. When the string was twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single animated image. Rivere believes that Palaeolithic artists created similar optical toys well before their apparent invention in the 19th century. He examined pierced bone discs found in the area around the Pyrenees, which have previously been interpreted as buttons or pendants. The researchers discovered that if a string was threaded through the central hole of some of these discs and stretched tight to make it spin, the result was a single persistent image of movement. In the most convincing case, a bone disc found in 1868 in the Dordogne, one side features a standing doe, while on the reverse the animal is lying down. Spun, the animal appears to get up and down repeatedly. The researchers believe the earliest origins of cinema may lie in these flickering images. "Palaeolithic thaumatropes can be claimed as the earliest of the attempts to represent movement that culminated in the invention of the cinematic camera," they wrote. —ANI
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