Rock paintings in France closed a class of astronomy 17,000 years ago

Scenes of everyday life. This is shown by cave paintings usually found in prehistoric caves. But the house of the French caves of Lascaux (Montignac, Aquitaine region) goes much further. Experts believe that they are confronted with a public treaty astronomy As if it was the picture of a university class.

This is what experts say from Edinburgh and Kent Universities in the UK, after comparing zoomorphic images of the Neolithic in caves from various parts of Europe and Europe. Asia, published in the Athens Journal of History. In this way, they managed to understand that the paintings found at Lascaux are not everyday situations of men or dying animals, but that They could symbolize constellations. Nothing more and nothing less than a diagram on star systems.

"Cave art shows that people had a advanced knowledge of the night sky in the last ice age. Intellectually, they hardly differed from us today, "said Martin Sweatman, a chemical engineer at the University of Edinburgh.

To corroborate, these paintings could be related to a meteorite rain known as the Taurides, which occurred about 17,000 years ago. Something similar happened with the images found at the archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey, which evoke the impact of a comet that caused the climate to return to the conditions of the period glacial, about 13,000 years ago.

Constellations

The discussion on possible astronomical images in the French cave lasts for decades and Sweatman and his colleague from the University of Kent, Alistair Coombs, now feel they have found an answer.

It is estimated that the painting of an injured buffalo represents the Constellation of Capricorn at the summer equinox, whereas that of a bird is linked to Balance, in spring. There are other speculations that could be related, for example, to Leo and Taurus.