Girl Power Cave Art?

A new study by a professor from Penn State University suggests that the first cave paintings were likely drawn by mostly women! Though this may not necessary be girl power cave art, it may be proof that women were the first artists!

For many years, scholars assumed that the prehistoric paintings found in caves across Europe were painted by men. Since many of the paintings pertained mostly to hunting, and men were the primary hunters, these ideas persisted.

But Dean Snow, an archaeological anthropologist from Penn State University, has new research that suggests the paintings were actually created by women! He recently published the research based on 10 years of studying 20,000 to 40,000-year-old cave paintings.

Many cave paintings are adorned with stencils of the hands of the artists. He studied these handprints in eight cave sites in France and Spain known to hold some of the oldest cave paintings, and deduced that about 75% of the hand stencils he identified were of women's hands.

The fact that the paintings often depicted wild animals could also be explained. Though men did most of the hunting, Snow said, women were still responsible for bringing the meat back as well as preparing it to be eaten.

Her stumbled upon the discovery by comparing the lengths of the ring and index fingers.

Did you know that women usually have ring and index fingers of about the same length, and that men usually have longer ring fingers than index fingers? This is the statistic Snow used to make his conclusion.

What do you think of the fact that the first artists may have been women?

Are you an artist yourself? Share some of your work with us at Sweety High!