Were the great cave painters sex- and violence-obsessed teenage boys?
That’s the novel suggestion raised by paleobiologist R. Dale Guthrie of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. In the new (August) issue of Scientific American, J R Minkel’s story and interview with Guthrie, headlined “Paleolithic Juvenalia,” explored this hypothesis. Here’s the article. Paleolithic Juvenalia Were cave artists sex- and hunting-obsessed teenage boys? Few images fire the imagination like Paleolithic cave paintings, part of the scant physical record left by humans who lived more than 10,000 years ago. To some scholars, this ancient art represents the handiwork of shamans; others detect traces of initiation rites or trancelike states. A new interpretation offers a more prosaic explanation for cave art: the expression of adolescent boys’ preoccupation with hunting and sex. During the late Paleolithic era, 10,000 to 50,000 years ago, humans roamed a vast steppe covering modern Europe, Asia and North America. These wandering hunters left behind myriad paintings on cave walls and
