Why did people paint horses and spears on European cave walls? The explosion of cave art in the Upper Palaeolithic, about 45,000 years, ago has been attributed to a “neurological revolution”, but it’s not as simple as that, says David Lewis-Williams in The Mind in the Cave (Thames and Hudson, £12.95). Modern human behaviours showed up at different times among different populations in Africa and Europe. Europe’s cave art is preceded by Africa’s geometric engraving, dated to 77,000 years ago, and by 75,000-year-old shell beads. So what changed in Europe to produce so much art so swiftly? Society is the…
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