Determining style in Palaeolithic cave

art: a new method derived from horse

images
Romain Pigeaud∗

How can we explain the variations and similarities of Palaeolithic art? Are we to suppose that
European artists conformed to one great evolutionary sequence over 20 millennia? Or is the
variation geographical, ideological or social? The author begins to address these big questions by
deconstructing over 900 images of the horse, the animal most commonly depicted in European
caves. He finds it possible to distinguish variations due to differences in live animals and due to
differences in methods of representation – allowing the isolation of those few differences due to

Method
style. Applying this to a case study at Parpalló in Spain, he notes that the local sequence of horse
images correlates with other cultural changes. Here is a method of great potential for revealing
conservative and innovative trends.
Keywords: Palaeolithic, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdelenian, cave art, horses, Parpalló

Introduction
The dating of the art displayed in the cave discovered at Chauvet (Ardèche) back to 32 000
years ago, and therefore into the Aurignacian, has stirred up research into Palaeolithic cave
art (Clottes 1998; Valladas et al. 2001). Painted caves were previously, for the most part,
classified according to a stylistic chronology devised by André Leroi-Gourhan (1965), which
would place the Chauvet paintings in the Solutrean period (between 22 000 and 18 000 years
ago). Although some scholars still have reservations (Züchner 1999; Pettit & Bahn, 2003),
it appears reasonable to accept this new dating and to put aside an evolutionary stylistic
chronological scheme. The implication is that Palaeolithic art is a dendritic phenomenon,
which did not follow a linear path, evolving from a clumsy image to a naturalistic chef
d’oeuvre. As Peter Ucko (1987) has suggested, it is possible to envisage the existence of
several contemporary styles, be they due to differences in technical or artistic ability or to
regional variations.
In this case, should we abandon stylistic analysis? This question has provoked a lively
debate amongst researchers (Pettit & Bahn 2003; Lorblanchet & Bahn 1993; Otte 1997;
Vialou 1999; Otte & Remacle 2000; Lorblanchet & Bahn, 2003). It soon became apparent
that only a minority of painted caves could be dated, either directly or through stratigraphic
relationships. Style therefore seems to be an inescapable tool, if one is to insert painted
∗
USM 103 – UMR 5198 du CNRS, Département de Préhistoire du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Institut
de Paléontologie Humaine, 1, rue René Panhard 75013 Paris, France (E-mail: romain.pigeaud@wanadoo.fr)
Received: 15 January 2005; Accepted: 24 February 2006; Revised: 1 September 2006
antiquity 81 (2007): 409–422
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 Determining style in Palaeolithic cave art

caves into a chronological framework of Palaeolithic cultures. One condition, however, is

that an agreement can be reached on the meaning of ‘style’. For James Sackett (1970: 370),
style ‘(. . . ) concerns a highly specific and characteristic manner of doing something, and that
this manner is always peculiar to a specific time and place’. In other words, style is not what
unites, but what differentiates. Choosing very broad stylistic criteria allows us to bring
together a large number of sites, but this
exercise leads nowhere. One such broad
criterion, for example, is the one known as
the ‘duck’s bill’, a stylised representation of
a horse’s nose whose elongated oval shape
recalls that of a duck’s bill (Figure 1).
Since the time of Henri Breuil (Capitan,
Breuil & Peyrony 1910), the ‘duck’s bill’
has been considered an archaic trait and
it has been used to date certain caves and
some portable artefacts to early phases of
Figure 1. Cave of la Trinidad de Ardales. Incised horse. the Upper Palaeolithic. However, there are
Note the ‘duck’s bill’, Y-shaped legs and the low tail
attachment. Drawing after Cantalejo Duarte 1997.
figures of horses displaying ‘duck’s bills’ on
sites dated well into the Magdalenian period,
for example on plaques from Gönnersdorf in Germany (Bosinski & Fischer 1980). The
‘duck’s bill’ is therefore a particular way of stylising the end of a horse’s nose, but is not
specific to a site, nor attributable to a particular chronological period. On its own, it is not
a useful stylistic criterion and must be used with great caution.
Other supposedly ‘stylistic’ criteria, on the other hand, are nothing of the sort. The tail is
placed low, for example, on many representations of Palaeolithic horses, such as those of the
cave of the Trinidad de Ardalès in Andalusia (Spain) (Cantalejo Duarte et al. 1997). This
is surely an anatomical error, as a real horse’s tail starts right above the anus. Of course, it
is possible that the artist deliberately took some liberties with anatomical reality. I contend
that the ‘low tail attachment’ criterion is not a reliable stylistic criterion, as the real intention
of the artist – simple error or artistic licence – will always remain unresolved. To compare
sites on this basis alone would be a risky undertaking.
The problem of these formal coincidences is particularly acute in the period that precedes
the Magdalenian. My working hypothesis is that there is a fundamental break between
the Magdalenian (c .17000 – 9000) and the cultural phases that came before (Aurignacian,
Gravettian, Epigravettian & Solutrean). This break manifests itself by the appearance of
naturalistic representations. Before, the main tendency was towards synthetic figurative art,
defined thus by André Leroi-Gourhan (1992: 223): ‘the lines express the essential elements of
the shape of the subject represented, without rendering the fine nuances of real, visible contours’.
We have proposed (Pigeaud 2002a; 2002b; 2004; 2005) to call this tendency to represent
schematic animal figures ‘silhouette art’.
The aim of current research is to characterise and understand the anthropological
significance of this break: can it be interpreted in terms of changes in culture and/or
populations? Or does it reflect changes in mentality? The difficulty with ‘silhouette art’
resides precisely in the fact that it is based on the extreme simplification of animal forms,

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while nevertheless ensuring that the form remains identifiable. Given that there is not an
infinite number of ways of representing the profile of a mammoth, for example, it follows
that certain representations can easily coincide and look similar without having any actual
relationship between them. This was shown in a recent colloquium (Sacchi 2002): if the
silhouette of an incised horse, recorded on the site of Foz Coâ (Portugal) is superimposed
on that of an incised horse from the Altaı̈ Mountains (Siberia), there are very few differences
to be observed. Would this be sufficient to propose that an artists’ ‘school’ had spread its
teachings over such considerable distances? This was the hypothesis put forward by Paolo
Graziosi (1956), who bunched all sites displaying Palaeolithic art in the Mediterranean
arc (Italy, France, eastern Spain, Andalusia) into a ‘Mediterranean province’, characterised
by the same representative conventions. More recently, Emmanuel Guy (2000a; 2000b)
has suggested a link between the art shown on the cave of Mayenne-Sciences (France,
Mayenne) and that of the rock art of Foz Coâ (Portugal). But the problem lies in the fact
that we do not have archaeological staging posts which would support such links nor can
we suggest a direction for a supposed diffusion. On the contrary, it seems, in our opinion,

Method
more economical to suppose that formal vignettes (or ‘formenes’ as Marcel Otte (1997:
20) calls them by analogy with linguistic phonemes), can have emerged in several places at
different times. These ways of proceeding, or ‘tricks of the trade’, are carried out differently,
depending on the period or region under scrutiny. Nevertheless, they are fundamentally the
same, and it is only their combination that carries cultural meaning.
First and foremost, it is necessary to get to know this silhouette art, which seems to last
for over 20 000 years on the European continent, inside out: what are its variations and
regional and chronological developments? To approach this, it is necessary to construct a
template that will allow a reading of the figures and to use a vocabulary that is distinct
from that used to study the Magdalenian, a culture that has monopolised most research into
Palaeolithic art and for which a whole battery of concepts and notions has been formulated.
In particular, the notion of style must be re-evaluated and adapted to an art form which is
essentially diagrammatic.

Materials and methods

The present paper suggests a way in which a new stylistic analysis might work, using the horse
as an example. The horse is the most frequently represented animal in Palaeolithic art: the
latest inventory of cave art (which excludes Chauvet) lists 946 horses out of a total of 3295
images, or 28.7 per cent (Sauvet & Wlodarczyk 1995: 195). The fact that prehistoric artists
have subjected horses to great variations in treatment makes them a useful stylistic subject.
By studying variations in the ‘horse form’, it should be possible to construct interpretative
templates which will allow geographic and cultural comparisons between sites.
My first task was to study the variations in proportions (Pigeaud 1997; 1999a). This
required the establishment of a simple and reproducible method, followed by verification
in situ, which allowed me to propose a method of analysis and decipherment of Palaeolithic
horse figures. I was inspired by the work of Dr Pales (Pales & Saint-Péreuse 1981) who,
using anatomy as the basis, chose to distinguish between the realistic elements integrated
into artistic depiction and the elements attributable to style. Pales himself followed the

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canon established by Claude Bourgelat, the founder of the Ecole Vétérinaire in Paris, who
set out, at the end of the eighteenth century, a set of ‘beauty criteria’ for horses, which
Dr Pales adapted for Palaeolithic representations.
I also used, as a standard point of reference, the Przewalski horse (Figure 2), given its
similarity to images of horses in Palaeolithic art (though palaeontologists have demonstrated
that the latter are not descended from the former). In order to better show variations in the
reperesented parts of a horse, I have used a simplified version of Simpson’s (1941) diagram,
adapted from Véra Eisenmann (1991):
this allows us to see at once and easily
differences in size and proportions (Fig-
ure 3). For this, records had to be measured,
which could be verified in situ in some
cases. I estimate the margin of error to
be 10 per cent, taking into account the
date of recording and publication (Pigeaud
1997). This first investigation concerned
174 representations of horses, chosen from
caves known for their large collections:
Figure 2. Female specimen of a Przewalski horse. Note the Combarelles 1 (20 horses), Lascaux (53),
M-shaped bipartite dorso-ventral division. Photo Romain
Pigeaud. Rouffignac (5), Gabillou (7), Labastide
(11), Le Portel (7), Niaux (8), Les Trois
Frères (28) in France, Ekaı̈n (10), El Castillo (6), La Pasiega (19) in Spain. At this stage, the
aim was to show chrono-cultural and/or regional variations in proportions, and therefore
the chronological span (from Gravettian to Magdalenian) was wide.
My second task consisted of studying in detail the ‘silhouette art’ defined previously.
Having selected morphological criteria, I made an inventory of all known and published
horse representations, reduced to their outline without coloured contours (Table 1 for the
list of examples). The chronological value of such a corpus had to be addressed. Many
sites are dated purely by stylistic means. If the representations were selected according
to chronological attributions, was there not a danger of falling into a circular argument? I
gambled that if there were chronological variations these would emerge as analysis proceeded,
as indeed appears to be the case.

Results
Variations in form
Research into proportions in horse images has highlighted an important fact: the horses
represented are less deformed than expected: the head and body are often well proportioned.
The problem lies in the relationship between these two parts: the head is often too small
compared to the trunk (Figure 3). This phenomenon is well known to teachers of plastic
arts: ‘. . . this is a rather bizarre phenomenon, this general tendency amongst beginners in horse
representation to make the head too small. Moreover, this exaggerated reduction of the head is also
noticeable amongst artists who, in the nineteenth century, dedicated themselves to representing

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horses’ (Cuyer 1913: 247). We were able

to verify this in the paintings of Delacroix,
Stubbs and Géricault, considered among
the best equine specialists (Pigeaud 1997:
317-18). What does this mean? That
Palaeolithic artists, just as we would,
perceive the ‘horse form’ analytically; they
do not see it as a whole but as the sum of
its parts: head, trunk, legs, tail. It is the
relationship between these four elements
that will give birth to a style (Pigeaud
1999b; 2002b).
Choice of criteria
A good stylistic criterion is a particular trait

Method
of the image under scrutiny which is the
result of a conscious and intended process
on the part of the artist, that is to say it is a
sign of a formal search in a given place (the
site) and time (the chronological period).
Starting from this point, I define four
types of variant, commonly used in stylistic
analyses. However, as I hope to show, only
the last two are useful for comparing sites
and styles without falling into the trap of
formal coincidence.
- ‘Naturalistic’ variations: these are
criteria which directly refer to aspects of
Figure 3. An example of a Simpson’s diagram applied to a horse’s anatomy, to its structure, sex
variations in the proportions of Palaeolithic horse represent- and growth. First, the profile of the
ations. A: Ariège; B: Spain; C: Dordogne. Compared to the nose, convex (Figure 4a-d-h-j-k) or concave
reference standard (Przewalski horse), the trunk and head
remain well proportioned, but the ‘problem’ is in the joining (Figure 4b-c-f-l), the long nose/short nose,
between the two elements. In other words, the head is often the heavy/fine head are characteristics
too small in relationship to the body. The belly is often also which correspond to variants present
swollen. LQ: length of trunk; HC: height at withers; EC:
breadth of trunk; LT: length of head; ET: breadth of head.
amongst real horses. In fact, it seems
The numbers on the left are ratios. After Pigeaud 1997. that the length of the nose, which varies
enormously from individual to individual
in reality, is related to age – older horses tend to have longer noses – and climate: according
to Allen’s law, horses noses are shorter in colder climates for the obvious reason that they
need to conserve energy and warmth (Eisenmann et al. 1985: 164). Since this criterion, like
the profile of the face and the breadth of the head, is not a stylistic criterion, I removed it
from the inventory.
Many horse representations possess marked groin lines, which give the belly an ‘M’ shape
(Figure 4b-h-i). Some authors (Guy 2000b: 416) would see this as a style trait and use it

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Table 1. The corpus of horse silhouettes used in this paper.

Germany Russia France Spain Portugal

Vogelherd (1 horse) Ignatievskaı̈a (1) Mayenne-Sciences (4) Ardalès (3) Foz Côa (12)
— — Grotte du Cheval La Pileta (4) —
d’Arcy-sur-Cure (1)
— — Roc-de-Sers (1) Malalmuerzo (1) —
— — Pair-non-Pair (3) Peña de Candamo (1) —
— — Font-de-Gaume (2) Altamira (6) —
— — La Croze à Gontran (1) El Buxu (1) —
— — La Mairie (1) El Castillo (1) —
— — Fontalès (1) Hornos de la Peña (3) —
— — Les Merveilles (1) La Pasiega (2) —
— — Pech-Merle (5) Domingo Garcia (1) —
— — Roucadour (5) El Niño (1) —
— — Petite grotte de Bize (1) La Griega (4) —
— — Chabot (1) Los Casarès (10), —
— — Chauvet (2) Siega Verde (3) —
— — Ebbou (1) El Parpalló (14) —
— — Gargas (1) — —
— — Oxocelhaya-Hariztoya (1) — —
— — Le Portel (2) — —

to link caves such as Lascaux, Ekaı̈n or Niaux. We believe this criterion to be too common
to be useful. On the contrary, it is more interesting to note that this ‘M’-shaped belly line
is broken by the representation of the hock. According to us, a stylistic criterion must not
be negative, that is based on absence: even if such an absence is systematic during certain
periods, it may only mean that there was no interest in a given anatomical trait and nothing
more. It need not indicate the deliberate will of a ‘school’ of representation. I therefore
removed the ‘M’- shaped belly from our list of stylistic criteria.
The M-shaped bipartite dorso-ventral division poses a more specific problem (Fig-
ure 4e-l). We are again confronted here with a natural trait, visible amongst Przewalski
horses. For André Leroi-Gourhan and Ignacio Barandı́aran, the observance of this trait can
be attributed to the middle Magdalenian III-IV, the period of Leroi-Gourhan’s older style IV
(Leroi-Gourhan 1965: 154; Barandı́aran 1972: 365-7). It is however also found at Chauvet
(Ardèche) and amongst the horses of Siega Verde (Spain), on finger-drawn representations
and on pecked engravings, admittedly not directly dated. Similarly, criteria such as the dorsal
stripe (Figure 4e-k), the horse’s coat, the beard, the hair of the mane or tail (Figure 4c),
the edge of the nose or of the organs, the shape of the shoulder or of the withers, criteria
that show a certain care for the likeness of a representation, are extremely rare in ‘silhouette
art’, and become more frequent only in the Magdalenian.
The line of the neck: this refers to the full drawing of the edge of the mane, usually
represented by a line that includes also the neck, thus giving it a thicker appearance. There
are two ways of representing the division between neck and mane: with a simple line, which
results in a ‘double mane’, visible amongst the horses of Los Casarès, of la Griega and
Domingo Garcia (Balbin Behrmann & Alcoléa Gonzales 1992: 415); or as a ‘thick mane’,

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Method

Figure 4. Repertory of formal solutions chosen by Palaeolithic artists (compare with Przewalski horse, Figure 2).
1. ‘Caricatural’ solution: a. enormous head (La Baume Noire, Tarn-et-Garonne, upper Magdalenian, after Escola 1989);
b. monstrous body (Mayenne-Sciences, Mayenne, Gravettian, after Pigeaud 2004). 2. ‘Harmonic’ solution attempting to
balance body masses: c. naturalising (Rouffignac, after Barrière 1982); d. exaggerating the neck’s length into a ‘swan’s
neck’ or extending it (Vogelherd, Germany, Aurignacian, after Hahn 1986); e. exaggerating the neck’s breadth (Le Portel,
Ariège, middle Magdalenian, after Breuil & Jeannel 1955); f. exaggerating the head’s length (Gargas, Hautes-Pyrénées,
Gravettian, after Barrière 1976); g. exaggerating the head’s breadth (Abri Morin, Gironde upper Magdalenian, after de
Sonneville-Bordes & Laurent 1975); h. pronounced hollow back (Gargas, Hautes-Pyrénées, Gravettian, after Barrière 1976);
i. splayed legs (‘flying galop’) (Lascaux, Dordogne, lower Magdalenian, after Glory); j. bunched legs (La Paloma, middle
Magdalenian, after Corchon Rodriguez 1987); extending the legs (Etiolles, Essonne, upper Magdalenian supérieur, recorded
by Fritz & Tosello in Taborin et al. 2001); l. extending and exaggerating the tail’s length (Grotte du Cheval, Arcy-sur-Cure,
Burgundy, Magdalenian, after Baffier & Girard 1998). Note the wide geographical and chronological spread of the examples
shown.

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 Determining style in Palaeolithic cave art

Figure 5. Different types of schematic manes. a. linear outline; b.‘ladder’; c, d and e. ‘crown’ or ‘arched step’.
(a: Lumentxa, after Moure-Romanillo 1990; b: Los Casarès, after Cabre Aguilo 1934; c: Font-de-Gaume, after Capitan et al.
1910; d: Les Merveilles, after Lorblanchet 1972; e: Chabot, after Combier et al. 1958).

that is to say a wide plane executed by scraping, as at Chabot or Ebbou, or by finger-drawing,

as at Chauvet, or by adding colour, as at Le Portel, or by deep incision (Figure 5).
- Variations of perception: these criteria concern ways of describing aspects of the anatomy
of a horse which show variations in the hands of prehistoric artists, but without being
intended, at least not as the result of a systematic process: perhaps we should simply
interpret these variations as a defect in the perception of the ‘horse form’. I therefore propose
to remove these perception criteria from our research. I would put the tail attachment or
dock described above and the shape of the cheek, which in reality is a rounded shape
but which can be represented either by a simple line (Figure 5d), or be of a stronger,
square shape (Hornos de la Peña, Horse ‘of the Discovery’ at Siega Verde) in this category.
The same goes for the curve of the buttocks, sometimes flat, sometimes sharp, and for
the shape of the saddleback, which varies greatly in nature, depending on age and sex
(Baffier 1984: 149) and which was sometimes reduced to its bare minimum or, on the
contrary, over-accentuated (Figure 4h), no doubt to emphasise the dynamism of the figure
and balance the overall aspect (Pigeaud 1999b).

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 Romain Pigeaud

- Schematic variations: these criteria refer to particular semiotic problems and consist of
the minimum representable so that the ‘horse form’ can be recognised immediately. We
place in this category the crest-shaped mane, also called ‘stepped mane’ (Figure 5c-d-e) and
the ‘duck’s bill’ (present on 20 out of 36 sites). These criteria are considered as stylistic in
so far as they have been used systematically in pre-Magdalenian ‘silhouette art’. On their
own, however, they could not characterise that art, precisely because their use is universal.
Other schematising criteria are in the representation of the tail, which can be a single line,
short or long, fine or thick, or bushy.
- Stylistic variations: I believe these to be the most interesting, as they require a re-working
of the shape and an original figurative approach. Here, prehistoric artists have tried to go
beyond the simple representation of natural morphology to achieve a new original form
that has cultural connotations. Of course, coincidences cannot be excluded (we are dealing
with graphic simplicity after all), but here, for the first time, it is reasonable to envisage, if
not direct contacts, then at least influences. It is not of little interest that it is the ear that
has produced most variations: is it not the organ that horses use most to communicate with

Method
each other? The ear can be placed, naturalistically, behind the forelock (11 sites) (Figure 4e),
or ‘stuck’ next to the crest (Figure 4l). Sometimes the ear nearest the observer is merged
with the forelock, whereas the other ear appears in ‘semi-twisted’ perspective, placed on the
forehead in front of the forelock (Figure 5). Sometimes both ears are represented in ‘twisted’
perspective (Los Casarès & the Parpalló, Spain). All theses variations are represented at the
Parpalló; apart from the naturalistically placed ears which only appear in upper Magdalenian
levels, they occur from the Solutrean to the Magdalenian (Villaverde-Bonilla 1994). The
end of the nose, when the edge of the lips is present, is also the subject of variations:
in most cases it is a simple line or (at Los Casarès) a notch. It is also possible that the
lips are not represented (Mayenne-Sciences), a simple line representing just the chin. At
Mayenne-Sciences as well as at Pair-non-Pair and on a horse from Chauvet finger-drawn
with a ‘duck’s bill’, the nostril and the face are conjoined to form a kind of comma (Figure 6);
this results, in the case of the great Horse of Rocadour, in what Michel Lorblanchet (1974)
has called a ‘trefoil’ nose. At Foz Côa, the nostril and the edge of the lip form two parallel
horizontal lines. The end of the nose can be rounded, ‘naturalistic’ in a way (in most cases),
but also pointed, or ‘sheep’s head-shaped’ (Croze à Gontran, Domingo Garcia), or square
(Los Casarès). The forehead, sometimes not represented (Pair-non-Pair, les Merveilles), can
become prominent, almost ‘visor-shaped’ (Los Casarès, la Griega). The shape of the neck
and chest can also vary; it can indeed happen that the neck is pinched so that the rounded
shape of the cheek is no longer tangential to the line of the neck (Mayenne-Sciences, Croze à
Gontran, Foz Côa). This can be paired with a concave chest (Mayenne-Sciences, Figure 4b)
or not. Finally, when the hoof is not represented realistically (with pastern, fetlock, fetlock
joint, as at La Mairie, Fontalès, the Horse of the Black Frieze at Pech-Merle, El Castillo,
Hornos de la Peña, Peña de Candamo, Los Casarès), it can be ball-shaped (Ignatievskaı̈a,
Roc-de-Sers, El Niño, the horses of Le Combel and the punctuated horses of Pech-Merle,
the ‘archaic’ horses of Le Portel and of the Great Ceiling at Altamira). In most cases, however,
extremities are open, without hooves, with parallel or thinning edges; this sometimes results
in the so-called ‘Y-shaped legs’ (Chabot, Ebbou, Gargas, El Buxu, la Pileta, Malalmuerzo)
(Figure 1), a criterion that has often been used to characterise the ‘Mediterranean province’

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 Determining style in Palaeolithic cave art

Figure 6. Mayenne-Sciences (Mayenne). Horse 17. Note the ear in ‘semi-twisted’ perspective, the ‘crest-shaped’ mane, the
‘duck’s bill’ and the ‘comma’-shaped nose. Drawing after Pigeaud 2004.

proposed by Paolo Graziosi (1956); it is however also found at Cosquer, where the crest-
shaped mane is not found. Of course, only one leg per pair is shown in the majority of cases,
but some sites also possess representations of two legs per pair (Roucadour, Le Portel, Los
Casarès).

A test of the method: Parpalló

Having arrived at a classification scheme based on four criteria (naturalistic, perceptive,
schematic and stylistic), I now propose to test it in a particular case study. The art on
plaquettes from the cave of the Parpalló (Gandı́a,Valencia, Spain) lends itself remarkably
well to this exercise. The site is known to have had a permanent occupation over several
millennia, with the continuous production of images on stone plaquettes.
The cave is a major site for our understanding of the development of Palaeolithic art,
but it suffers from a bad reputation in France, primarily because of the long interval
since excavations were carried out there in 1929-1931 (Pericot Garcia, 1942). The
apparent absence of sequence between identified archaeological strata makes for rather
vague interfaces, in particular those relating to the transition between key chrono-cultural
periods (for example the interface between the Solutrean and the Solutreo-Gravettian).
The style of the representations at first appears very homogeneous and continuous over
time, but research by Valentin Villaverde Bonilla (1994) has demonstrated that, beyond an
apparent continuity due mainly to the simplicity of the drawing, Parpalló’s art shows certain
‘pulsations’, or tendencies that correlate more or less with the stratigraphy and which allow
the identification of tendencies, at first common to all Franco-Cantabrian and European
Palaeolithic art, but which end up, according to Villaverde Bonilla (1992: 378; 2002: 42),
with a greater regionalisation and the appearance of a more original art in the Magdalenian.
The evolution of horse representations follows a tendency detected by Valentin Villaverde
Bonilla (1992; 2002): double outline in early phases (Gravettian to Solutreo-Gravettian I),
repeated outline in the middle phase (Solutreo-Gravettian) coupled with the continued

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Method
Figure 7. A model for correlating stylistic criteria with stratigraphic data (After Villaverde Bonilla, 1991–92 & 1994;
Fortea et al. 1983).

presence of a simple outline; and an increased tendency towards naturalism in the more
recent phases (upper Magdalenian). The heads of the horses of the Parpalló show a tendency
to become more long than broad in parallel with the decrease in the size of the plaquettes.
It is however possible to identify two sub-trends: one is the thickening of the line,
visible in double outlines, similar to thick outlines found for example in the cave of Nerja
(Andalusia). The other trend is of filling out the volume, by emphasising multiple and
repeated outlines which go as far as showing the animal in the round, probably at the
limit between the upper Solutrean and the Solutreo-Gravettian. This tendency towards
emphasising the volume corresponds to two compositional criteria, whose importance grows
within the same sequence: the lengthening of the neck and a dynamic representation
of the chest, which is oblique and projected forward. These two criteria, already present
in earlier phases, take on more importance at a specific cultural time, the passage of the
Solutrean to the Solutreo-Gravettian: this particular event is also shown by the fauna
(Villaverde Bonilla 1991-1992) and by lithics (Tiffagom 2003): it is marked by the abrupt
decrease in consumption of caprids in favour of cervids, and with the appearance of bifacially
retouched notched points (Figure 7).
Stylistic development cannot be directly superimposed on the evolution of Palaeolithic
cultures, perceived, for example, through their lithic productions. The plaquettes from the
Parpalló, which represent an exceptional case of stability in artistic tradition over 22 000
years, prove this brilliantly: ‘(. . . ) the evolutionary process of Parpalló’s art is characterised

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 Determining style in Palaeolithic cave art

neither by breaks, nor by substitutions in the way figures are conceived, but by trends that are
brought out only in terms of percentages’ (Villaverde Bonilla 1992: 385). It is nevertheless
possible, by seriating strictly defined stylistic criteria, to establish certain correlations with
other archaeological features detectable in the stratigraphy. It seems, for example, that
throughout the sequence there are alternating trends to either represent volume and depth,
i.e. a vision in three dimensions, or to show a two-dimensional view by stretching elements.
The present research, which includes the meticulous examination of the plaquettes and the
measurement of proportions, does not pretend to offer the last word. I hope however to draw
attention to an interesting phenomenon, which is the concurrence in the Solutreo-Gravettian of
changes in diet, in lithic production and in the way horses are represented, that is, more dynamic
and projected forward. It is worth noting that these conventions, further observable in other
represented animal species, are also present on Andalusian sites 500km south of Valencia,
considered in part contemporary with this culture: the caves of the Trinidad de Ardalès and
of Nerja (Cantalejo Duarte et al. 1997; Sanchidrian Torti 1994).

Conclusion
The first results of this methodology can be interpreted in archaeological terms and in
terms of a change in mentalities. It goes without saying that the break between the
Magdalenian world and that of ‘silhouette art’ is a preliminary theoretical stance; it
probably was neither so distinct nor so rapid. The Magdalenian naturalistic tendency is
not all-encompassing: it is mainly a feature of a specific geographical zone, which runs
from the Aquitaine to Cantabrian Spain and the Basque Country as far as the Ardèche.
The remainder of the Mediterranean arc (the Italian peninsula, eastern Spain, the central
plateau of the Spanish Meseta and the valley of the Douro in Portugal) experiences a
slightly different development, in which, just as at Parpalló, the stylised representations
end up showing fur, organs, attitudes and expressions but nevertheless continue to exhibit
the majority of their own local conventions. Manifestedly, we are witnessing a limited
penetration of the Magdalenian ‘ideology’. Similarly, eastern and central Europe remains
in part outside the Magdalenian zone of influence (Sacchi 2003). Gravettian and then
Epigravettian art seems to evolve there towards a developed from of schematisation, close to
abstraction.
‘Silhouette art’, a first attempt to transcribe graphically the morphology of animals, has
followed the beginnings of Homo sapiens on European soil. It is neither homogeneous, nor
the reflection of a single thought process, nor even of a symbolic universe. That is why we
need to work at extracting it from its apparent uniformity.

Acknowledgements
The research presented here was financed in part by the Fyssen Foundation, to whom we are most grateful. I
should further like to express my thanks to Professor Valentin Villaverde Bonilla who allowed me to undertake
this research, as well as to all the team of the Museo de Prehistoria y de las Culturas whose warm and sympathetic
welcome was a great help to me. Translation from the French were by Paul Bahn, Madeleine Hummler and the
editor.

420
 Romain Pigeaud
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