UFA, Oct. 19The pregnancy calendars of primitive women, as well as the signs of birth and death that existed in the Paleolithic era, were deciphered for the first time based on the results of a study of drawings on the walls of the Kapova Cave in the Southern Urals, said Ayrat Bagautdinov, associate professor at the Ufa University of Science and Technology.
Previously, the scientist spoke about the study of wall signs and drawings of the cave. In his opinion, the primitive artist was a woman, as evidenced by the images reflecting the cult of motherhood, and the emotional component of the images preserved through millennia. Primitive man, the scientist noted, had abstract thinking, knew counting and compiled a lunar calendar, operated with knowledge about the behavior of animals and planned the timing of the hunt.
«»In Kapova Cave, the predominant number of signs is the trapezoid. We have established that this is the calendar of pregnancy of animals and women. The calendar of a successful pregnancy contains the sign of the birth of a child or cub — “Y”, and the calendar of an unsuccessful pregnancy (inverted trapezoid) contains the sign of the death of the fetus or child — «⅄». The death sign «⅄» next to the trapezoid means the death of the mother. It has been proven that the drawings and signs of the cave are drawn in accordance with the three-dimensional perception of space by primitive man: forward — progress, back — regression; left — progress, right — regression ; down means progress, up means regression,” Bagautdinov said.
According to the researcher, for example, the image that scientists previously called «Big Horse» actually shows a pregnant horse because the large belly is clearly visible. And the scientist interprets the vertical lines in this figure as lunar months corresponding to the animal’s gestation period.
“We assume that primitive man was guided by the moon and could record both one full moon and another full moon. Therefore, events could have been recorded according to the lunar calendar. We believe that ancient man calculated the beginning of the year from spring — the time of the onset of warmth and the mating season of animals. And animals were practically everything for primitive man — food and skin, peace and comfort, if there was enough meat,” Bagautdinov shared.
In addition, the researcher believes that primitive people on the territory of Bashkiria planned a future hunt — they killed the mother mammoth after the birth of the calf, and left the baby mammoth as an object of future hunting. “The results of our research confirm the hypothesis existing in Russian science about “prehistoric overhunting” — the extermination of mammoths and woolly rhinoceros by primitive people of the Upper Paleolithic. Through drawings and signs, the primitive artist gives a clear message to future relatives — they should hunt animals only after the birth of their cubs,” believes scientist.
August 15, 08:00