Abstract Symbols - Did they have some numeric or symbolic meaning?

"Panel Of Signs"
simple markings -
perhaps some symbolic significance,
but the first artistic 'experiments'
probably looked like this.


from Nauix, France

 

 

The first 'finger drawings' were mere playful experiments & appear to have no meaning.

Here is a simple line caricature of a
generalized human face -
one writer has described the abstraction as 'grotesque' -
at any rate, it seems probable the cave artists preferred not to depict people with all the realistic ability at their disposal. Depictions of people were rare in this time period, perhaps for fear of accidentally enacting some sort of 'magic' over themselves.

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So called "meander" drawing taking the shape of a face