Rock art, performance and Palaeolithic cognitive systems. The example of the Grand Panel palimpsest of Cussac Cave, Dordogne, France

Abstract

This paper investigates the cognitive role of the palimpsest in cave art through the case of the Cussac Cave Grand Panel, the main engraved assemblage from this sepulchral and decorated site dated from the Middle Gravettian period (31,200–28,700 cal BP). The technical, thematic and formal unity of this monumental panel yields evidence of a short time-span for its creation. The accurate study of the superimpositions in situ and on a high resolution 3D model leads to the conception of a Harris matrix like model. It attests to a global structuring based on privileged themes interactions (taxa associations, animation and scale of depictions, relative chronology). Considering Cussac Cave Grand Panel palimpsest as a dynamic composition, the paper discusses agency and practice of accumulation in one place in Palaeolithic cave art. In the perspective of “art as action” the dynamic composition could be considered as a performance which raises the question of the audience. The monumentality of the depictions, the physical space of the chamber and the panel setting would suggest two agents: the engraver as primary agent acting towards a potential collective audience as a secondary agent. In this social context we assume that the palimpsest could have been used as a way to share and reinforce common concepts in the community. Whatever the particular semantic content of Cussac cave rock art, this study testifies to the collective dimension of cave art palimpsests, unlike most works so far which considered these specific compositions as the expression of an individual relationship to the parietal images. Thus it brings new elements of discussion on the socio-cultural functions of cave art production and cave art sites in the Palaeolithic societies of Western Europe.