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In the post-Pleistocene period the glaciers retreated,

the seashore rose 300 feet,

the tundra turned to forest,

and the great herds disappeared

from Western Europe.

 And gone with the animals

was the great ‘high culture’

of Ice Age humanity.

It is not hyperbole

to speak of the high culture

of these hunters and gatherers,

for cave paintings like Lascaux

are complex works that speak rather eloquently

for the abundant leisure

and rich cosmology

of their creators.

Primitive humanity devoted

most of its spare time

to matters of ritual and art.

As a contemplative people with time on their hands,

they gave much thought to menstruation and the moon,

observed nature,

constructed a calendar,

told stories,

and painted hundreds of thousands

of images

on the walls

of the caves.

As the Sistine Chapel expresses

the flowering of the culture

of the Renaissance,

so Lascaux expresses the flowering

of the culture

of the Magdalenians.

In more ways than one,

the two great murals have much in common,

for they are not mere decoration;

they are mythological visions

of the nature of time.

‘The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light: Mythology, Sexuality & the Origins of Culture’ – William Irwin Thompson