This videos explores the discovery of prehistoric art at the beginning of the 20th century, where several theories have emerged to explain why our ancestors painted in caves.
Totemism (where each drawing represented the animal protecting the tribe) was favored but archeological findings and the science of ethnology paved the way for the "sympathical magic" theory of Abbé Breuil. According to him, drawing animals is a way to kill them symbolically before the hunt.
Starting from the 1950s, structuralism gained traction, which associates drawings with symbols. In 1994, the discovery of Chauvet was a shock, as no prehistorian thought humans 36, 000 years ago could create such art.
