Mystery in the cave paintings: Sacrificed stenalderfolk their own fingers?

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cave paintings have, since they were discovered, told us stories about stenaldermenneskenes the world.

But the mysterious drawings, engravings and imprints also has at all times raised the issues that we wish we had the answers to.

In the caves of France and Spain, for example, found a large number of handprints, where one or more fingers missing. It writes New Scientist according to the Science.dk.

Canadian scientists are now proposing that it acted on the voluntary, religiously motivated amputation.

The canadian researchers have among other things used the figures from a database of global ethnography. Herein they found 121 recent society, among others, in Africa, Eurasia, Oceania, and North and south America, as, you know, have practiced ritual fingerampuation.

the Reason for the ritual could be anything from to express grief over a loss, punishment or the conclusion of the marriage, but it could also be a identifikationsmarkør or simply a victim.

That one has engaged in a similar practice, yet the past can therefore not be excluded, believe the researchers.

the Number of missing fingers is also included as data in the study:

In the 'Grotte de Gargas', located in the Pyrenees in France, has found 231 images, made of around 45-50 individuals. 114 images missing one or more fingers. 'Cosquer Cave', also in France, containing 49 hands, of which 28 are missing fingers. 'Maltravieso' in western spain has 71 handprint, and the whole of the 61 missing fingers.

Several archaeologists hills, however not up on the hypothesis.

A group of british archaeologists believe that the fingers were too essential for survival to, that you would sacrifice them. They instead believe that images are a form of symbolic communication, where you have the bent or painted over different fingers to give a specific meaning.

Also, Ian Gilligan, who is an archaeologist at the University of Sydney, is skeptical. He says to New Scientist, to the ethnographic examples, as the canadian scientists are using does not fit on the håndaftrykkene from the stone age:

It is particularly three fingers missing on the images, and never the thumb, and it could indicate that frostbite has instead been the reason for the lost fingers.

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