Revealed, early humans made paintings in caves while hallucinating

KOMPAS.com- A study reveals that people in the stone age, primordial man, make paintings cave while hallucinating.

These ancient people, according to a new study, deliberately ventured into the caves that were lacking oxygen to get that experience.

As quoted from Live Science, Friday (16/4/2021) researchers found a series of caves dating from 40,000 to 14,000 years which were decorated variously cave painting.

Cave-These caves are mostly found in Spain and France. Interestingly, the paintings in the cave can only be accessed through narrow passageways.

Cave painting also drawn using black and red. Most of them are animal shapes, handprints, and abstract geometric signs.

Also read: Painting of Sulawesi’s Oldest Cave, Revealing Early Human Migration in Indonesia

This also raises the question, why did early humans have to bother walking through the narrow passage of the cave to make the painting work of art.

To answer that question, a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University, Israel, conducts research that focuses on studying the characteristics of deep and narrow caves that require artificial light to enter and have low oxygen levels.

Researchers then ran computer simulations with different lengths of passages leading to a slightly larger area where the paintings could be found.

Researchers then analyzed changes in oxygen concentration if someone stood in a different part of the cave while carrying a torch.

Also read: Researchers Study Neanderthal Early Human Feces, What For?

The fire that comes from the torch is one of the factors that deplete the oxygen in the cave.

The research team found that the oxygen concentration depended on the altitude of the passageway. With a shorter passageway it will have less oxygen as well.

In most simulations, oxygen concentrations fell from levels of the natural atmosphere from 21 percent to 18 percent after only about 15 minutes in the cave.

Low oxygen levels can cause hypoxia in the body, a condition that can cause headaches, shortness of breath, confusion, and restlessness. This condition is thought to have been experienced by early humans when making paintings in caves.

Also read: Graves of Children and Traces of Early Man’s Journey on Alor Island

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