There are a lot of theories about the reason prehistoric humans drew and sculpted. Some say that it's pure art, other believe that it's a communication form, let it be from shamans, magic, beliefs or knowledge. On top of these two comes a third theory where humans back there were on drugs which allowed them to draw symbols the mind sees when in transe.
First let's take the oldest cave drawings discovered until now in Chauvet caves.
''The wall paintings of Chauvet are instinctive and emotional; they reveal a choiceless impulsiveness, unpolluted by the intellect. there were homo sapiens who “had distinctly pre-modern minds, have been little given to symbolic thought, have had no great interest in communication and have been essentially self-taught and untrained” through the disciplined, hierarchic and dedicated artists of history to erratic and expressive modern artists all the way to postmodern artists with their anarchic minds (Humphrey). It is the degree of purity of instinct, emotion, freedom and self-consciousness wrapped in intelligence and mastery of technology that an artifact carries in a natural way that separates utilitarian crafts from creative arts and “high art” from “lesser art”. Those are the paradoxical hints to understand for the modern human that “knows that he/she knows” that the genius of art is not something the intellect can understand by pondering over it or know just by being an observer to it'' Paradoxically, an insightful investigation also divulges intellect as the root of freedom inherent in true art. Language, conscious communication, technology, and even self-consciousness reflect the emergence of human intellect in Chauvet cave art. In its naturalness, Chauvet cave art displays instinctive impulsiveness of creativity and freedom of communication rooted in intellect that is recognizable as the substratum in all artistic endeavors'' ¹
Let's study some of the paintings drawn in this cave:
''In some cases we know that the...