London man connects the dots

Connecting the dots - 30th January 2023

Londoner Ben Bacon has solved a mystery that has puzzled archaeologists for years. He’s worked out the meaning of some dots which appear in Ice Age cave paintings. The marks use a lunar calendar to record the animals' reproductive cycles.

Bacon isn't an archaeologist, he repairs antique furniture. However, he's fascinated by early human cave paintings. He’s spent many hours studying photos of them on the internet and at the British Library. He noticed that animal images such as cows, reindeer and fish regularly had a series of dots with them, as well as a 'Y' symbol. He believed that this was a symbol for giving birth because one line comes out of another.

Bacon sought help from two professors at Durham University, who agreed to assist him although he had no qualifications in archaeology. Together, they compared the birth cycles of the cave painting animals to similar, present day species. They proved that the marks referred to the lunar months of each species’ mating season.

The new theory’s significant. It shows that people from the Ice Age were the first to use a calendar to record information about major natural events. The prehistoric humans who created the cave paintings in Lascaux and Altamira had found a way of measuring time. This is an essential part of modern day civilisation.

This discovery shows that prehistoric humans weren't so different from people today. Bacon said, "These people, separated from us by many millennia, are suddenly a lot closer."