Caves - Cool or Spooky?

JupiterKid

Lately I've had a fascination with caves. Early humans lived in caves and duly decorated them with astounding art. I admire people who explore caves (speliologists is the term I think) and open them up for further exploration.

Just last night I had a dream about caves in England, along the River Thames and west of London. I don't think there are any caves in that location but the dream was very vivid.

So do AHers like caves or not?

HamsterFace

**** caves

Jesus Wept

Their art was fairly sh1te tbh. I think you are just astounded because it was a few thousand years ago. I wonder in a few thousand years will someone wet themselves if they find some my doodles.

Anyhow, caves are both spooky and cool.
But yea, **** caves.

The Sidewards Man

I love the stalagmites so jealous of me.

Jesus Wept

tites or mites, that is the question

IrishStuff09

Nothing better than exploring a nice deep cave, head first.

DEFTLEFTHAND

I've never given them much thought but I did visit the Ailwee Caves in the Burren once on a school tour. I suppose they are cool when you think about them being the dwelling places of early man.

johnohanlon

There are caves in North Antrim with markings on the walls from ancient dwellers, I never actually saw them though as I looked out the wrong window when my old geography teacher was giving a bus tour to the class. Game of thrones is shot in that area now apparently.

The Backwards Man

My granny used to love telling me the story of Sawney Bean when I was wee, put me off caves for life.

Canis Lupus

Karl Stein

Fascinating and frightening all at once. I couldn't be one of those pot-holing nutters though.

catbear

Check out the hypogym in Malta, spookiest subterrean space i've been in and I've done potholing!

The Backwards Man

Karl Stein wrote: »

Fascinating and frightening all at once. I couldn't be one of those pot-holing nutters though.

Round here we call them council men

JupiterKid

Canis Lupus wrote: »

That vid made me feel very claustrophobic. :eek: I couldn't do what pot holers and cave explorers do but I really admire them.

Irish Guitarist

The only time I've been in a cave was when I went on a school tour to Dunmore Cave. I thought it was terrifying. I was easily scared back then though. Around the same time my mother brought me to Kilkenny Castle and I asked her "is this Hell?".

vienne86

Spooky and scary for me. I have been on some tours of caves, which are OK, but I'm always glad to get back into daylight.

A cow called Daisy

Fr.Dougal 'Why are all the rocks different sizes?'

There is a place on the mainland where there are really dark caves. Its almost like being blind! but it not a great place for a screeching competition.

Personally I don't believe it......I don't believe it......i dont believe it

crockholm

Ailwee Caves co. Clare-dissappointing.Crag Cave co. Kerry-Meh. Marble Arch Caves co. Fermanagh-best of the Irish Caves thus far.

Skocjan Caves co.Slovenia-FTW-the boss of caves

Wibbs

Cool for me.

i heart chewy louie wrote: »

Their art was fairly sh1te tbh. I think you are just astounded because it was a few thousand years ago.

Try 35,000 years ago. And their art was anything but shíte. Seemingly from nowhere modern humans started to abstract reality onto a surface. That's an enormous cognitive leap. It doesn't seem to be for us, simply because we have such abstractions everywhere in our lives. We're doing it now at this moment on this site. Look at the symbols all around you when replying to a post. Speech bubbles, picture frames(not in AH ) smileys etc. Humans from say 100,000 years ago would simply not comprehend that kind of thing. Indeed there have been examples in modern times were isolated peoples not exposed to paintings couldn't make head nor tail of them. All they "saw" was a jumble of shapes and colours, rather than the subject being represented.

And when they abstracted that reality they did so with incredible sophistication, artistic skill and understanding of the subjects they were painting. They even used the shapes of the rock surface to render a 3D effect. In a few they try to represent movement using animation techniques. And as I say this was there from the very beginning. Oh and they were incredible sculptors too. Again with staggering economy of line and form to represent living animals to a degree that we can tell the species in question. They even answered some questions we had of those animals. EG did male cave lions in Europe have manes(they didn't). Interestingly they rarely included themselves in this art narrative. Palm prints and isolated female genitalia was the most of it. At first anyway. Human figures come slightly later and they're exaggerated magical type figures. Then again we only have what has survived that near unimaginable amount of time. Bone, Ivory, stone and cave pigments. Of wood and other perishables we know little to nothing about. And you can be sure that the original ratio of ivory to wood items was a lot higher.

Going further back with a different human species Neandertals, who didn't create art like us(or evidence is tiny/lacking) a lot of their tools seem to show wear from woodworking. Recently a site in Spain with ideal preservation conditions has left some tantalising evidence of wooden objects like shovels and spoons that they made. They certainly collected and processed pigments(blacks reds and sparkly micas were faves), so to what end? Personal adornment? Camouflage? Group affiliations? All of the above?

My personal theory is that "art" started on the human body and only later was this transferred to a more permanent gallery and that's why it looks like it comes from nowhere fully formed. Put it another way, if all our photographic records were lost in a 1000 years time an alien visitor would never know that many people reading this have tattoos.

I wonder in a few thousand years will someone wet themselves if they find some my doodles.

Not unless you're a very talented artist.