Page 10 - ART AND NATURE IN PREHISTORY. THE COLLECTION OF TRACINGS OF CAVE ART OF THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES

the oldest blazons of the hispanic peoplehumans and signsIn the 18th century it was believed that the symbols were of a rather linguistic nature, like hieroglyphs, but their interpretation evolved as discoveries were made. e rst publications of the Commission explained these signs as the result of a simpli cation process:“In many cases it would have been di cult to guess the diversion and transformations of the drawings if, after gathering such a huge number of examples, the particular process of each abbreviation and the gradation from the stylized gures to the nal geometric pattern had not been attempted (although not always with the certainty of success). Next to it there are often di erent series of branch, pectiniform, stellar, sun, water, serpentin shaped, zigzag, punctuation and alphabet-shaped signs.”Hdez-Pacheco, 1921Human images were nally included within this schematic art group because, as explained by Hernández-Pacheco, it tted within the evolution of shapes and, therefore, within the evolution of its interpretation.“ e same degenerative evolution can be seen in the human gure, both in the traditional naturalistic style and in the purely Neolithic schematic style, whose human signi cance would not be recognised without the series of intermediate terms that connect them.”Hdez-Pacheco, 1959art and nature in prehistory. the collection of rock art tracings of the mncn010