Men and women might have had their fingers deliberately chopped off during religious rituals in prehistoric times, according to a new interpretation of palaeolithic cave art.
In a paper presented at a recent meeting of the European Society for Human Evolution, researchers point to 25,000-year-old paintings in France and Spain that depict silhouettes of hands. On more than 200 of these prints, the hands lack at least one digit. In some cases, only a single upper segment is missing; in others, several fingers are gone.
In the past, this absence of digits was attributed to artistic licence by the cave-painting creators or to ancient people’s real-life medical problems, including frostbite.
But scientists led by archaeologist Prof Mark Collard of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver say the truth may be far more gruesome. “There is compelling evidence that these people may have had their fingers amputated deliberately in rituals intended to elicit help from supernatural entities,” said Collard.
Removed by mod
All the images in the article are showing that the hand with missing fingers is the left hand. Most people are right handed, so missing a left finger for most people wouldn’t hurt the grip strength of a one handed weapon/tool much in the main (right) hand. You could attach something like a shield strapped to your left arm and wouldn’t notice the issue for hunter gathering then. (Shields aren’t just for defense against claws, they can also be a bashing tool.)
Now, I doubt they were cutting off a pinky finger because they were bored on a Saturday night, but there could have been religious/group beliefs involved. Body modification has been around for a very long time, from as simple of scarification, to tattoos and piercings, to removal of body parts (circumcision), so it isn’t out of the realm of possibilities.
I think the civilizations they’re looking at were about 20k years before shields started being used.
Archers do this intentionally for skill bonus
This was not religious. It was cool hunter things
can you explain or link to some kind of attribution for this assessment? I don’t know enough about archery to understand how it would help.