Daily Junction.mobi portal<figure class="align-center "> <img alt="Hand paintings and an image of a bull on the wall of the El Castillo Cave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752064/original/file-20260804-50-chfji0.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> <figcaption> <span class="caption">Inside the main room of the El Castillo Cave.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cueva_del_Castillo_interior.jpg">Government of Cantabria Press Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<p>It’s a large leap, and one that opens a long gap in the record that is reason for caution: a 2023 survey of 5,786 catalogued images across 113 European Palaeolithic caves found that <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.10373">plants account for just 0.07% of them</a>, against over half for animals. This near-absence that may reflect how little we have looked for plants, and how easily a painted flower gets filed away as an abstract sign.</p>
<p>Directly beneath the panel sits a shrine-like stone concretion – exactly the kind of surface on which offerings might have been placed. This would not be unprecedented: at Chauvet Cave in south-eastern France, a cave bear skull was deliberately placed on a flat stone block, with traces of a fire lit beneath it, in what <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00048596">excavators have described</a> as an altar-like arrangement roughly 36,000 years old. Modern techniques for recovering ancient environmental DNA from sediment are sensitive enough that traces of Solanaceae — the nightshade family, which includes belladonna and henbane — could support the reading.</p>
<p>That testability is why the claim is worth putting before a wider audience now. If wrong, a field study will show it. If right, it would mean the human impulse to make images and the human use of mind-altering plants are entangled at the very origin of art.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/289084/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
<p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/benjamin-pothier-2223669">Benjamin Pothier</a>, Researcher in Anthropology, Ethnobotany and Art History, Space Artist and Human Factors Specialist in Crewed Space Missions, Fellow International of the Explorers Club., <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-plymouth-717">University of Plymouth</a></em></span></p>
<p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-the-worlds-oldest-image-of-a-mind-altering-plant-289084">original article</a>.</p> </div>