托福阅读练习： Lascaux Cave Paintings.pdfVIP

智 课 网 托 福 备 考 资 料 托福阅读练习： Lascaux Cave Paintings        In Southwest France in the 1940’s, playing children discovered Lascaux Grotto, a series of narrow cave chambers that contain huge prehistoric paintings of animals. Many of these beasts are as large as 16 feet (almost 5 meters). Some follow each other in solemn parades, but others swirl about, sideways and upside down. The animals are bulls, wild horses, reindeer, bison, and mammoths outlined with charcoal and painted mostly in reds, yellow, and browns. Scientific analysis reveals that the colors were derived from ocher and other iron oxides ground into a fine powder. Methods of applying color varied: some colors were brushed or smeared on rock surfaces and others were blown or sprayed. It is possible that tubes made from animal bones were used for spraying because hollow bones, some stained with pigment, have been found nearby. One of the most puzzling aspects of the paintings is their location. Other rock paintings—for example, those of Bushmen in South Africa—are either located near cave entrances or completely in the open. Cave paintings in France and Spain, however, are in recesses and caverns far removed from original cave entrances. This means that artists were forced to work in cramped spaces and without sources of natural light. It also implies that whoever made them did not want them to be easily found. Since cave dwellers normally lived close to entrances, there must have been some reason why so many generations of Lascaux cave dwellers hid their art. Scholars offer three related but different opinions about the mysterious origin and significance of these paintings. One opinion is that the paintings were a record of seasonal migrations made by herds. Because some paintings were made directly over others, obliterating them, it is probable that a painting’s value ended with the migration it pictured. Unfortunately, this explanation fails to expl