The cave paintings of Lascaux (in southwestern France) date to around 15,000 B.C.E. and are among the finest examples of prehistoric art known. Ever since the paintings were discovered, scholars have puzzled over their purpose. According to one widely discussed interpretation, the paintings were made to ensure a successful hunt. Several considerations support this view.
In the first place, there is the animal subject matter of the paintings. The cave images are almost exclusively of large mammals. These animals include bison, wild horses, and now-extinct aurochs (wild cattle), which are known to have been hunted by the Paleolithic people who created the paintings. A number of the animals are shown wounded by arrows and spears. There are also depictions of what appears to be the seasonal migrations of these animals that would have been very important to prehistoric hunters.
Second, the depictions of humans in the cave paintings include human figures that appear to have animal heads. These could be hunters: hunters in some traditional cultures are known to disguise themselves with animal heads so that they are not recognized by the animals they are hunting.
Third, many cultures hold the belief that by depicting an event one can bring about its reality. Throughout history – prehistoric, ancient, and modern – images have been regarded as more than mere decorative representations; they are seen as having magical power to affect reality. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the hunters who created the Lascaux cave paintings believed that by painting successful hunts, they were ensuring that real hunts would be successful.
The author of the passage and the professor both discuss the paintings and their purpose in Lascaux cave in France. The author emphasizes a theory that states the paintings were created to show successful hunting and presents three reasons to approve this theory. However, the professor is against this theory even it is popular and cast doubt on it by presenting three viewpoints.
First of all, the passage states that the painting shows the animals hunted by the Palaeolithic people who created those paintings. In addition, the wounded animal is shown in the painting shows that seasonal migrations were important for the people. The professor highlighted the fact that animal in the painting does not show hunting, and many animals were not hunted by Palaeolithic people like cats and Rhinoceros. Moreover, a small portion of the animal in the painting is wounded.
In addition, the author contends that humans who have an animal head in painting demonstrate that they hide from animals to hunt them, Because, it was a part of the traditional culture during history and prehistory. The professor refutes this theory by saying that most of the people in the painting are not standing up and they are horizontal which shows they are sleeping and we do not know the aims of the pictures.
That last point discussed in the passage has to do with a theory about a general belief that painting brings an event to reality and painting a hunting event brings it to reality in many cultures. The professor questions this idea by mentioning that the purpose of magic is different in many cultures, maybe they wanted to bring the soul of people to those animals and use them in a special ceremony.
Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 318, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...professor is against this theory even it is popular and cast doubt on it by prese...
^^
Line 4, column 301, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... of magic is different in many cultures, maybe they wanted to bring the soul of p...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, moreover, so, as to, in addition, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 10.4613686534 115% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 5.04856512141 0% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 22.412803532 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 42.0 30.3222958057 139% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1409.0 1373.03311258 103% => OK
No of words: 288.0 270.72406181 106% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89236111111 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11953428781 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56966731391 2.5805825403 100% => OK
Unique words: 136.0 145.348785872 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.472222222222 0.540411800872 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 428.4 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0662251656 84% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 45.4274464675 49.2860985944 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.090909091 110.228320801 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1818181818 21.698381199 121% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.45454545455 7.06452816374 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 4.45695364238 22% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.146104591419 0.272083759551 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0719364054908 0.0996497079465 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0587090327142 0.0662205650399 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0949096878712 0.162205337803 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0295411063801 0.0443174109184 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 13.3589403974 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 53.8541721854 99% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 11.0289183223 112% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 58.0 63.6247240618 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 318, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...professor is against this theory even it is popular and cast doubt on it by prese...
^^
Line 4, column 301, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... of magic is different in many cultures, maybe they wanted to bring the soul of p...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, moreover, so, as to, in addition, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 10.4613686534 115% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 5.04856512141 0% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 22.412803532 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 42.0 30.3222958057 139% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1409.0 1373.03311258 103% => OK
No of words: 288.0 270.72406181 106% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89236111111 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11953428781 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56966731391 2.5805825403 100% => OK
Unique words: 136.0 145.348785872 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.472222222222 0.540411800872 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 428.4 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0662251656 84% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 45.4274464675 49.2860985944 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.090909091 110.228320801 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1818181818 21.698381199 121% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.45454545455 7.06452816374 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 4.45695364238 22% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.146104591419 0.272083759551 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0719364054908 0.0996497079465 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0587090327142 0.0662205650399 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0949096878712 0.162205337803 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0295411063801 0.0443174109184 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 13.3589403974 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 53.8541721854 99% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 11.0289183223 112% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 58.0 63.6247240618 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.