Professor Links Cave Paintings to Illiteracy

Dr. Anneliese A. Pontius, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has drawn dissent from prominent psychology professors for her debatable theory on Stone Age art.

Using her knowledge of cave paintings and her study of various hunter-gatherer tribes over the past 20 years, Pontius posits that the disproportionate facial features drawn by Stone Age artists in their cave paintings may not be a result of their "primitive" developmental state but rather a response to their dangerous, nomadic lifestyle.

Furthermore, Pontius believes her research may also apply to inner-city students, arguing that their "enormous illiteracy rate" may be the result of their violent environment.

The Theory

Since 1971, Pontius has researched the psychological reasons why Stone Age artists in the neolithic period represented human faces without proper proportion or details.

After studying groups of modern hunter-gatherers living in Ethiopia, the Amazon area and New Guinea, Pontius concluded that a constant fear for life altered the way the brains of their Stone Age ancestors operated.

As a result, Stone Age artists represented intra-pattern facial relations inaccurately.

"It is their persistent fear for life, either from wild animals, snakes, [or] wild beasts," Pontius says.

Pontius says the hunter-gatherers saw danger lurking everywhere. "[It is] also their animalistic belief system," she says. "For them, there are evil spirits in everything they see around them."

The Research

To formulate her theory, Pontius gave two spatial tests to various modern hunter-gatherer tribes and compared groups who were surrounded by enemies with those who lived securely in large areas with no threat of attack.

Pontius gave her subjects a face-drawing and a block design test. In the block-design test, subjects were asked to copy a geometric pattern shown to them.

For the face-drawing test, Pontius says she asked her subjects to draw a person facing forward. She then looked to see if they portrayed the intra-pattern facial relations correctly.

"I'm not testing perfection but representation [of] what they remember in their mind," Pontius says.

Pontius was looking for drawings that resembled Stone Age artists' renditions of human faces.

"In Stone Age art, there is one shared characteristic that seems universal," Pontius says. "The human face always shows a consistent deviation from the norm in the configuration of the eye, nose and forehead."

"There is no interruption between nose and forehead," she adds. "The nose is coming continuously out of the forehead."

Those tribes who were not under threat of attack drew the geometric shapes and the relationship between the nose, eyes and forehead accurately, Pontius says.

But the others, who "were constantly in warfare with their neighbors," were unable to represent the figures on the tests accurately, she says, because continual danger and fear alters brain function and makes the artists unable to render human faces accurately.

The Science

In a normal brain, the cortex controls conscious processes, such as the spatial relations needed to accurately represent faces and geometric patterns, while the sub-cortex controls the unconscious. But Pontius says a highly-stressed brain can transfer some of the cortical processing to the sub-cortex and save about 250 milliseconds in the process.

"If people are in constant fear for life, their brain has to process very fast," Pontius says. "They don't have the time to process unnecessary details."

"They have to save a quarter of a second," she adds. "In the blink of an eye, they can be killed if they don't evaluate [the situation] immediately."

The Criticism

But other psychologists question the validity of Pontius' findings.

"That sounds extremely speculative," Jerome Kagan, Starch professor of psychology, says about Pontius' findings. "There might be a symbolic reason why they didn't draw faces accurately."

He adds, "Unless you know the values and the standards and the belief systems of the people, it is extremely difficult to interpret their drawings."

Patrick Cavanagh, a professor of psychology who has written about cave art, has an even more basic complaint with the premise of Pontius' work.

"I don't think there is a single drawn face incave art until urban life came around," Cavanaghsays. "Cave art is mostly animals."

"They don't have face details," he adds. "Idon't ever recall ever seeing a face with eyes and[a] mouth."

Further Theories

Unaware of such criticism, Pontius, who wasinterviewed by phone last Friday, says she plansto expand her research and examine a possible linkbetween the inability to represent faces correctlyand the literacy level of today's adolescents.

"The neolithic period of art is by definitionan illiterate period," Pontius says. She adds thatas soon as the hunter-gatherers developed awritten language, they began drawing facesaccurately.

"You need [intra-pattern relations] in aliterate society," Pontius says. "Otherwise you'relost."

She says the link between literacy andintra-pattern facial relations may explaindyslexia--a common reading disability--or even thehigh illiteracy rate in inner-city schools.

"Many of these children [in inner-cities] livein pervasive, consistent fear for their lives,"Pontius says. "Maybe these people, therefore,resort to sub-cortical processing."

Testing this relationship is just one of manyavenues down which her research could lead,Pontius says.

However, in a Reuters article published onMarch 1, Pontius says she has not testedinner-city children and "does not plan to."

"I don't dare do it," she says in the article."It is too dangerous."

In the future, Pontius says she hopes to studythe effects of sub-cortical processing on newbornsand on patients suffering from brain-damage orAlzheimer's disease

"I don't think there is a single drawn face incave art until urban life came around," Cavanaghsays. "Cave art is mostly animals."

"They don't have face details," he adds. "Idon't ever recall ever seeing a face with eyes and[a] mouth."

Further Theories

Unaware of such criticism, Pontius, who wasinterviewed by phone last Friday, says she plansto expand her research and examine a possible linkbetween the inability to represent faces correctlyand the literacy level of today's adolescents.

"The neolithic period of art is by definitionan illiterate period," Pontius says. She adds thatas soon as the hunter-gatherers developed awritten language, they began drawing facesaccurately.

"You need [intra-pattern relations] in aliterate society," Pontius says. "Otherwise you'relost."

She says the link between literacy andintra-pattern facial relations may explaindyslexia--a common reading disability--or even thehigh illiteracy rate in inner-city schools.

"Many of these children [in inner-cities] livein pervasive, consistent fear for their lives,"Pontius says. "Maybe these people, therefore,resort to sub-cortical processing."

Testing this relationship is just one of manyavenues down which her research could lead,Pontius says.

However, in a Reuters article published onMarch 1, Pontius says she has not testedinner-city children and "does not plan to."

"I don't dare do it," she says in the article."It is too dangerous."

In the future, Pontius says she hopes to studythe effects of sub-cortical processing on newbornsand on patients suffering from brain-damage orAlzheimer's disease