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4. Our Capacity for Wonder
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Anthropocene Reviewed, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humanity and the Environment
Health, Disease, and Society
Community and Equality
Technology and the Internet
Summary
Analysis
In September 1940, an 18-year-old in France named Marcel Ravidat lost his dog down a hole. Thinking the dog might have found a secret passage, he gathered three friends to search the area. While searching for where the dog had gone, they were surprised to find a cave with what looked like prehistoric drawings—the Lascaux cave paintings. These paintings include over 900 pictures, mostly of animals, some of which are now extinct.
Everything about the Lascaux cave paintings involves a heavy dose of random chance, including both their initial discovery as well as all the circumstances that allowed the paintings to be preserved underground for so many years. The paintings suggest that the legacy of humans on the planet can live on in surprising ways, even against the odds.
Active
Themes
After World War II, the French government took ownership of the cave, and two of the boys who helped discover it went to work as guides. Of the many visitors, Pablo Picasso was one who was particularly moved. Although the cave is small, it’s full of mysteries. Not all of the animals are identifiable, and Green and others have wondered why the drawings have so few humans. Some of the drawings have been called “negative hand stencils” where paleolithic humans put their hands on the wall and traced the outline. Many debate the purpose of the hand stencils, but the message Green gets from them is “I was here,” which tells modern humans that few things they do are actually new.
At the time, Picasso was a very modern artist, and so his connection with the paintings emphasizes continuity between the past and the present. Today, hands are often associated with individual identity (due to fingerprints) and so the handprints on the cave wall reflect how Paleolithic humans were not just a homogeneous group: they were a society of individuals, like modern humans. Green sees the desire to be seen and remembered as something fundamental to humanity, and a similar desire motivates many of the inventors and artists he profiles in these reviews.
Active
Themes
Eventually, the Lascaux cave had to close to the public, although there are now imitation caves with meticulous recreations. By 2020, all of the original discoverers of the cave had died. Green marvels at how these paintings managed to survive so long because they were sealed off. Because the caves are closed, they are a memory people can’t return to, which Green thinks is a good metaphor for the past as a whole. He gives the cave paintings 4 ½ stars.
