Anyone who has ever stood on the bridge in Montignac in the early morning and seen the sun rising from behind a mountain covered in black forest, flooding the Vézère River with golden light, will understand why the art of the Magdalenian era was born in Lascaux.
It is a magical sight. The water flows lazily here. The morning sunbeams paint the water and the entire landscape golden. Seeing this, I was convinced that 20,000 years ago, in the Paleolithic era, the Magdalenian people who lived there watched this same spectacle. They watched animals come to the watering hole and bathe in the golden glow. The lighting of the Vézère and its shores creates a unique aesthetic. It is magical and beautiful. The Magdalenian man grew up surrounded by these beautiful scenes, painted by nature. They then transferred these images onto rock. Over various eras, they painted and carved these images into stone using primitive techniques they invented themselves. Nevertheless, the paintings in the Lascaux cave are artistically and technically impressive, testifying to the high competence, albeit perhaps intuitive, of the artists who created them.
Lascaux IV, permanent exhibition of replicas of Magdalenian cave paintings.
Photo: Lynn Weber 2025 ©
The Montignac region is the cradle of Magdalenian civilisation and art. Early humans found everything they needed to survive there: shelter, housing, forests full of wild animals, mushrooms and berries, and a favourable river teeming with fish. It was in this hospitable and safe environment that these people developed the ability to depict images of their surroundings on cave walls.
The Lascaux Cave, where rock paintings were discovered in 1940, is located on a hill overlooking the city. Since no traces of long-term habitation were found in the cave, only Paleolithic painting tools, the question arises as to what function the cave served. The cave’s structure and lack of ventilation rule out the use of fire. No evidence of this was found on the cave walls. Archaeologists only found stone bowls in which the Magdalenian people burned fat to light their workshops.
However, over the centuries, approximately 150 drawings and over 15,000 rock carvings depicting various types of local animal have been created within a 150-metre radius. These animals vary in size and colour, and are arranged in specific patterns. The walls of the cave were not decorated with a single drawing depicting the world of flora[1]. Were the drawings and engravings painted to celebrate a successful hunt, or were they of a ritualistic nature? No such drawings have been found at La Madeleine, a Magdalenian cave settlement located 18 km from Montignac. Therefore, rock art was separated from where the Magdalenian people lived. The Lascaux cave was a temple.
There are many indications that the Lascaux cave may have been associated with totemism, a practice typical of Paleolithic civilisation, and that it may have been a place where rituals were performed by the clan community at that time. Perhaps these rituals were related to hunting? Or were they rituals involving the worship of animals as part of belonging to particular totems?
Based on the preserved remnants of totemism in contemporary tribes, Sigmund Freud defined a totem as follows:
‘So, what is a totem? It is usually an animal, either edible or harmless, or dangerous and feared. More rarely, it is a plant or a force of nature, such as rain or water. The totem has a special relationship with the entire clan. First and foremost, the totem is the clan’s progenitor, but it is also its guardian spirit and helper. It sends the clan oracles and, if it is otherwise dangerous, it spares its children.
Totem members are bound by a sacred obligation to not kill or destroy their totem, and to abstain from consuming its flesh or enjoying anything else it provides. The totem is not associated with a single animal or person, but with all members of the species. Festivals are held from time to time at which the totem companions perform ceremonial dances depicting the movements and characteristics of their totem. (…) Belonging to a totem is the basis of all social obligations (…), transcending tribal affiliation on the one hand and superseding blood ties on the other. (…) Totems are not tied to specific places or locations; members of the same totem live separately from each other and coexist peacefully with followers of other totems’[2].
The Lascaux cave does not contain drawings of all the animal species that could have inhabited the area around the hill and river at that time. While there are images of bulls, aurochs, cows, horses and deer, there are no images of wolves or owls. There is also one drawing of a black bear and one of a rhinoceros. This selection of animals may suggest that they represent the history of a clan or clans whose totems were herbivorous animals. In this context, the positioning, order and composition of the images may not be accidental, but may reflect the history of lineages or relationships between people belonging to one totem and those belonging to other totems in the community. These images may reveal the hierarchy within Magdalenian society in the Montignac area. According to this theory, the Lascaux cave could have served as a kind of chronicle, recording the genealogy, relationships and social interactions within the community. The fact that the animal drawings were created over a long period of time, with some images layered on top of others, suggests that the clan survived for many centuries and that totemism endured.
Located 688 km from Lascaux, the Chauvet Cave in the Dordogne region of France also contains drawings of lions, rhinos and mammoths, as well as hunting scenes, which are absent from the Lascaux cave paintings. According to the totemism theory, there may not have been any clans belonging to these totems in the Montignac area.
Engraving of a bull, Lascaux IV, Photo: Lynn Weber 2025 ©
In the Magdalenian society depicted on the walls of the Lascaux cave in the Montignac region, the bull totem must have played the most important role. Drawings of it can be found in the first and largest cave in the Lascaux complex. This room is known as the Bull Room and contains four large drawings of this animal towering over the cave. The animals are depicted with thick black outlines and red spots. The La Madeleine Museum in Dordogne houses a 16,000-year-old bone carving of a bison that held ritual significance. In the clan hierarchy that created Lascaux, the bull must have played a dominant role. If the rock drawings are related to the cult of deceased ancestors, the bull’s depictions may represent the clan’s founders.
Figurine of a bison licking its back from La Madeleine, Le Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac ©
‘Scene at the well’, Lascaux IV, Photo: Lynn Weber 2025 ©
The connection between the Lascaux cave and totemic rituals is most likely represented by the famous ‘scene at the well’. This scene is located in the farthest and most difficult-to-access part of the cave. Its position may suggest that it contains secrets, or that the author wanted to hide the breaking of taboos from the clan community.
The scene depicts a sexual act between a man belonging to the bird totem and a man belonging to the bison totem. In both cases, erect male genitalia and supernaturally large bull testicles are clearly visible. The man with the bird’s head is lying on his back with his arms outstretched, which could indicate relaxation or consent, or the movement of his arms while swimming on his back. He may be wearing a bird mask, or perhaps this is his totemic form. A powerful bison leans over him, its head tilted towards the bird man’s genitals. Standing next to him is another bird on one leg, which is probably the man’s totem. This suggests that the entire scene takes place in water. This scene is also known as ‘the scene at the well of the dead man’. The reclining figure is interpreted as a deceased person, and the story is said to depict an unsuccessful hunt that ended in the hunter’s death[3].
Animistic mask of the Kwakwaka’wakw indigenous groupe (Canada), associated with a bird totem [4]
Scientists studying this drawing emphasise its narrative nature. Undoubtedly, the drawing tells some kind of story. Perhaps it is humorous, as indicated by the accompanying drawing of a rhinoceros relieving itself. While the human-bird and the human-bison are engaged in sexual activity, the rhinoceros walks away, relieving itself. As both the bird-man and the bison-man are depicted with visible and impressive male genitalia, it can be assumed that the drawing depicts homosexual sex, or possibly sexual violence.
In totemic societies, belonging to a particular totem was closely linked to exogamy, which was essential for the survival of the human species: ‘Almost everywhere where the totem is observed, there is usually a law that members of the same totem may not engage in sexual relations with each other, meaning they may not marry each other either[5]’. (…) ‘It is clear that the totem animal is considered an ancestor and this role is taken very seriously. Everyone who descends from the same totem is considered to be related by blood and part of the same family. Even the most distant degrees of kinship in this family are considered an absolute obstacle to sexual relationships[6]‘.
If the Lascaux cave was used for totemic initiation rituals and the rock drawings depict relationships within the totemic community — knowledge of which was necessary for maintaining the principle of exogamy — then the drawing by the well could suggest a violation of this law. In this context, its location was no coincidence. The drawing is located far away from all the others, at a considerable distance from the community drawings. It is in a place that is barely visible and difficult to access. As mentioned earlier, this may indicate that the individuals depicted in it were excluded from the community for breaking customs and taboos, or it may be associated with secrecy.
As Freud observed, the punishment for breaking the law of exogamy in primitive societies was often extremely severe. ‘These savages thus display an unusually high degree of aversion to incest or sensitivity to incest, combined with the peculiarity, which we do not fully understand, of replacing real blood relationship with totemic kinship[7]‘. (…) ‚In Australia the regular penalty for sexual intercourse with a person of a forbidden clan is death[8]’.
When the Lascaux cave was discovered, the entrance was mistaken for a foxhole. According to a local legend, the entrance led to an underground passageway connected to the Lascaux manor house. The explorers who discovered the cave in 1940 had to dig a hole to get inside. The entrance was then widened and bricked up to make the caves accessible to visitors. Assuming that the entrance to the cave in the Magdalenian era was similarly narrow and that one had to squeeze through a narrow opening to enter the cave, the cave could have been a place of transformation, of birth within the totem. Passing through the narrow opening of the cave, Magdalenian man passed through a birth canal, as it were, to be born inside as part of his totem. This ritual may have been connected with the transition to the underworld and symbolised rebirth within the totemic community.
Traces of this ritual can be found in the Baltic countries dating back to Indo-European times, and it was still practized in folk medicine before World War II. Lithuanians, whose totems are trees and birds, would pass through narrow openings between the intertwined branches of sacred trees for healing and purification purposes. It was believed that passing through the hole would result in rebirth within the mother tree on the other side, as well as purification from disease[9]. The Balts believed that, after death, they were either reborn within their totem trees or transformed into birds[10].
The tree with intertwined branches in the healing ritual
(Photo: Krikščiūnas, Facebook, Protėvių paveldas 2017 ©)
The Lascaux cave may therefore have been associated with the Magdalenian people’s totemic initiation rituals, which were linked to the cult of deceased ancestors. The drawings on the cave walls may have served as instructions on how to avoid breaking the law of exogamy. Lascaux was undoubtedly a temple used by many generations. The stories of the people who visited the caves for ritual purposes overlap, as do the images of animals inside it.
Lascaux is a sacred mountain surrounded by a cult dedicated to deceased ancestors. Its proximity to the Vézère River reflects the original human conception of the afterlife. Elements of this belief system can still be found in the cultures of all Indo-European nations. For the Magdalenians of the Montignac region, Mount Lascaux is as sacred as ‘Valhalla’ is to the Scandinavians or ‘Anafiel’ to the ancient Baltic peoples. Like the Styx, the Ganges and the Vaitarani, the Vézère River is a mythological river that separates the world of the dead from the world of the living. The idea of crossing a river on the way to a mountain of the dead is a common theme in the mythology of many Indo-European countries. Due to their particularly early Christianisation, the Baltic countries have numerous examples of archaic representations of the afterlife preserved in their mythology. The beliefs of other Indo-European peoples can be analysed in comparison with Baltic mythology, especially since the Balts, like the Magdalenians, were a totemic society. There are a lot of evidence of shamanism among the Balts from the pre-Christian era.
Traditional ancient Lithuanian burials on hills and the banks of rivers and lakes were closely linked to their original conception of the afterlife. In pre-Christian times, they believed that this afterlife, known as the ‘eternal land of the ancestors’, was located on a high mountain called ‘Anafielas’. In Lithuanian mythology, this mountain is depicted as either a mountain of glass or a mountain of ice. The souls of the deceased who wanted to reach the summit, where the god resides, had to climb this slippery, icy mountain [11]. For this reason, ancient Lithuanians would place the claws of wild animals and birds in the graves or on the pyres of deceased family members, in the hope of easing their journey to the eternal homeland [12]. Funeral songs in Lithuania and Latvia often refer to the ‘mountain of souls’ (Lithuanian: vėlių kalnelis).
In Indo-European mythology, the sacred mountain is also the place where the World Tree (axis mundi, Weltenbaum, Yggdrasil) grew. According to mythology, such a world tree grew on a mountain or hill where nine rivers converged behind a sea at the edge of the world. In Latvian mythology, the world tree grows on a mountain by a great road or river, or in a dense forest. In a funeral lament written by Ludwik Reza, a wise woman asks Žemyna, the goddess of the dead, where she should plant a rose and where she should look for her deceased parents. The goddess Žemyna replies: ‘On the high mountain, by the sea.’ The rose shoot that she plants grows into a huge tree whose branches reach up to the sky. The girl climbs the tree and meets a young man up in the sky. He tells her where she can find her deceased parents [13].
The Magdalenian community in the area around the sacred mountain of Lascaux certainly practiced shamanism, stemming from the cult of Mother Earth. The cave, which features numerous painted totems, may have represented the Magdalenians’ concept of the afterlife — a place where they believed they would meet their deceased ancestors. Lines of blood were painted and carved on the walls to symbolize kinship.
The discoverers of the Lascaux cave in September 1940. From the right: Léon Laval, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Abbé Breuil (Lascaux, p. 27) ©
Assuming that the ‘scene at the well’ is an Indo-European myth associated with ancestor worship, as indicated by its narrative character, we must analyze it in the context of the Sovij myth. We know of this myth from a 1261 Western Russian chronicle, which is a translation of the 6th-century AD ‘Chronology’ by Johannes Malala from Antioch in Syria. This myth, in its original form, was first published by Wilhelm Mannhardt in 1936 in his ‘Letto-Preussische Götterlehre’ (pp. 57–58), and has since been analyzed by several leading researchers of Indo-European mythology, including I. Lemeshkin in ‘The Legend of Sovij and the 1262 Chronograph’ (based on the Archiv of Warsaw, Vilnius and I. J. Zabelin’s manuscripts). Vilnius: LLTI, 2009). In: ‘Monumenta Poloniae Historica’. Nova series. 16. Kraków; Warsaw: Polska Akademia Umiejętności) and G. Beresnevičius, 1995. ‘Baltic religious reforms’. Vilnius: Taura, pp. 11–26.
According to researchers, the Sovij myth represents a ritual associated with the afterlife, linked to the transition of the Indo-Europeans to cremation burials. Following this significant change in Indo-European religious practices, the Balts started burning their dead on so-called ‘ragas’ (horns).
The ‘scene at the well’ may therefore depict a shaman in a state of ritual ecstasy (erection), offering a bull as a sacrifice. This is indicated by the nearby spear. Admittedly, the ritual animal in the myth of Sovij is a wild boar. However, this may suggest that the myth recorded in the Russian chronicle is a later variant of the original depicted on the walls of the Lascaux cave.
Translation of the myth of Sovij according to Mannhardt (p. 59):
‚Bericht über heidnischen Aberglauben solcher Art, dass sie Sovij einen Gott nennen.
Achtzehntes Kapitel.
Sovij war ein Mensch. Er hatte einen wunderbaren Eber gefangen. Er entnahm ihm 9 Milze und gab sie den von ihm Erzeugten zu braten. Sie aber verzehrten sie. Er erzürnte sich über die von ihm Erzeugten. Er versuchte hinabzugeben in den Hades. An acht Pforten vermochte er es nicht, an den neunten erreichte er seinen Willen durch den von ihm Erzeugten, d.h. durch seinen Sohn. Die Brüder aber waren über ihn nun unwillig. Er bat sich von ihnen los und ging seinen Vater suchen und kam in den Hades. – Nachdem er mit dem Vater zu Abend gegessen, bereitete er ihm ein Lager und begrub ihn in die Erde. Als er am Morgen aufgestanden war, fragte er ihn, ob er gut geschlafen habe. Aber der seufzte: Och! Würmer und Geschmeiss haben mich gefressen. Ebenso bereitete er ihm anderen Tages eine Abendmahlzeit und bettete ihn in den Baumstamm und legte ihn (so schlafen). Am Morgen fragte er ihn und der sagte: Wenn nicht Bienen und zahllose Mücken mich gefressen hätten! Uch! Wie schlief ich schwer! Wieder anderen Tages errichtete er einen grossen Scheiterhaufen und legte ihn aufs Feuer. Am Morgen fragte er ihn: Hast du gut geschlafen? Und der sagte: Wie ein Kind in der Wiege habe ich süss geschlafen‘.
The relics of cremation burials and animal sacrifice rituals can still be seen in Lithuanian folk ornamentation from the turn of the 20th century. Adomas Varnas’s photographs of Lithuanian crosses from the early 20th century depict objects adorned with horn and flame motifs.
Fragment of a photography from the album ‘Lithuanian Crosses’ by Adomas Varnas, 1926, Volume 2, No. 26 (938) ©
You can find more information on this topic at our permanent exhibition ‘Lithuanian Crosses from 1926 by Adomas Varnas and the ancient Lithuanian necroculture tradition’.
[1] Lascaux. Centre International de l‘Art Pariétal. Le guide. Par Nicolas St-Cyr et Valérie Fergulio. In: Le festin. Hors-Série. Édition française. 2022.
[2] Freud, Sigmund 2017. Totem und Tabu. Essen: Suavis-Verlag, p. 4.
[3] https://cudaswiata.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/lascaux/
[4] Préhistoire. Au commencement des sociétés humaines. In: ‘L’Histoire’ Collection, No 101, p. 121.
[5] Freud 2017, p. 5.
[6] Freud 2017, p. 7.
[7] Freud 2017, p. 7.
[8] Freund after Frazer 2017, p. 6.
[9]Zabulytė, Jolanta 2014. Pušis tradicinėje lietuvių kultūroje (The pine tree in traditional Lithuanian culture). In: „Sovijus. Tarpdalykiniai kultūros tyrimai“. Bd. 2. Nr. 1, p. 36; Razauskas, Dainius, 2017. Medis-motina. Dendromitologinė apybraiža (Tree Mother. A dendromythological description). In: „Liaudies kultūra“ 2017/3, p. 33
[10] Lithuanian researcher of Indo-European mythology Prof. Gintaras Beresnevicius analyzed Baltic beliefs related to rebirth after death in the form of trees. Beresnevičius described this transformation of the deceased into a tree or plant as “incarnation,” “metamorphosis,” “metempsychosis,” or even “reincarnation,”cf. Beresnevičius, Gintaras 1990. Dauos (Beyond). Klaipėda: Gimtinė Taura, p. 43
[11] Ščavinskas, Marius 2024. The image of souls climbing a mountain in the Bychowiec Chronicle. An echo of pagan customs in Renaissance literature? In: ‘Zapiski Historyczne’, Vol. 89, pp. 33-56.
[12] Beresnevičius, Gintaras 1990. Dausos. Pomirtinio gyvenimo samprata senojoje lietuvių pasaulėžiūroje (Dausos. The concept of life after death in the ancient Lithuanian worldview). Gimtinė/ Taura; Weber, Joanna 2025. Die litauischen Volksholzkreuze und Betsäulen und der Kult der Bäume. E-Book.
[13] Rėza, Liudvikas1958. Lietuvių liaudies dainos (Lithuanian folk songs). Bd. 1. Vilnius: Valstybinė grožinės literatūros leidykla, pp. 300-301.