ABSTRACT
Deep inside the prehistoric caves the world looks different. From nowhere it seems, suddenly, 13,000-year-old mammoths look down upon us with relative disinterest. They stare at the stalactites dripping down like stone icicles beyond us. One stands thoughtful and woolly, his tusks uncomfortably long as they never stop growing, wearing down his old age. They call him the Patriarch. He is beautifully represented, carved into the stone in different layers of depth, which makes his woolly fur stand out in fuzzy precision. He is carved over scratches made by ®ngers into stone, scratches similar to ones the cave bears have left behind in the walls to sharpen their claws. The bears had long gone by the time our ancestors came to enter this cave in Rouf®gnac, in the Perigord region of what now is France, 13,000 years ago.
