New Methods and Approaches in the Study of Finger Flutings

Abstract

Drawing on ten years of the author and her late research partner, Kevin's Sharpe's, development of methodologies for approaching the study of finger flutings, this paper focuses on the manner in which one can determine distinct individual cave artists through a confluence of rich data sources which examines finger width, profiles, handedness, applications of Manning's gender studies to determine sex, depth of fluting, height, and the cataloging of idiosyncratic fluting choices. The study of finger flutings sheds light on the individual cave artist, in that one can look to an individual artist's corpus of work and can contrast recurring themes with an individual's choices, as well as a larger host of questions based on how and where individuals or members of a group choose to flute. This paper also focuses specifically on recent work involving the development of methods for studying single fingered figurative images by using laboratory work in comparison with field collected data.