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  3. The earliest discovered traces of art are beads and carvings, and then paintings, from sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithi

The earliest discovered traces of art are beads and carvings, and then paintings, from sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithi

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问题     The earliest discovered traces of art are beads and carvings, and then paintings, from sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period. We might expect that early artistic efforts would be crude, but the cave paintings of Spain and southern France show a marked degree of skill. So do the naturalistic paintings on slabs of stone excavated in southern Africa. Some of those slabs appear to have been painted as much as 28,000 years ago, which suggests that painting in Africa is as old as painting in Europe. But painting may be even older than that. The early Australians may have painted on the walls of rock shelters and cliff faces at least 30,000 years ago, and maybe as much as 60,000 years ago.
    The researchers Peter Ucko and Andree Rosenfeld identified three principal locations of paintings in the caves of western Europe: (1) in obviously inhabited rock shelters and cave entrances; (2) in galleries immediately off the inhabited areas of caves; and (3) in the inner reaches of caves, whose difficulty of access has been interpreted by some as a sign that magical-religious activities were performed there.
    The subjects of the paintings are mostly animals. The paintings rest on bare walls, with no backdrops or environmental trappings. Perhaps, like many contemporary peoples, Upper Paleolithic men and women believed that the drawing of a human image could cause death or injury, and if that were indeed their belief, it might explain why human figures are rarely depicted in cave art. Another explanation for the focus on animals might be that these people sought to improve their luck at hunting. This theory is suggested by evidence of chips in the painted figures, perhaps made by spears thrown at the drawings. But if improving their hunting luck was the chief motivation for the paintings, it is difficult to explain why only a few show signs of having been speared. Perhaps the paintings were inspired by the need to increase the supply of animals. Cave art seems to have reached a peak toward the end of the Upper Paleolithic period, when the herds of game were decreasing.
    Upper Paleolithic art was not confined to cave paintings. Many shafts of spears and similar objects were decorated with figures of animals. The anthropologist Alexander Marshack has an interesting interpretation of some of the engravings made during the Upper Paleolithic. He believes that as far back as 30,000 B. C., hunters may have used a system of notation, engraved on bone and stone, to mark phases of the Moon. If this is true, it would mean that Upper Paleolithic people were capable of complex thought and were consciously aware of their environment. In addition to other artworks, figurines representing the human female in exaggerated form have also been found at Upper Paleolithic sites. It has been suggested that these figurines were an ideal type or an expression of a desire for fertility.
What do scholars propose to explain chips in the painted figures of animals?
选项 A、Upper Paleolithic artists used marks to record the animals they had seen.
B、The paintings were inspired by the need to increase the supply of animals for hunting.
C、The artists had removed rough spots on the cave walls.
D、Upper Paleolithic people used the paintings to increase their luck at hunting.
答案D
解析 事实细节题。根据chips in the painted figures可定位到第三段第五句。该句指出，壁画上的缺口可以证实上述理论，这些缺口可能是用长矛扔向壁画造成的。由this theory往前推，第四句讲学者们推测壁画以动物为主可能是想利用壁画来提高打猎命中率，故答案为D项。文中未提及缺损是为了记录见过的动物，故排除A项。该段第六句和第七句讲到，如果提高打猎命中率真的是这些画的主要动机，那么就很难解释为什么只有少数画上有被矛刺过的痕迹。或许这些画的灵感来自于增加动物供应的需要。这是作者的看法。并不是学者们的观点，故排除B项。原文并未提及艺术家们去掉了洞穴墙壁上的粗糙斑点，故排除C项。
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