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Tectiform Sign

Roof-shaped geometric symbol
Prehistoric cave art

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Prehistoric Tectiform Sign
A Paleolithic tectiform motif. Image by Cave Signs Design. (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What is a Tectiform?

In prehistoric art, a typical "tectiform" is a roof-shaped sign, composed of a peaked roof, from which a vertical line extends downwards to a horizontal base.

It also resembles an arrow head pointing upwards from a horizontal baseline.

A tectiform is one of 32 abstract symbols documented by sign-expert Genevieve von Petzinger, which are found in Upper Paleolithic art between 40,000 and 10,000 BC.

Petzinger is in the process of systematically cataloguing them into a master database to determine their significance.

How Prevalent are Tectiforms?

The "tectiform" is not a particularly common pictograph but neither is it as localized as previously thought. It is present in fifteen French caves; about 10.5 percent of the total.

More common ones include Line signs (73%), Dot signs (42%), Penniforms (25%), and Triangles (22%).

Where are Tectiforms Located?

French paleolithic caves that contain "Tectiform signs", include:

The geographical breakdown of tectiforms is:

Dating

Tectiforms appear in cave art throughout the Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian periods of the Upper Paleolithic, between about 26,000 and 10,000 BC.

The earliest example of this sign type occurs in the Lot region of the Midi-Pyrénées at Les Fieux Cave, around 26,000 BC.

Spanish Tectiforms are Different

Spanish tectiforms are quadrangular-shaped signs, found only in Spain, that bear no resemblance to regular tectiforms. They occur at Altamira Cave, Santillana del Mar, and at Las Chimeneas Cave, La Pasiega Cave and El Castillo Cave at Puente Viesgo.

Meaning of Signs

The fact that Franco-Cantabrian cave art relied on a mere 32 abstract signs for a period of 30,000 years, indicates that the markings possessed genuine significance.

Prehistorian Jean Clottes is sure that artists had a meaning in mind when creating them. "They didn't do it for fun" he says.

Alas, scientists still don't know what these signs meant, or what their function was. Which, when you think about it, is hardly surprising, given the enormous lapse in time and the huge cultural chasm between caves and computers.

The cultural gap is the biggest barrier to deciphering the symbols of our ancestors. After all, something we identify as a triangle, might be the prehistoric hunter-gatherer symbol for a woolly mammoth spirit.

However, there are two interesting theories about the meaning and purpose of abstract cave symbols.

Archaeoacoustics

Tests in certain caves have shown that animal and sign paintings were positioned in locations with the strongest acoustic resonances. This has convinced some scientists that the cave signs might be linked to sound. Sounds odd, but you never know.

Hallucinatory Images

It is well documented that trances induced by a combination of plant-based drugs, lack of oxygen, and certain types of repetitive sounds, can produce hallucinations which, in turn, can induce the affected individual to draw certain types of images, some of which resemble our cave symbols.

The learned South African archaeologist David Lewis-Williams, for one, believes that at least some paleolithic art was made under this sort of influence, perhaps as part of shamanistic ceremonies.

See also our article on the Meaning of Cave Art.

Related Articles

For details of other rare cave signs and symbols, see the following articles:

For more about the chronology of abstract motifs in European paleoart, as well as hand symbols from around the world, see: Timeline of Prehistoric Art (from 540,000 BC).

References

(1)"Making the Abstract Concrete: The Place of Geometric Signs in French Upper Paleolithic Parietal Art." (2005) (Thesis) Genevieve von Petzinger. University of Victoria, Canada.
(2) "Psychology Meets Archaeology: Psychoarchaeoacoustics for Understanding Ancient Minds and Their Relationship to the Sacred." Jose Valenzuela, Margarita Díaz-Andreu, Carles Escera. Front. Psychol., 18 December 2020.
(3) "The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art". D.J. Lewis-Williams, et al. (1988). Current Anthropology. 29 (2): 201–245.

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