Halloween Party in Kodiak

The cave painters and the cave art

The cave painters at work.

We love Halloween, Halloween parties, and an excuse to make costumes or re-use old ones. This time we went all the way to Kodiak for (among other reasons), our friends Patrick and Zoya's Halloween party. We re-used our cave people costumes for the third time, this time with a cave painter spin. Our friend Catherine was the cave art.

I thought it was particularly timely when this article came out that argued that women made many of the hand marks in ancient caves across Europe. Coincidentally, I volunteered to have my hand measured by a biology professor doing a similar study at UAF when I was an undergrad (too bad I wasn't part of this study!). Hard to believe that so many archaeologists over the years have assumed men made all the ancient cave art in Europe, but the idea is still pervasive among both archaeologists and the public today, just watch the fairly new documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams - the archaeologist who does most of the talking refers to all the cave painters of the past with male pronouns even though there was a study published in 2009 that also argued women made much of the paleolithic cave art in Europe. Common sense might also suggest that people of all genders made art in the past, just as they do today.

We've had the whole gambit of weather while in Kodiak - heavy rain, high winds, and today, sun, but surprisingly no cold. It's still an unusually mild fall. There isn't a flake of snow on the mountains around town.