The experts of animal locomotion well
know the characteristics of quadruped walking since the pioneering work
of Eadweard Muybridge in the 1880s. Most of the quadrupeds advance their
legs in the same lateral sequence when walking, and only the timing of
their supporting feet differ more or less. How did this scientific
knowledge influence the correctness of quadruped walking depictions in
the fine arts? Did the proportion of erroneous quadruped walking
illustrations relative to their total number (i.e. error rate) decrease
after Muybridge? How correctly have cavemen (upper palaeolithic Homo sapiens)
illustrated the walking of their quadruped prey in prehistoric times?
The aim of this work is to answer these questions. We have analyzed 1000
prehistoric and modern artistic quadruped walking depictions and
determined whether they are correct or not in respect of the limb
attitudes presented, assuming that the other aspects of depictions used
to determine the animals gait are illustrated correctly. The error rate
of modern pre-Muybridgean quadruped walking illustrations was 83.5%,
much more than the error rate of 73.3% of mere chance. It decreased to
57.9% after 1887, that is in the post-Muybridgean period. Most
surprisingly, the prehistoric quadruped walking depictions had the
lowest error rate of 46.2%. All these differences were statistically
significant. Thus, cavemen were more keenly aware of the slower motion
of their prey animals and illustrated quadruped walking more precisely
than later artists
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