There is divide in the archaelogical community over the appropriateness of drawing that kind of conclusion, with skeptics trending toward younger scientists.
This may have come up in Cave of Lost Dreams (or something I read about Chauvet Cave). In response to an elaborate academic theory about cave paintings, younger scientists were refusing to get ahead of the evidence.
At least one said that the reason why artists favored certain animals may have had nothing to do with deeper symbolic meanings – they might have just been the animals they thought were the coolest to paint.
