Émile Cartailhac

Émile Cartailhac (15 February 1845 – 26 November 1921) was a French prehistorian, sometimes regarded as one of the founding fathers of the studies of the cave art.

Cartailhac is perhaps best remembered because of his involvement with the Altamira paintings, which he originally dismissed as a forgery on the specious grounds that primitive men had no capacity for abstract thought.

[1] This ruined the reputation of Altamira's discoverer, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, which Cartailhac feebly attempted to restore 14 years after the former's death, once mounting evidence had made the prehistoric authorship of the cave art undeniable.

When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola's daughter María discovered the paintings in Altamira and Sautuola, together with professor Vilanova, published their findings in 1880, Cartailhac was one of the leaders of the scientists who, suddenly facing a revolutionary change in the view of the prehistoric man, ridiculed these paintings at the 1880 Prehistorical Congress in Lisbon.

He also wrote a famous article, Mea culpa d'un sceptique in which he admitted he was deeply wrong, emphasized the importance of Altamira, accused himself of holding back the progress of his science, and harshly criticised himself for doing an injustice to an honest man and rejecting a thing without any investigation.