Ancient Images, Petroglyphs & Utter BS

Alright,...just some observations from my time here on earth.

Throughout recorded history our ancestors made a pretty good go at recording at least some of the events, objects, flora, and fauna they encountered in their sphere of life with cave paintings, carved symbols, petroglyphs, etc.

From what I've studied in my time here, the most common, oldest and prevalent symbol found throughout history is the 'spiral'. Then followed by 'hand prints' and then animals.
Fine...Hand prints and animals I can understand the motivation. Yet, spirals...seems strange, no?

Of course, without the convenience of ophthalmologists and a LensCrafters in every village, I'm going to make the assumption that most of our ancestors had less than 20/20 vision. In fact, I will go so far as to suggest poor, fuzzy eyesight is to blame for the constellations being named after animals and Gods. (I mean, if you are nearsighted, take your glasses off one clear night, look to the heavens and tell me what you see)...

Yet, I digress...symbolism.

I am a poor artist...I'll admit that here and now. When I see some of the cave paintings from France and around Europe, I am amazed at the beauty and detail contained therein. Even I, a lousy interpreter of modern art can easily and quickly spot an antelope, ibex, tiger, elephant, etc...in these paintings. And this is without the help of perspective or depth.

This brings me to my point; are scientists and historians insane?

I have witnessed, time and time again, educated people interpreting petroglyphs with some wildly out-there interpretations...."Oh we see here a representation of a snake in this squiggly line"...etc, etc.....

I am quite positive that if the intention of the artist was to draw a SNAKE, the image would LOOK like a snake! If this drawing was a warning to other tribe members that there were 'snakes' in the area...wouldn't you think it the image would LOOK like a SNAKE...??? You would have your clan jumping from sticks, vines, and every other manner of 'squiggly' thing!!

Makes no sense.

I think they were better artists than that. When you see an image of a "man in a space helmet"...or a "man sitting at the controls of a spacecraft"...I think that's what the artist was trying to convey. It's odd that South American natives of ancient times somehow can't draw a decent image of a turtle, yet they can somehow produce from gold a perfect sculpture of some form of 'aircraft'....Looks like an aircraft to me...certainly isn't a turtle...right?

I think we need to be taking some of this interpreted art as literally as we see it..in proper context and with a little more esoteric consideration.