Within a number of caves in southern France skeletons have been found, surrounded by art work, that suggest these skeletons were let here by humans, and for a particular purpose. For here we may have evidence of the oldest dragon ritual in Europe, depicting a dragon slaying myth.

We'll discuss the findings at montespan cave, the tuc d'audoubert bison and the tuc d'audoubert snake, and mythology of the Paleolithic period. And we can see if mythology unleashed a ritual.

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References
Fotenrose. Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and its Origins, 1959. p436-446
Fritz, Carole. Bégouën, Robert. 2009. Le sanctuaire secret des bisons. Il y a 14 000 ans dans la caverne du Tuc d’Audoubert. Somogy.
d'Huy, Julien. 2016. Première reconstruction statistique d’un rituel paléolithique : autour du motif du dragon
Leroi-Gourhan, André. 1965. Prehistoire de l‘art occidental, Paris, Mazenod
Marshack, Alexander. 1972. The Roots of Civilization : the cognitive beginning of Man’s first art, symbol and notation, New York, McGraw-Hill.

Chapters
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0:00 Introduction
0:47 First evidence of a ritual
1:39 The cave of Les Tuc d’Audoubert
2:13 The cave of Montespan
2:33 What were snakes doing there?
4:16 Hypothesizing that this was a Ritual
4:48 Not just a coincidence
6:50 Mythology guides Ritual
8:56 Paleolithic Mythology
11:24 The interpreting headless snake
14:54 And so ritual follows the Myth
15:40 Two Paleolithic European Mythological reconstructions
17:37 An Upper Paleolithic Proto Narrative from South West Asia
18:40 An Upper Paleolithic Proto Narrative from Europe
19:30 The ritual is mythology acted out
20:38 Looking at the archaeological evidence
22:23 The findings at Madeleine Cave
23:45 The Myth drawn on a Bone
26:06 Warrior Horses
28:23 And so is this an Upper Paleolithic Myth?
30:10 And so is this a 17,000 Year Old Dagon Ritual?