Though no corresponding written historical source exists, archeologists have found pottery shards in China dating from the 4th millenium BC (about 6000 years ago) which depict dancers brandishing spears and other weapons that were used for hunting. There is thus a direct parallel between the earliest Chinese hunting-dance rituals and the Cro-Magnon paintings on the walls of the caves of Lascaux in south-central France (the Department of Dordogne) that depict the animals hunted by those cave dwellers, and before which, to the flickering flames of a nightly bonfire, hunting dances may well have been performed; both were done in the belief that by performing these rituals, the hunter thus gained power over the hunted.