Words are inadequate

I have not read Gorey's book but this is one of the big questions interpreting early human... stuff. Is it art? What did it mean? What did it say about them? Is it possible to impute anything to people through their art when we don't know any meanings? OR are those just stray handprints? One of the super fun bits of recent breakthroughs here is that some of the cave paintings of animals giving birth etc seem to have notations that may be the timing of those events in those areas, in which case are they writing (functional communication) or magic (aimed at the world and not humans) or art (emotional-inclusive communication)