Is this Really a Megaloceros?

Picture from Don's Maps

  The black stag is one of the most well known pieces of parietal art from the Lascaux caves. This iconic painting occupies a prominent position in a section of Lascaux known as the Axial Gallery. Many writers on the iconography of Lascaux refrain from assigning a particular species to this representation, "stag" being a generic term often used to refer to representations of deer in European cave art; however, in every instance I have seen where the black stag is suggested to represented a particular species, that species is invariably the extinct giant deer, Megaloceros giganteus. It's easy to see why this interpretation has so much traction, the antlers of the black stag are certainly large and imposing, and the size of the painting, especially compared to the smaller depictions of  deer found in the cave, suggests an animal of great bodily magnificence . However, I think a closer consideration of the particulars of the painting reveals the identification of the animal depicted with megaloceros to be a specious conclusion - I think the painting is more likely to represent the fallow deer, Dama dama, for one important reason - the morphology of the antlers.

Top: Profile and frontal views of Megaloceros antlers. Bottom: Profile view of fallow deer antlers and image of the Black Stag

  The antlers of the Black Stag painting do not resemble those of megaloceros very much, but if one allows for some artistic license, then they are a fairly good match for fallow deer antlers. For starters, look at the section of the antler closest to the skull. In that position, Megaloceros has small, palmate, forked brow tines; on the other hand, both fallow deer and the Lascaux painting lack palmate brow tines. The beams of the antlers on the stag painting are also a much closer match for fallow deer, both because of their apparent length and slenderness and because Megaloceros has no tines tines on its antler beams while fallow deer and the Black Stag have single-pointed tines along the beams. Now there is one major discrepancy between the painting and actual fallow deer. On the painting, each antler beam has two pairs of tines, while fallow deer tines are not paired. However, I know of no deer species with antlers exactly like those of black stag, and its easy to explain how the depiction of the antlers with paired tines could have arisen form observing fallow deer. Consider the image below:

 Like all fallow deer, the one in the picture has two single-pointed tines on the beam of each antler, but when a fallow deer is viewed from the right angle, as in the picture above, it can seem like only one antler is visible, and that antler can appear to have four tines in two pairs. Of course, the second tine in each pair actually belongs to the antler on the far side of the viewer. Take an antler like the "one" on the deer above, mirror it,  and you get a pair of antlers like those of the Black Stag.

Compare the apparent antler morphology of this fallow deer with that of the painting.

 The points of the stag in the painting are also a lot more prominent than those of most modern fallow deer I've seen, but many fallow deer fossils from Pleistocene Europe have similarly strong points (see here, here and here) , it could be that such impressive specimens were still to be found in Europe when the Black Stag painting was made. The super long points on the palmations may also be a stylistic choice.

  It may be natural to balk at the idea of the lowly fallow deer receiving such a prominent place among the menagerie at Lascaux, but other medium sized animals such as horses are given prominent representations at the site, so it's not all that unusual. There does appear (to me) to be at least one other fallow deer depiction at Lascaux, this one is far more unassuming, mixed in with a number of red deer and in more typical colors for its species. In the form of its antlers, it definitely shows great similarity to the much more dominating Black Stag, though its antler points are more similar to those of a modern fallow deer in prominence:

The probable fallow deer is in the lower right of the picture. Photo by Ralph Morse - "Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, http://life.time.com/culture/inside-lascaux-rare-unpublished/#6" - via Don's Maps

This post has been in the draft stage for quite some time now. As a student, I don't have that much free time, so this blog will likely be updated fairly sporadically on the whole. 
Attribution: Unless otherwise noted, all images on this page are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.