NOTES: Prehistoric Art . Chapter 1

Spotted Horses and Human Hands found in modern day France, 25,000 - 24,000 BCE

Learning Objectives:

Identify the visual hallmarks of Paleolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age art for:

i. Through formal, technical and expressive qualities

ii. Be able to interpret works of art through discovered common themes, subjects and symbols

iii. Understand something about the Prehistoric culture through findings left by them, therefore understanding something about their cultural

iv. Have the ability to apply the vocabulary learned in this chapter

v. Have the ability to interpret Prehistoric art through historical observational methods, comparison and inductive reasoning

At the conclusion of this chapter you should have the knowledge in understanding the following:

i. Areas where such finds have been located

ii. What are common motifs found in paintings and sculpture

iii. Application of paint vs relief carving

iv. Understand the difference between Prehistory: Paleolithic and Neolithic eras

v. Understand various architectural forms from the period

p.1

Prehistory = Human existence before the emergence of writing. These individuals were not making "art" nor were they "artists." What we have found thus far, is only a very tiny portion of what must have been created on a very wide scale.

Painting onto cave walls - put pigment onto a cave wall, additively with a binder (some substance to make it stick, i.e. milk, blood, other enzymes, whereas, sculpture was used by making subtractive carving processes with tools.

How is this work dated?

Paintings in a Spanish cave known as El Castillo dates to 40,000 BCE by technology known as uranium-thrium method.

BCE = Before the Common Era

CE = the Common Era

BP = Before Present

p.2

Homo sapiens appeared about 400,000 years ago. Our sub-species to with we belong Homo sapiens sapiens, 120,000.

Archaeological evidence has made it clear that modern humans spread from Africa across Asia, into Europe and finally to Australia and the Americas. The enormous 'trek' happened between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago.

19th c. scholars began this study with various world findings.

Stone Age = 2 parts::

1. Paleolithic (Old) = 3 phases, Lower (oldest) Middle (Mesolithic) and Upper (the most recent)

2. Neolithic (New)

and The Bronze Age

Australia image findings date to 50,000 - 40,000 years ago

Kahn: History & Prehistory 10 minutes view, please

Paleolithic Art: an introduction by Kahn Academy

p.2
38,000 BCE images appear in Australia, Africa and Europe.
Early humans made tools by flaking and chipping away at stone, also known as knapping
2.5 milion years ago earlier simple objects made by our ancestors - tools with sharp edges - finding them, we understand that our early ancestors shaped the world around them.
400,000 years ago Middle Paleolithic Mesolithic period a wide range of stone tools were made and used by Neanderthals. Archaeological proof has discovered that Neanderthals lived amongst modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens for some time.
Homo sapiens sapiens (us) outlasted Neanderthals because we had cognitive abilities to solve problems.

p. 4
One of the most important abilities was for early humans to think symbolically and to create representational analogies of their world. This is the beginning of communication between individuals in symbolic form.

Blombos Cave - South Africa, 77,000 year old
We have found many items in here including shells with holes used perhaps for ornamentation / red ochre blocks that may have been used as a crayon to draw with on caves, rocks, bodies

WORDS ARE SYMBOLS FOR IDEAS
Words reveal a certain idea about the world

THEIR CONTEXT EXPRESSES MEANING
They provide a certain view of the world
and shape our thinking

Female figures are predominantly found from the Upper Paleolithic period.

Woman from Willendorf, found in Austria,, 24,000 BCE

is a 4 1/2" carving from limestone with traces of red ochre around the pubic region.

The sculpture is highly exaggerated, small feet, thus cannot the sculpture can not stand in the round, enlarged breasts and stomach area.

Is this an expression of a particular woman?

Symbol of women from the group, to express health and fertility?

p. 6

Archaeologist Clive Gamble suggests that these were used for nonverbal communication devices between people from various regions. Perhaps used as exchange between groups that shared similar values, as an indication of friendliness and possibly mating.

We can also look at the way we name objects. Obviously the Upper Paleolithic individual did not name, nor title this artifact. The discovers of the artifact named it, The Venus of Willendorf. Ask yourself, what is in a name? The word Venus is from Ancient Rome, meaning love and beauty. Thus this figure and so many like it sent the messages of female figure artifacts was associated with religious belief, a representation of fertility and Mother Goddesses.

Perhaps so, perhaps not.

The Woman of Dolní Věstonice

(Czech: Věstonická Venuše)

is a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE

The artifact is very important - it is fired clay, thus supporting the element of fire and mixing soil with water to make clay.
p. 7
"By mixing the soil with water - to a very particular recipe - and then placing the wet figures in a hot kiln to bake, the makers were not intending to create durable, well-fired statues. On the contrary the recipe used and the firing procedure followed indicate the intention was to make the figures explode in the kilns." Evidence? Perhaps, perhaps not... there are very few full figures, however numerous fragments abound.

Woman from Brassempouy, discovered in a grotto in Brassempouy, FRANCE 30,000 BCE carved in ivory. It is an abstraction of a head, noting only a few features that reduce representation to simple shapes and forms.

What was it's cultural context? What was it's purpose?

Was there a body attached to it?

CAVE PAINTING

40,000 BCE cave painting have been found throughout Europe. Altamira in Northern Spain, in 1879 a young girl exploring a cave with her father, crawled into a very small chamber. The ceiling was covered in painted animals. They were authenticated in 1902, following more archaeological findings. What is their meaning?

p. 8

Why paint the cave?

Well, why not.

"Scientists now agree that humans have an aesthetic impulse."

But the effort required to create such works there must have been other motivation other than for visual pleasure.

Early 20th c. scholars believed that these human expressions had a social function to strengthen cult bonds, products of rituals.

1903, Salomon Reinach (FR archaeologist) suggested were expressions of sympathetic magic to capture prey.

Abbe Henri Breuil suggested that caves were places of workshop and the setting for initiation rites.

Rigorous scientific methods indicate that the animals that were used usually for food, were not the ones portrayed.

Archeologists are constantly reinterpreting evidence, with the addition of new evidence and suggesting additional motivations.

Upper Paleolithic shamans, that were thought to travel deep into difficult to reach cave areas, under water, etc.

p. 9

Discovered in December 1994, Chauvet Cave in SE FRANCE It depicts mammals in various modes of transportation and includes images of humans of both genders.