Compare and Contrast Ancient Art to Prehistoric Art What Are the Differences and Similarities

Prehistoric Cupules
The oldest cultural phenomenon,
establish throughout the prehistoric
world, the cupule remains one of the
least understood types of rock art.

Non "Art FOR Fine art'S SAKE"
A large proportion Stone Age art
was created to limited ideas or
information. This applies to most
animal cave paintings, hand stencils
and all abstract symbols. To put information technology
another style, all these types of art
functioned as "pictographs", and
probably served equally a backdrop for
a variety of prehistoric ceremonies.

Prehistoric Art of the Rock Historic period
Types, Characteristics, Chronology

Contents

• Introduction
• Types
• Characteristics
• Dating & Chronology
• Prehistoric Culture
• Human Development: From Axes to Fine art
• Paleolithic Period
• Lower Paleolithic (c.ii.5 million - 200,000 BCE)
• Middle Paleolithic (c.200,000 - 40,000 BCE)
• Upper Paleolithic (c.xl,000-10,000 BCE)
• Mesolithic Culture
- 10,000 - 4,000 BCE - Northern and Western Europe
- ten,000 - 7,000 BCE - Southeast Europe
- 10,000 - viii,000 BCE - Middle East and Residuum of World
• Neolithic Culture
- 4,000 - 2,000 BCE: Northern and Western Europe
- vii,000 - 2,000 BCE: Southeast Europe
- 8,000 - 2,000 BCE: Heart East & Residue of World
• Bronze Historic period Art (In Europe, 3000-1200 BCE)
• Iron Age Art (In Europe, 1500-200 BCE)

Venus of Willendorf (25,000 BCE)
Ane of the famous Venus Figurines
of the Upper Paleolithic.

Stone Age lions watching prey.
Chauvet Cave (c.xxx,000 BCE)
Franco-Cantabrian cavern art from
the Late Aurignacian.

Introduction to Prehistoric Art

Types
Archeologists take identified iv basic types of Stone Age art, as follows: petroglyphs (cupules, stone carvings and engravings); pictographs (pictorial imagery, ideomorphs, ideograms or symbols), a category that includes cave painting and drawing; and prehistoric sculpture (including small totemic statuettes known as Venus Figurines, various forms of zoomorphic and therianthropic ivory carving, and relief sculptures); and megalithic art (petroforms or any other works associated with arrangements of stones). Artworks that are applied to an immoveable rock surface are classified as parietal art; works that are portable are classified as mobiliary art.

Characteristics
The earliest forms of prehistoric fine art are extremely primitive. The cupule, for example - a mysterious type of Paleolithic cultural marking - amounts to no more a hemispherical or cup-like scouring of the rock surface. The early sculptures known as the Venuses of Tan-Tan and Berekhat Ram, are such crude representations of humanoid shapes that some experts doubtfulness whether they are works of art at all. Information technology is non until the Upper Paleolithic (from roughly 40,000 BCE onwards) that anatomically mod man produces recognizable carvings and pictures. Aurignacian civilization, in detail, witnesses an explosion of rock art, including the El Castillo cave paintings, the monochrome cave murals at Chauvet, the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, the Venus of Hohle Fels, the brute carvings of the Swabian Jura, Aboriginal stone art from Australia, and much more than. The later on Gravettian and Magdalenian cultures gave birth to even more sophisticated versions of prehistoric art, notably the polychrome Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle and the sensational cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira.

Dating and Chronology of Prehistoric Art
A number of highly sophisticated techniques - such as radiometric testing, Uranium/Thorium dating and thermoluminescence - are at present available to help establish the date of ancient artifacts from the Paleolithic era and later. Notwithstanding, dating of aboriginal fine art is non an exact science, and results are ofttimes dependent on tests performed on the 'layer' of earth and droppings in which the artifact was lying, or - in the case of stone engraving - an analysis of the content and mode of the markings. (Animal drawings using regular side-profiles, for instance, are typically older than those using 3-quarter profiles.) For a chronological list of dates and events associated with Rock Historic period culture, meet: Prehistoric Art Timeline.

PREHISTORY
The main geological epochs include:
PLIOCENE (c.5,300,000 BCE)
This epoch begins roughly with the
emergence of upright early hominids.
They were too busy trying to stay live
to create art. This period used to cease
2.v million years agone when humans
start started making tools, but
geologists extended information technology to 1.half dozen million
BCE, trapping the early Lower
Paleolithic period in it.
PLEISTOCENE (c.1.6m - x,000 BCE)
This is a geologic period that covers
the earth's almost contempo glaciations.
It includes the later function of the
Lower Paleolithic equally well as the
Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods.
It witnessed the emergence of modern
man and the bully works of Paleolithic
rock fine art, like cupules, petroglyphs,
engravings, pictographs, cave murals,
sculpture and ceramics. The term
pleistocene comes from Greek words
(pleistos "almost") and (kainos "new").
For fact-addicts, the Pleistocene is the
tertiary stage in the Neogene period or
6th epoch of the Cenozoic Era.
HOLOCENE (c.10,000 BCE - now)
During its prehistory section this
geological menses saw the birth of
Homo culture, as well as a
range of sophisticated paintings,
bronze sculptures, exquisite pottery,
pyramid and megalithic monomental
architecture. Similar its predecessor the
Pleistocene, the Holocene epoch is
a geological period, and its name
derives from the Greek words ("holos",
whole or unabridged) and ("kainos", new),
meaning "entirely recent". It is
divided into 4 overlapping periods:
the Mesolithic (Heart Stone Historic period),
the Neolithic (New Rock Historic period),
the Bronze Historic period and Iron Age.

Prehistoric Culture

The longest phase of Stone Historic period culture - known as the Paleolithic period - is a hunter-gatherer civilization which is usually divided into three parts:

(one) Lower Paleolithic (ii,500,000-200,000 BCE)
(two) Centre Paleolithic (200,000-40,000 BCE)
(3) Upper Paleolithic (40,000-10,000 BCE).

Later on this comes a transitional phase called the Mesolithic period (sometimes known as epipaleolithic), catastrophe with the spread of agriculture, followed by the Neolithic period (the New Stone Age) which witnessed the establishment of permanent settlements. The Stone Age ends as stone tools become superceded by the new products of bronze and iron metallurgy, and is followed past the Bronze Historic period and Iron Historic period.

WARNING: All periods are approximate. Dates for specific cultures are given as a rough guide simply, as disagreement persists every bit to classification, terminology and chronology.

Paleolithic Era (c.ii,500,000 - ten,000 BCE)

Characterized past a Stone Age subsistence culture and the evolution of the human species from archaic australopiths via Homo erectus and Man sapiens to anatomically modern humans. See: Paleolithic Art and Culture.

Lower Paleolithic (2,500,000 - 200,000 BCE)

- Olduwan culture (2,500,000 - i,500,000 BCE)
- Acheulean culture (i,650,000 - 100,000 BCE)
- Clactonian culture (c.400,000 – 300,000 BCE)

Middle Paleolithic (200,000 - 40,000 BCE)

- Mousterian culture (300,000 - 30,000 BCE)
- Levallois Flake Tool culture (ascendant c.100,000 - xxx,000 BCE)

Upper Paleolithic (xl,000-8,000 BCE)

- Aurignacian culture (40,000 - 26,000 BCE)
- Perigordian (Chatelperronian) civilisation (35,000-27,000 BCE)
- Gravettian civilisation (26,000 - 20,000 BCE)
- Solutrean culture (19,000 – xv,000 BCE)
- Magdalenian civilisation (16,000 - 8,000 BCE)

Note: Neither Perigordian (aka Chatelperronian) nor Solutrean cultures are strongly associated with artistic achievements. Artworks created during their eras are believed to have been influenced by other cultures.

Mesolithic Era
(From 10,000 BCE)

This era joins the Ice Historic period culture of the Upper Paleolithic with the ice-free, farming culture of the Neolithic. It is characterized by more than advanced hunter-gathering, fishing and rudimentary forms of tillage.

Neolithic Era
(From 8,000-4,000 BCE to 2000 BCE)

This era is characterized by farming, domestication of animals, settled communities and the emergence of important ancient civilizations (eg. Sumerian, Egyptian). Portable art and monumental architecture dominate.

Human Evolution: From Axes to Art

How did prehistoric man manage to leave behind such a rich cultural heritage of rock fine art? Answer: by developing a bigger and more than sophisticated brain. Encephalon performance is straight associated with a number of "college" functions such as language and artistic expression.

The consensus among most most paleontologists and paleoanthropologists, is that the human species (Homo) divide away from gorillas in Africa near 8 million BCE, and from chimpanzees no subsequently than five million BCE. (The discovery of a hominid skull [Sahelanthropus tchadensis] dated almost 7 million years ago, may indicate an earlier divergence). The very early hominids included species like Australopithecus afarensis and Paranthropus robustus (brain capacity 350-500 cc).

Near 2.5 million years BCE, some humans began to brand rock tools (like very crude choppers and hand-axes), and newer species like Homo habilis and Human rudolfensis emerged (brain chapters 590-690 cc). Past two million years BCE more species of humans appeared, such as Homo erectus (encephalon capacity 800-1250 cc). During the following 500,000 years, Homo erectus spread from Africa to the Center East, Asia and Europe.

Between 1.5 million BCE and 500,000 BCE, Homo erectus and other variants of humans engendered more highly developed types of Homo, known as Archaic Human sapiens. It was a group of artists from i of these Archaic Homo sapiens species that created the Bhimbetka petroglyphs and cupules in the Auditorium cavern situated at Bhimbetka in India, and at Daraki-Chattan. These cupules are the oldest fine art on earth.

From 500,000 BCE onwards, these new types morphed into Human being sapiens, equally exemplified by Neanderthal Human being (from 200,000 BCE or earlier). Neanderthals had a brain size of about 1500 cc, which is actually greater than today's modernistic man, then conspicuously cranial capacity is not the only guide to intellect: internal brain architecture is of import too. In all probability Neanderthal sculptors (or their contemporaries) created the famous figurines known equally the Venus of Berekhat Ram and the Venus of Tan-Tan, as well as the ochre stone engravings at the Blombos cavern in South Africa, and the cupules at the Dordogne rock shelter at La Ferrassie.

Finally, about 100,000 BCE, "anatomically modern man" emerged from somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, and, like his predecessors, headed north: reaching North Africa by about 70,000 BCE and becoming established in Europe no subsequently than the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (40,000 BCE). Painters and sculptors belonging to modern man (eg. Cro-Magnon Human being, Grimaldi Man) were responsible for the glorious cave painting in French republic and the Iberian peninsular, besides as the miniature "venus" sculptures and the ivory carvings of the Swabian Jura, establish in the caves of Vogelherd, Hohle Fels, and Hohlenstein-Stadel.

Note: Traditionally, prehistoric painting and sculpture is non classified as primitivism/primitive art - a category which is usually reserved for later tribal art.

Paleolithic Period
(c.2,500,000 - 10,000 BCE)

Traditionally, this catamenia is divided into iii sub-sections: the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic, each marking advances (especially in tool engineering) among different homo cultures. In essence, Paleolithic Man lived solely by hunting and gathering, while his successors during the later Mesolithic and Neolithic times adult systems of agriculture and ultimately permanent settlements.

Survival wasn't like shooting fish in a barrel, not least because of numerous adverse climatic changes: on 4 divide occasions the northern latitudes experienced water ice ages resulting insuccessive waves of freezing and thawing, and triggering migrations or widespread expiry. In fact, the evolution of human culture during Paleolithic times was repeatedly and profoundly afflicted past environmental factors. Paleolithic humans were nutrient gatherers, who depended for their subsistence on hunting wild fauna, fishing, and collecting berries, fruits and nuts. It wasn't until nearly 8,000 BCE that more than secure methods of feeding (agriculture and animal domestication) were adopted.

Stone Tools – The Primal to Civilisation, Culture and Fine art

Stone tools were the instruments past which early Man developed and progressed. All man culture is based on the ingenuity and brainpower of our early ancestors in creating ever more sophisticated tools that enabled them to survive and prosper. Afterwards all, fine fine art is merely a reflection of club, and prehistoric societies were largely defined by the type of tool used. In fact, Paleolithic culture is charted and classified according to advancing tool technologies.

Incidentally, many of the primeval archeological finds of Stone Age artifacts were made in France, thus French place-names have long been used to chart the various Paleolithic subdivisions, despite the huge regional differences that be.

Stone Age Tool Technology

The showtime stone tools, (eoliths) were fabricated more than 2 million years ago - non just from rock but from all types of organic materials (woods, bone, ivory, antler). However, virtually archeological finds contain the more durable stone diversity. The oldest human tools were uncomplicated stone choppers, such as those unearthed at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

According to paleoanthropologists, Paleolithic Man produced four types of better and better tools. These were: (1) Pebble-tools (with a single sharpened border for cutting or chopping); (2) Bifacial-tools (eg. hand-axes); (3) Flake-tools; and (iv) Blade-tools. All types somewhen came into employ, and new tool techniques were created to produce them, with the older technique persisting every bit long as information technology was needed for a given purpose.

The Lower Paleolithic Era
(ii,500,000 - 200,000 BCE)

This is the primeval menstruum of the Paleolithic Age. Information technology runs from the beginning appearance of Human as a tool-making mammal to the appearance of important evolutionary and technological changes which marked the starting time of the Middle Paleolithic. It witnessed the emergence of three different tool-based cultures: (i) Olduwan culture (2,500,000-1,500,000 BCE); (ii) Acheulean civilisation (ane,650,000-100,000 BCE); and (3) Clactonian culture (c.400,000–300,000 BCE). In a sense, stone tools represented the "art" of this period - the key form of creative human expression.

Lower Paleolithic Tool Cultures

Oldowan Culture (ii,500,000 - 1,500,000 BCE)

Oldowan describes the first stone tools used by prehistoric Man of the Lower Paleolithic. Oldowan civilisation began most 2.v 1000000 years ago, appearing first in the Gona and Omo Basins of Ethiopia. The central feature of Oldowan tool manufacture was the method of chipping stones to create a chopping or cut edge. Most tools were fashioned using a single strike of 1 rock against another to create a sharp-edged scrap.

Acheulean Culture and Fine art (1,650,000 - 100,000 BCE)

Acheulean culture was the nigh of import and dominant tool-making tradition of the Lower Palaeolithic era throughout Africa and much of Asia and Europe. Named after the type-site village of Saint Acheul in northern France, and associated with Human ergaster, Human being heidelbergensis and western Homo erectus, Acheulean tool users with their signature style oval and pear-shaped hand-axes were the kickoff humans to expand successfully across Eurasia. Judging by the sophisticated design of these implements, it is no surprise that the primeval art by Stone Age man dates from Acheulean Civilisation. Also, archeologists now believe that Acheulean peoples were the first to experience fire, (around i.4 million years BCE), every bit a result of lightning, although amazingly it wasn't until about 8,000 BCE that man learned exactly how to control it.

Clactonian Civilisation (c.400,000 – 300,000 BCE)

Clactonian describes a culture of European flint tool manufacture or "art", associated with Man erectus, dating from the early catamenia of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindel-Riss or the Holstein interglacial (approx 300,000 – 200,000 BCE).

It was named after type-sites located at Clacton-on-Sea, on the SE coast of England and at Swanscombe in Kent. The latter also provided evidence for the existence of a sub-species of Human erectus known as Swanscombe Man. Clactonian tools were sometimes notched, indicating they were attached to a handle or shaft.

Lower Paleolithic Rock Fine art

The earliest recorded examples of human fine art were created during the Lower Paleolithic in the caves and rock shelters of central India. They consisted of a number of petroglyphs (10 cupules and an engraving or groove) discovered during the 1990s in a quartzite rock shelter (Auditorium cave) at Bhimbetka in central Bharat. This rock art dates from at least 290,000 BCE. Still, it may plow out to be much older (c.700,000 BCE). Archeological excavations from a 2d cave, at Daraki-Chattan in the aforementioned region, are believed to exist of a like age.

The side by side oldest prehistoric art from the Lower Paleolithic comes almost at the finish of the menstruation. 2 primitive figurines - the Venus of Berekhat Ram (plant on the Golan Heights) and the Venus of Tan-Tan (discovered in Morocco) were dated to between roughly 200,000 and 500,000 BCE (the sometime is more ancient).

Centre Paleolithic Era
(200,000 - 40,000 BCE)

The Center Paleolithic period is the second stage of the Paleolithic Era, as applied to Europe, Africa and Asia. The dominant Paleolithic culture was Mousterian, a scrap tool manufacture largely characterized by the point and side scraper, associated (in Europe) with Homo neanderthalensis. This was not a menstruation of dandy invention - obviously hand-axes, for example, were still regularly employed - but major improvements were made in the basic process of tool-making, and in the range and proper utilization of manufactured implements. Towards the finish of the menses, Mousterian tool technology was enhanced by another civilization known as Levallois, and practised in North Africa, the Middle East and equally far afield as Siberia.

Mousterian Culture (300,000 - 30,000 BCE)

The name Mousterian derives from the blazon-site of Le Moustier, a cavern in the Dordogne region of southern France, although the same engineering science was practised across the unglaciated zones of Europe and also the Centre E and North Africa. Tool forms featured a broad diversity of specialized shapes, including barbed and serrated edges. These new blade designs helped to reduce the need for humans to use their teeth to perform sure tasks, thus contributing to a diminution of facial and jaw features among after humans.

The Tool-Making Procedure

Mousterian Human being was able to standardize the tool-making process and thus introduce greater efficiency, possibly through division and specialization of labour. Tool-makers went to great efforts to create blades that could be regularly re-sharpened, thus endowing tools with a greater lifespan. Their production of serrated edge blades, special animal-hide scrapers and the like, together with a range of bone instruments such as needles (suggesting the use of fauna furs and skins as body coverings and shoes) reveal a growing improvement in cognitive power - something illustrated past Neanderthal Man's success in hunting large mammoths, an activity which required much greater social arrangement and cooperation.

Levallois Flake-Tool Civilisation (c.100,000 - 30,000 BCE)

Named later a suburb of Paris, the Levalloisian is an important flintstone-knapping culture characterized by an enhanced technique of producing flakes. This involved the preliminary shaping of the core stone into a convex tortoise shape in society to yield larger flakes. Levallois civilisation influenced many other Middle Paleolithic stone tool industries.

Centre Paleolithic Art

One of the few works of fine art dating from the Middle Paleolithic, is the pair of ochre rocks decorated with abstract cross-hatch patterns found in the Blombos Caves east of Cape Town. (See also: Prehistoric Abstract Signs.) They are one of the oldest examples of African art, and have been dated to 70,000 BCE. Afterward Blombos, comes the Diepkloof eggshell engravings, dated to 60,000 BCE. It is probable that towards the end of the Upper Paleolithic, human artists began producing primitive forms of Oceanic fine art in the SW Pacific area, and very early on types of Tribal art throughout Africa and Asia, although picayune has survived. Run across also the cupules at the La Ferrassie Neanderthal cave in France.

Upper Paleolithic Era
(forty,000 - viii,000 BCE)

The Upper Paleolithic is the final and shortest stage of the Paleolithic Age: less than 15 percent of the length of the preceeding Middle Paleolithic. When referring to Africa it is more than commonly known as the late Stone Age. In addition to more specialized tools and a more sophisticated way of life, Upper Paleolithic civilisation spawned the showtime widespread advent of human painting and sculpture, which appeared simultaneously in near every corner of the globe. Likewise, from the start of the Upper Paleolithic menstruum, the Neanderthal Man sub-species of Homo sapiens was replaced by "anatomically modernistic humans" (eg. Cro-Magnon Man, Chancelade Homo and Grimaldi Man) who became the sole hominid inhabitants beyond continental Europe. But see for instance the Neanderthal engraving at Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar (37,000 BCE).

Stone Tool Cultures

The five main tool cultures of the Upper Paleolithic were (ane) Perigordian (aka Chatelperronian; (2) Aurignacian; (3) Gravettian; (4) Solutrean; and (5) Magdalenian.

Upper Paleolithic Social club

The era saw the construction of the primeval human-made dwellings (mostly semi-subterranean pit houses), while the location of settlements indicates a more complex pattern of social interreaction, involving collective hunting, organized angling, social stratification, formalism events, supernatural and religious ritual. Other developments included the first of private property, the use of needle and thread, and vesture.

Upper Paleolithic Art

The Upper Paleolithic flow witnessed the beginning of art, featuring drawing, modelling, sculpture, and painting, every bit well as jewellery, personal adornments and early on forms of music and dance. The three main fine art forms were cave painting, stone engraving and miniature figurative carvings.

Upper Paleolithic Cavern Painting

During this period, prehistoric lodge began to accept ritual and ceremony - of a quasi-religious or shaman-type nature. As a upshot, sure caves were reserved as prehistoric art galleries, where artists began to paint animals and hunting scenes, as well every bit a variety of abstruse or symbolic drawings.

Cavern art outset appeared during the early Aurignacian civilisation, equally exemplified past the dots and hand stencils of the El Castillo Cave paintings (c.39,000 BCE), the stencils and animal images in the Sulawesi Cavern art (c.37,900 BCE), the figurative Fumane Cave paintings (c.35,000 BCE) and the fabulous monochrome Chauvet Cave paintings (c.thirty,000 BCE) of animals. A contempo discovery is the Coliboaia Cavern Art (30,000 BCE) - at present radiocarbon dated - in northward-w Romania.

Examples of Gravettian art include the prehistoric manus stencils at the (at present underwater) Cosquer Cave (c.25,000 BCE) and Roucadour Cave (24,000 BCE), and the polychrome charcoal and ochre images at Pech-Merle (c.25,000 BCE) and Cougnac Cave (c.23,000 BCE). Only without dubiousness, the most evocative art of the catamenia is the Gargas Cavern mitt stencils (25,000 BCE), featuring a chilling array of mutilated fingers.

During the Solutrean period, prehistoric painters (influenced by late Gravettian traditions) began work on their magnificent polychrome images of horses, bulls and other animals in the Lascaux Cave (from 17,000 BCE), and the Spanish Cantabrian Cavern of La Pasiega (from 16,000 BCE).

Magdalenian cave painting is well represented by the polychrome images of bison and deer at Altamira Cave in Spain (from 15,000 BCE), the reindeer pictures on antlers establish at the French Lortet Cave (from 15,000 BCE), the painted engravings at Font de Gaume Cave (14,000 BCE), the blackness paintings of mammoths at Rouffignac Cavern (xiv,000 BCE), the ruby-red and black paintings in the Tito Bustillo Cave (fourteen,000 BCE) and the Russian Kapova Cavern paintings (c.12,500 BCE) in Bashkortostan.

In Commonwealth of australia, the oldest cave fine art is the Nawarla Gabarnmang charcoal drawing in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, which is carbon-dated to 26,000 BCE. The Koonalda Cave Art (finger-fluting) dates to 18,000 BCE, while the figurative Bradshaw paintings accept been carbon-dated to 15,500 BCE. In Africa, the animal effigy paintings in charcoal and red ochre on the Apollo 11 Cave Stones in Namibia date from 25,500 BCE, while in the Americas the manus stencil images at the Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Easily) in Argentina, date from effectually 9,500 BCE.

For details of the colour pigments used by Stone Age cavern painters, run into: Prehistoric Color Palette.

Upper Paleolithic Rock Engraving

Upper Paleolithic rock engraving is exemplified past the following sites: Abri Castanet (35,000 BCE), Grotte des Deux-Ouvertures (26,500), Cussac Cavern (25,000), Cosquer Cavern (25,000) Le Placard Cavern (17,500), Roc-de-Sers Cave (17,200), Lascaux Cave (17,000), Rouffignac Cavern (14,000), Trois Freres Cave (13,000) and Les Combarelles Cave (12,000).

Further afield, Aboriginal rock fine art began in the north of Australia, where the starting time 'modern' humans arrived from SE Asia. Ubirr stone art and Kimberley rock fine art are both believed to date from every bit early as 30,000 BCE, as are the ancient Burrup Peninsula rock engravings in the Pilbara, Western Australia. All these Australian Paleolithic sites are famous for their open up air engraved drawings, whereas well-nigh all the European engravings were created inside caves: the leading exception being the Coa Valley Engravings, Portugal (22,000 BCE).

Upper Paleolithic Sculpture

Upper Paleolithic artists produced a vast number of small sculptures of female figures, known as Venus Figurines. During Aurignacian times, they included: the Venus of Hohle Fels (ivory, 35,500 BCE), and the Venus of Galgenberg (likewise known as the Stratzing Figurine) (c.thirty,000 BCE). During the following Gravettian culture, more appeared, such every bit: the Venus of Dolni Vestonice (ceramic dirt figurine: c.26,000 BCE); the Venus of Monpazier (limonite etching: c.25,000 BCE); the Venus of Willendorf (oolitic limestone sculpture: c.25,000 BCE); the Venus of Savignano (serpentine sculpture: c.24,000 BCE); the Venus of Moravany (mammoth ivory carving: c.24,000 BCE); the Venus of Laussel (limestone sculpture: c.23,000 BCE); the Venus of Brassempouy (mammoth ivory: c.23,000 BCE); the Venus of Lespugue (mammoth ivory: c.23,000 BCE); the Venus of Kostenky (mammoth ivory carving: 22,000 BCE), the Venus of Gagarino (volcanic stone: c.22,000 BCE), the Avdeevo Venuses (ivory: c.20,000 BCE), the Zaraysk Venuses (ivory: c.20,000 BCE) and the Mal'ta Venuses (ivory: xx,000 BCE), to name simply a few. Other non-female person examples include the ivory Lion Homo of Hohlenstein-Stadel (c.38,000 BCE). For later sculptures from the Magdalenian period, delight see: Venus of Eliseevichi (fourteen,000 BCE), the German language Venus of Engen ("Petersfels Venus") (13,000 BCE) and the Venus of Monruz-Neuchatel (c.10,000 BCE), the last of the Upper Paleolithic figurines.

Upper Paleolithic Relief Sculpture

Stone Age relief sculpture is exemplified by the Dordogne limestone relief known as the Venus of Laussel (c.23,000-xx,000 BCE); the cute Perigord etching of a salmon/trout in the Abri du Poisson Cave (c.23,000-twenty,000 BCE); the infrequent frieze at Roc-de-Sers Cavern (17,200 BCE) in the Charente; the Cap Blanc Frieze (xv,000 BCE) in the Dordogne; the Tuc d'Audoubert Bison reliefs (c.thirteen,500 BCE) plant in the Ariege; and the limestone frieze at Roc-aux-Sorciers (c.12,000 BCE), uncovered at Angles-sur-l'Anglin in the Vienne.

Upper Paleolithic Tool Technology

Tool-making received something of an overhaul. Out went the quondam hand axes and flake tools, in came a wide range of diversified and specialized tools fabricated from peculiarly prepared stones. They included spear and arrow points, and a signature figure-eight shaped blade. Hafted tools appeared, as did the harpoon, specialist line-fishing equipment and a range of gravers (or burins) and scrapers. In addition to flint, materials similar bone, ivory, and antlers were utilized extensively.

Art and Tool Cultures During the Upper Paleolithic

Aurignacian Culture (about 40,000 - 26,000 BCE)

One of several cultures which co-existed in Upper Paleolithic Europe, it was likewise practised every bit far abroad equally south west Asia, its proper noun derives from the type-site near the village of Aurignac in the Haute Garonne, French republic. Its tools included sophisticated bone implements like points with grooves cut in the lesser for zipper to handles/spears, scrapers (including nose-scrapers), burins, chisels, and military-mode batons.

Aurignacian art also witnessed the showtime significant manifestations of fine art painting and sculpture: a phenomenom which continued throughout the rest of the Upper Paleolithic era. Notable examples include the red abstract symbols at El Castillo, the monochrome cave murals at Chauvet and Coliboaia, and the early venus figurines from across Europe. Other Aurignacian rock fine art included paw stencils, finger tracings, engravings, and bas-reliefs.

In add-on, Aurignacian humans produced the first personal ornaments fabricated from decorated os and ivory, such as bracelets, necklaces, pendants and beads. This growing self-awareness, together with the birth of fine art, marks the Aurignacian every bit the first modern culture of the Stone Age.

Perigordian/Chatelperronian Civilisation: (nearly 33,000-27,000 BCE)

Châtelperronian was an important Upper Paleolithic culture of primal and southern France. Derived from the before Mousterian, practised by Human being neanderthalensis, it employed Levallois flake-tool technology, producing toothed and serrated rock tools besides as a signature flint blades (mayhap used to make jewellery) with blunted backs known as "Châtelperron points". No particular fine art is associated with this culture.

Gravettian Culture (nigh 26,000 - twenty,000 BCE)

The Gravettian was a European Upper Palaeolithic civilization whose name derives from the type-site of La Gravette in the Dordogne department of France. Practised in eastern, central and western Europe, its signature tool (derived from the Châtelperron point) was a pocket-sized pointed blade with a blunt but straight dorsum - called a Gravette Point. Personal jewellery connected to be manufactured, and more personal property is evident, indicating an increasing degree of social stratification.

Gravettian art is immensely rich in both cave painting and portable sculptural works. The former is exemplified by the wonderful stencil art at Cosquer cave and the coloured charcoal and ochre pictures at Pech-Merle cave. The well-nigh famous Gravettian sculpture consists of venus figurines, such as the Venuses of Dolni Vestonice (Czechia), Willendorf (Republic of austria), Savignano (Italy), Kostenky (Russia), Moravany (Slovakia), Laussel (French republic), Brassempouy (France), Lespugue (French republic), and Gagarino (Russian federation).

Solutrean Culture (virtually 20,000 – xv,000 BCE)

This civilisation comes from the type-site of Solutré in the Mâcon district of eastern France. Curiously, Solutrean tool-makers announced to have developed a number of uniquely advanced techniques, some of which were non seen for several chiliad years after their departure. In whatsoever event, Solutrean people produced the finest Paleolithic flint adroitness in western Europe.

Withal, around fifteen,000 BCE, Solutrean culture mysteriously vanishes from the archeological record. Some paleoanthropologists believe in that location are affinities betwixt Solutean and the later North American Clovis culture (as evidenced by artifacts plant at Blackwater Draw in New Mexico, Usa), indicating that Solutreans migrated across the frozen Atlantic to America. Other experts believe that Solutrean culture was overcome by a moving ridge of new invaders.

Solutrean Art

Perhaps because of its focus on tool technology, Solutrean art is noted in a higher place all for its achievements in engraving and relief sculpture - see, for example the fabulous stone engravings and frieze at the Roc-de-Sers Cave (c.17,200 BCE) - even though the glorious Lascaux cavern paintings date from the period. Experts believe that the artists who created the cave murals at Lascaux and La Pasiega were influenced either past late Gravettian or early Magdalenian culture.

Aboriginal pottery too appeared at this time in East Asia. The oldest known sherds come from the Xianrendong Cave Pottery (c.18,000 BCE), discovered in northeast Jiangxi Province, China. After this comes Yuchanyan Cavern Pottery (c.xvi,000 BCE) from China'southward Hunan province, and Amur River Bowl Pottery (xiv,300 BCE). Meanwhile, in Nippon, ceramics began with Jomon Pottery (from 14,500 BCE). For more than chronological details, run across: Pottery Timeline.

Magdalenian Civilization (virtually 15,000 - 8,000 BCE)

Magdalenian is the final culture of the catamenia and the apogee of Paleolithic art, of the One-time Stone Age. Its name comes from the type-site of La Madeleine near Les Eyzies in the French Dordogne. Magdalenian tool engineering is divers by the production of smaller and more sophisticated tools (from barbed points to needles, well-crafted scrapers to parrot-bill gravers) made from fine flint-flakes and animal sources (bone, ivory etc), whose specialized functions and delicacy testify to the culture's advanced nature.

Magdalenian Art

Magdalenian culture attached a growing importance to aesthetic objects, such as personal jewellery, ceremonial accessories, article of clothing and specially fine art. Ceramics as well appeared in Europe - come across Vela Spila pottery (15,500 BCE), for instance, from Croatia.

Indeed, the cultural horizons of Magdalenian people are easily appreciated by studying the upsurge of cartoon, painting, relief sculpture of the menstruum, exemplified by the Altimira Cave paintings - whose symbolism in detail represents the first endeavor by humans to impose their ain sense of pregnant on a relatively uncertain world - likewise every bit the Addaura Cave engravings (11,000 BCE) whose style is remarkably modern. This unstoppable trend would - within but a few millennia - pb to the appearance of pictographs, hieroglyphics and written linguistic communication. For details, see: Magdalenian Art.

[Note: Dates for the next four periods of prehistory are strictly approximate. In the case of Mesolithic and Neolithic, this is because their defining characteristics appeared at differing times co-ordinate to the water ice conditions of the region or country. In the case of the Bronze and Iron Ages, this is because sure civilizations developed metallurgical skills at different times. Thus, there are no universal dates for the beginning and finish of these eras, and so our focus is on Europe.]

Mesolithic Culture
c. x,000 - 4,000 BCE - Northern and Western Europe
c. 10,000 - 7,000 BCE - Southeast Europe
c. 10,000 - 8,000 BCE - Middle Eastward and Remainder of Globe

The Mesolithic period is a transitional era between the ice-affected hunter-gatherer culture of the Upper Paleolithic, and the farming culture of the Neolithic. The greater the effect of the retreating ice on the environment of a region, the longer the Mesolithic era lasted. So, in areas with no ice (eg. the Eye East), people transitioned quite rapidly from hunting/gathering to agriculture. Their Mesolithic period was therefore short, and ofttimes referred to as the Epi-Paleolithic or Epipaleolithic. Past comparing, in areas undergoing the change from water ice to no-ice, the Mesolithic era and its culture lasted much longer.

Annotation: The term "Mesolithic" is no longer used to announce a worldwide period in the evolution of European cultural evolution. Instead, it describes only the state of affairs in northwestern Europe - Scandinavia, Britain, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Frg - and central Europe.

European Mesolithic Humans

Archeological discoveries of Mesolithic remains testify to a bully variety of races. These include the Azilian Ofnet Man (Bavaria); several later types of Cro-Magnon Man; types of brachycephalic humans (short-skulled); and types of dolichocephalic humans (long-skulled).

European Mesolithic Cultures

As the ice disappeared, to be replaced by grasslands and forests, mobility and flexibility became more than of import in the hunting and acquisition of food. As a issue, Mesolithic cultures are characterized past pocket-sized, lighter flintstone tools, quantities of fishing tackle, stone adzes, bows and arrows. Very gradually, at to the lowest degree in Europe, hunting and angling was superceded by farming and the domestication of animals. The three main European Mesolithic cultures are: Azilian, Tardenoisian and Maglemosian. Azilian was a stone industry, largely microlithic, associated with Ofnet Human. Tardenoisian, associated with Tardenoisian Man, produced small flint blades and small flint implements with geometrical shapes, together with bone harpoons using flint flakes as barbs. Maglemosian (northern Europe) was a bone and horn culture, producing flintstone scrapers, borers and core-axes.

Mesolithic Rock Art

Mesolithic art reflects the arrival of new living conditions and hunting practices caused by the disappearance of the great herds of animals from Spain and France, at the end of the Water ice Age. Forests now cloaked the landscape, necessitating more than careful and cooperative hunting arrangements. European Mesolithic rock art gives more space to human being figures, and is characterized by keener ascertainment, and greater narrative in the paintings. Also, because of the warmer atmospheric condition, it moves from caves to outdoor sites in numerous locations.

Famous Works of Art From the Mesolithic Period

Famous works of painting and sculpture created by Mesolithic artists include the post-obit:

Artwork: Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) (c.9500 BCE)
Type: Stencils of Hands; Pigments on Rock
Local Period: Upper Paleolithic/Neolithic
Location: Rio de las Pinturas, Argentine republic

Artwork: Bhimbetka Rock Fine art (c.9,000-7,000 BCE)
Type: Paintings and Stencil Art
Local Period: Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic
Location: Madhya Pradesh, India

Artwork: Paintings on Pachmari Hills (9000–3000 BCE)
Type: Pigments on Sandstone
Local Catamenia: Mesolithic
Location: Satpura Range of Cardinal Republic of india

Artwork: Wonderwerk Cavern Engravings (c.8200 BCE)
Type: Geometric Designs and Representations of Animals
Local Period: African Neolithic
Location: Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Greatcoat Province, South Africa

Artwork: Tassili-n-Ajjer Rock Art (c.8000 BCE)
Type: Paintings and Engravings
Local Period: Archaic Tradition
Location: Tassili-n-Ajjer, Algeria, N Africa

Artwork: The Shigir Idol (7,500 BCE)
Type: Wood etching of an anthropomorphic figure.
Local Period: Late Mesolithic, Early Neolithic
Location: Peat bog near Sverdlovsk in Russia.

Neolithic Civilization
c. four,000 - 2,000 BCE: Northern and Western Europe
c. 7,000 - 2,000 BCE: Southeast Europe
c. 8,000 - 2,000 BCE: Eye Due east & Rest of World

The Neolithic era saw a central modify in lifestyle throughout the world. OUT went the primitive semi-nomadic style of hunting and gathering food, IN came a much more settled form of existence, based on farming and rearing of domesticated animals. Neolithic civilization was characterized past stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, and farming (staple crops: wheat, barley and rice; domesticated animals: sheep, goats, pigs and cattle), and led directly to a growth in crafts like pottery and weaving. All this began virtually 9,000 BCE in the villages of south asia, from where it spread to the Chinese interior - run into Neolithic Art in China - and also to the fertile crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle Eastward (c.seven,000), earlier spreading to India (c.5,000), Europe (c.4,000), and the Americas (independently) (c.ii,500 BCE).

The institution of settled communities (villages, towns and in due course cities) triggered a variety of new activities, notably: a rapid stimulation of trade, the construction of trading vehicles (mainly boats), new forms of social organizations, along with the growth of religious behavior and associated ceremonies. And due to improvements in food supply and environmental control, the population rapidly increased. For tens of millennia before the appearance of agriculture, the full human population had varied between v 1000000 and viii million. Past iv,000 BCE, after less than 5,000 years of farming, numbers had risen to 65 million.

Neolithic Art

In general, the more than settled and improve-resourced the region, the more fine art it produces. So it was with Neolithic art, which branched out in several dissimilar directions. And although most aboriginal art remained essentially functional in nature, there was a greater focus on ornamentation and decoration. For example, jade carving - one of the great specialities of Chinese fine art - start appeared during the era of Neolithic culture, as does Chinese lacquerware and porcelain. Run into: Chinese Art Timeline (eighteen,000 BCE - present.)

Portable Fine art

With greater settlement in villages and other pocket-size communities, stone painting begins to exist replaced by more portable fine art. Discoveries in Catal Huyuk, an ancient village in Asia Minor (modernistic Turkey) include beautiful murals (including the world's first landscape painting), dating from vi,100 BCE. Artworks become progressively ornamented with precious metals (eg. copper is first used in Mesopotamia, while more advanced metallurgy is discovered in South-Eastward Europe). Complimentary standing sculpture, in stone and wood begins to be seen, also equally statuary statuettes (notably by the Indus Valley Culture, one of the early engines of painting and sculpture in Republic of india), archaic jewellery and decorative designs on a variety of artifacts.

Ceramics

However, the major medium of Neolithic civilization was ceramic pottery, the finest examples of which (mostly featuring geometric designs or animal/plant motifs) were produced around the region of Mesopotamia (Iran, Iraq) and the eastern Mediterranean.

Other Cultural Developments

Other important art-related trends which surface during the Neolithic art include writing and organized religion. The advent of early hieroglyphic writing systems in Sumer heralds the arrival of pictorial methods of communication, while increased prosperity and security permits greater attention to religious formalities of (eg) worship (in temples) and burial, in megalithic tombs.

Architecture and Megalithic Fine art

The emergence of the kickoff city state (Uruk, in Mesopotamia) predicts the establishment of more than secure communities around the world, many of which volition compete to found their own independent cultural and artistic identity, creating permanent architectural megaliths in the procedure. (See: History of Compages). The Neolithic historic period as well saw the emergence of awe-inspiring tomb buildings like the Egyptian pyramids and individual monoliths like the Sphinx at Giza - see Ancient Egyptian Architecture for details. For details of tomb architecture and decorative engravings in Republic of ireland during this menses, please see Irish Stone Age art.

Other Famous Works of Art From the Neolithic Period

Famous works of painting and sculpture created past Neolithic artists include the following:

Artwork: Jiahu Carvings (c.7000–5700 BCE)
Blazon: Turquoise Carvings, Os Flutes
Local Period: Chinese Neolithic
Location: Xanthous River Basin of Henan Province, Cardinal Communist china

Artwork: Coldstream Burial Stone (c.6,000 BCE)
Type: Pigments on Quartzite Pebble
Local Period: African Neolithic
Location: Lottering River, Western Cape Province, Southward Africa

Artwork: The Seated Adult female of Catal Huyuk (c.6000 BCE)
Type: Terra cotta Sculpture
Local Menstruum: Neolithic
Location: Catal Huyuk, Anatolia, Turkey

Artwork: Egyptian Naquada I Female Figurines (c.5500-3000 BCE)
Type: Minor Carved Figures: Bone, Ivory, Stone (Ornamented west. Lapis Lazuli)
Local Menses: Egyptian Predynastic Period (Naquada I Menses, 4000-3500 BCE)
Location: Egypt

Artwork: Persian Chalcolithic Pottery (c.5000-3500 BCE)
Type: Ceramic Ware painted with Homo, Bird, Plant or Creature Motifs
Local Period: Chalcolithic Civilisation
Location: Islamic republic of iran (Persia)

Artwork: Thinker of Cernavoda (c.v,000 BCE)
Type: Terra cotta
Local Menstruum: Neolithic Hamangia Culture
Location: Romania

Artwork: Fish God of Lepenski Vir (c.5000 BCE)
Type: Sandstone Carving
Local Menstruum: Neolithic
Location: Danube Settlement of Lepenski Vir, Serbia

Artwork: Iraqi Samarra and Halaf Ceramic Plates (c.5000)
Type: Ceramic Dish with Figurative or Geometric Decoration
Local Period: Samarra/Halaf Style, Neolithic
Location: Iraq and Syria

Artwork: Dabous Giraffe Engravings (c.4000 BCE)
Blazon: Saharan Stone Engravings
Local Period: Taureg Culture
Location: Agadez, Niger, Africa

Artwork: Artwork: Valdivia Figurines (c.4000–3500 BCE)
Type: First representational images in the Americas, in limestone and marble
Local Catamenia: Neolithic
Location: Existent Alto and Loma Alta sites, Ecuador

Artwork: Pig Dragon Pendant (Hongshan Culture) (c.3800 BCE)
Blazon: Jade Carving
Local Period: Hongshan Civilization
Location: Tomb 4, Niuheliang, Jianping, Liaoning Province, NE Mainland china

Bronze Age (In Europe, 3000 BCE - 1200 BCE)

Characterized by the development of metallurgy, in detail copper mining and smelting, along with tin-mining and smelting, as reflected in the exquisite statuary, gold and silver sculptures. Emergence of Egyptian architecture, metallurgy, encaustic painting and stone sculpture. Run across: Bronze Age Fine art.

Bronze Age Masterpiece: Ram in a Thicket (c.2500 BCE)

This extraordinary xviii-inch high sculpture (British Museum, London) features a ram standing on its hind legs, peering through a symbolic piece of undergrowth. The minimalist depiction of the thicket and the focused, forlorn wait on the face of the animal, demonstrates an amazing artistic sensibility and makes it a masterpiece of Sumerian art of the time.
Type: Sculpture in gilt-leaf, copper, lapis lazuli, carmine limestone
Local Period: Early Dynastic
Location: Great Death Pit, Ur, Mesopotamia (Iraq)

Artwork: Maikop Aureate Bull (c.2500 BCE)
Type: Gold Sculpture (Lost-Wax Casting Method) (Institute with three more; i silver, ii golden)
Local Menstruum: Maikop Civilization
Location: North Caucasus, Russian federation

Iron Age (In Europe, 1500 BCE - 200 BCE)

Characterized by the processing of iron ore to produce iron tools and weapons. In northern Europe, Hallstatt and La Tene styles of Celtic art flourished, while around the Mediterranean there emerged the keen schools of Greek art and Farsi art likewise every bit the culture and architecture of the Minoan, Mycenean, and Etruscan civilizations. Encounter: Iron Age Art.

In Bharat, around 200 BCE, the commencement paintings appeared in the Ajanta Caves. For more than, encounter: Classical Indian Painting (upwards to 1150 CE).

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Source: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric-art.htm

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