The Introduction of Art During Paleolithic Period Reflects the Unique Human Ability to

Prehistoric Cupules
The oldest cultural phenomenon,
found throughout the prehistoric
globe, the cupule remains one of the
to the lowest degree understood types of rock fine art.

NOT "ART FOR Art'S SAKE"
A large proportion Stone Age fine art
was created to limited ideas or
data. This applies to most
animate being cavern paintings, paw stencils
and all abstruse symbols. To put information technology
some other fashion, all these types of art
functioned as "pictographs", and
probably served as a backdrop for
a multifariousness of prehistoric ceremonies.

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

Contents

• Introduction
• Types
• Characteristics
• Dating & Chronology
• Prehistoric Civilisation
• Human being Evolution: From Axes to Art
• Paleolithic Period
• Lower Paleolithic (c.2.5 million - 200,000 BCE)
• Middle Paleolithic (c.200,000 - forty,000 BCE)
• Upper Paleolithic (c.40,000-10,000 BCE)
• Mesolithic Culture
- 10,000 - iv,000 BCE - Northern and Western Europe
- 10,000 - 7,000 BCE - Southeast Europe
- 10,000 - 8,000 BCE - Center East and Rest of World
• Neolithic Culture
- 4,000 - 2,000 BCE: Northern and Western Europe
- seven,000 - 2,000 BCE: Southeast Europe
- eight,000 - 2,000 BCE: Center East & Residuum of World
• Statuary Age Fine art (In Europe, 3000-1200 BCE)
• Iron Age Art (In Europe, 1500-200 BCE)

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

Rock Age lions watching prey.
Chauvet Cave (c.30,000 BCE)
Franco-Cantabrian cave fine art from
the Late Aurignacian.

Introduction to Prehistoric Art

Types
Archeologists accept identified 4 bones types of Stone Age fine art, as follows: petroglyphs (cupules, rock 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 equally parietal fine art; works that are portable are classified as mobiliary art.

Characteristics
The earliest forms of prehistoric art are extremely primitive. The cupule, for example - a mysterious type of Paleolithic cultural marking - amounts to no more than than a hemispherical or cup-like scouring of the rock surface. The early on sculptures known as the Venuses of Tan-Tan and Berekhat Ram, are such crude representations of humanoid shapes that some experts doubt whether they are works of fine art at all. Information technology is not until the Upper Paleolithic (from roughly 40,000 BCE onwards) that anatomically modernistic man produces recognizable carvings and pictures. Aurignacian culture, in detail, witnesses an explosion of rock art, including the El Castillo cave paintings, the monochrome cavern murals at Chauvet, the Lion Human being of Hohlenstein-Stadel, the Venus of Hohle Fels, the animal carvings of the Swabian Jura, Ancient rock fine art from Australia, and much more. The later Gravettian and Magdalenian cultures gave nativity 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 now available to help constitute the engagement of ancient artifacts from the Paleolithic era and afterward. However, dating of aboriginal fine art is not an exact scientific discipline, and results are frequently dependent on tests performed on the 'layer' of earth and debris in which the artifact was lying, or - in the case of stone engraving - an assay of the content and style of the markings. (Animal drawings using regular side-profiles, for instance, are typically older than those using three-quarter profiles.) For a chronological listing of dates and events associated with Rock Age civilisation, see: Prehistoric Art Timeline.

PREHISTORY
The principal geological epochs include:
PLIOCENE (c.5,300,000 BCE)
This epoch begins roughly with the
emergence of upright early hominids.
They were as well busy trying to stay live
to create art. This period used to end
2.five million years ago when humans
commencement started making tools, simply
geologists extended it to 1.six million
BCE, trapping the early Lower
Paleolithic period in it.
PLEISTOCENE (c.1.6m - 10,000 BCE)
This is a geologic period that covers
the earth's most contempo glaciations.
Information technology includes the after part of the
Lower Paleolithic as well as the
Centre and Upper Paleolithic periods.
It witnessed the emergence of modern
man and the swell works of Paleolithic
rock art, like cupules, petroglyphs,
engravings, pictographs, cavern murals,
sculpture and ceramics. The term
pleistocene comes from Greek words
(pleistos "most") and (kainos "new").
For fact-addicts, the Pleistocene is the
third stage in the Neogene period or
6th epoch of the Cenozoic Era.
HOLOCENE (c.ten,000 BCE - now)
During its prehistory section this
geological menses saw the birth of
Man civilisation, every bit 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 (Center Stone Historic period),
the Neolithic (New Stone Historic period),
the Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Prehistoric Culture

The longest phase of Rock Age civilisation - known as the Paleolithic period - is a hunter-gatherer civilization which is usually divided into three parts:

(ane) Lower Paleolithic (2,500,000-200,000 BCE)
(2) Middle Paleolithic (200,000-40,000 BCE)
(3) Upper Paleolithic (xl,000-10,000 BCE).

Afterwards this comes a transitional phase called the Mesolithic period (sometimes known as epipaleolithic), ending with the spread of agriculture, followed by the Neolithic menstruum (the New Stone Age) which witnessed the institution of permanent settlements. The Stone Age ends equally stone tools become superceded by the new products of bronze and iron metallurgy, and is followed by the Bronze Age and Fe Age.

WARNING: All periods are estimate. Dates for specific cultures are given every bit a rough guide only, as disagreement persists equally to nomenclature, terminology and chronology.

Paleolithic Era (c.two,500,000 - 10,000 BCE)

Characterized by a Stone Age subsistence civilization and the development of the human species from archaic australopiths via Homo erectus and Human sapiens to anatomically modern humans. See: Paleolithic Fine art and Culture.

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

- Olduwan civilization (2,500,000 - 1,500,000 BCE)
- Acheulean culture (1,650,000 - 100,000 BCE)
- Clactonian civilisation (c.400,000 – 300,000 BCE)

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

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

Upper Paleolithic (40,000-8,000 BCE)

- Aurignacian civilization (twoscore,000 - 26,000 BCE)
- Perigordian (Chatelperronian) civilisation (35,000-27,000 BCE)
- Gravettian culture (26,000 - 20,000 BCE)
- Solutrean civilisation (19,000 – 15,000 BCE)
- Magdalenian culture (sixteen,000 - viii,000 BCE)

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

Mesolithic Era
(From 10,000 BCE)

This era joins the Ice Age culture of the Upper Paleolithic with the water ice-free, farming culture of the Neolithic. It is characterized by more advanced hunter-gathering, line-fishing and rudimentary forms of cultivation.

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

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

Human Evolution: From Axes to Art

How did prehistoric man manage to get out backside such a rich cultural heritage of rock art? Answer: by developing a bigger and more sophisticated brain. Brain performance is directly associated with a number of "higher" functions such as linguistic communication and artistic expression.

The consensus among most most paleontologists and paleoanthropologists, is that the homo species (Homo) split abroad from gorillas in Africa almost 8 1000000 BCE, and from chimpanzees no later than 5 million BCE. (The discovery of a hominid skull [Sahelanthropus tchadensis] dated about 7 one thousand thousand years ago, may point an earlier divergence). The very early hominids included species similar Australopithecus afarensis and Paranthropus robustus (brain capacity 350-500 cc).

About two.5 million years BCE, some humans began to brand rock tools (like very crude choppers and hand-axes), and newer species like Human being habilis and Human rudolfensis emerged (brain chapters 590-690 cc). By two million years BCE more species of humans appeared, such as Human erectus (brain capacity 800-1250 cc). During the following 500,000 years, Homo erectus spread from Africa to the Middle 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 Human, known every bit Primitive Man sapiens. It was a group of artists from one of these Archaic Human sapiens species that created the Bhimbetka petroglyphs and cupules in the Auditorium cave situated at Bhimbetka in India, and at Daraki-Chattan. These cupules are the oldest art on earth.

From 500,000 BCE onwards, these new types morphed into Human being sapiens, as exemplified by Neanderthal Human being (from 200,000 BCE or before). Neanderthals had a brain size of most 1500 cc, which is really greater than today'due south modern man, so clearly cranial capacity is not the only guide to intellect: internal brain compages is important also. In all probability Neanderthal sculptors (or their contemporaries) created the famous figurines known as the Venus of Berekhat Ram and the Venus of Tan-Tan, equally well as the ochre rock engravings at the Blombos cave in South Africa, and the cupules at the Dordogne rock shelter at La Ferrassie.

Finally, about 100,000 BCE, "anatomically mod human" emerged from somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, and, like his predecessors, headed n: reaching Northward Africa by about 70,000 BCE and becoming established in Europe no afterward than the get-go of the Upper Paleolithic (40,000 BCE). Painters and sculptors belonging to modern human (eg. Cro-Magnon Man, Grimaldi Human) were responsible for the glorious cave painting in French republic and the Iberian peninsular, as well equally 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/archaic art - a category which is usually reserved for later tribal fine art.

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

Traditionally, this menses is divided into iii sub-sections: the Lower Paleolithic, Center Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic, each marking advances (especially in tool technology) amid different human cultures. In essence, Paleolithic Human being lived solely by hunting and gathering, while his successors during the later Mesolithic and Neolithic times developed systems of agriculture and ultimately permanent settlements.

Survival wasn't like shooting fish in a barrel, not least because of numerous agin climatic changes: on four separate occasions the northern latitudes experienced ice ages resulting insuccessive waves of freezing and thawing, and triggering migrations or widespread death. In fact, the development of human culture during Paleolithic times was repeatedly and greatly affected by environmental factors. Paleolithic humans were food gatherers, who depended for their subsistence on hunting wild animals, fishing, and collecting berries, fruits and nuts. It wasn't until about 8,000 BCE that more than secure methods of feeding (agronomics and animal domestication) were adopted.

Stone Tools – The Central to Civilization, Civilization and Art

Stone tools were the instruments by which early Man developed and progressed. All human culture is based on the ingenuity and brainpower of our early ancestors in creating always more sophisticated tools that enabled them to survive and prosper. After all, fine art is merely a reflection of society, and prehistoric societies were largely defined by the type of tool used. In fact, Paleolithic civilization is charted and classified co-ordinate to advancing tool technologies.

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

Stone Age Tool Technology

The commencement stone tools, (eoliths) were made more than than two one thousand thousand years ago - not just from stone but from all types of organic materials (wood, os, ivory, antler). All the same, near archeological finds comprise the more durable rock diversity. The oldest homo tools were simple 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: (i) Pebble-tools (with a single sharpened edge for cutting or chopping); (2) Bifacial-tools (eg. hand-axes); (iii) Flake-tools; and (4) Blade-tools. All types somewhen came into apply, and new tool techniques were created to produce them, with the older technique persisting as long as information technology was needed for a given purpose.

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

This is the earliest period of the Paleolithic Age. It runs from the first advent of Human being as a tool-making mammal to the appearance of important evolutionary and technological changes which marked the start of the Centre Paleolithic. Information technology witnessed the emergence of three different tool-based cultures: (i) Olduwan culture (two,500,000-1,500,000 BCE); (2) Acheulean civilisation (one,650,000-100,000 BCE); and (iii) Clactonian civilisation (c.400,000–300,000 BCE). In a sense, stone tools represented the "fine art" of this period - the fundamental form of creative human expression.

Lower Paleolithic Tool Cultures

Oldowan Civilisation (two,500,000 - i,500,000 BCE)

Oldowan describes the first stone tools used by prehistoric Man of the Lower Paleolithic. Oldowan culture began virtually 2.5 million years ago, actualization first in the Gona and Omo Basins of Ethiopia. The key characteristic of Oldowan tool manufacture was the method of chipping stones to create a chopping or cutting edge. Most tools were fashioned using a single strike of one stone confronting another to create a sharp-edged flake.

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

Acheulean culture was the most important and ascendant tool-making tradition of the Lower Palaeolithic era throughout Africa and much of Asia and Europe. Named afterward the type-site village of Saint Acheul in northern France, and associated with Man ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis and western Homo erectus, Acheulean tool users with their signature style oval and pear-shaped hand-axes were the first humans to expand successfully across Eurasia. Judging by the sophisticated design of these implements, it is no surprise that the primeval fine art by Stone Age man dates from Acheulean Culture. Also, archeologists at present believe that Acheulean peoples were the first to experience burn, (effectually 1.four million years BCE), as a result of lightning, although amazingly it wasn't until about viii,000 BCE that man learned exactly how to control it.

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

Clactonian describes a civilisation of European flint tool industry or "art", associated with Homo erectus, dating from the early menstruum of the interglacial menstruum 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 declension of England and at Swanscombe in Kent. The latter also provided evidence for the existence of a sub-species of Human erectus known every bit Swanscombe Human. Clactonian tools were sometimes notched, indicating they were fastened to a handle or shaft.

Lower Paleolithic Rock Fine art

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

The adjacent oldest prehistoric fine art from the Lower Paleolithic comes nigh at the end of the period. Two primitive figurines - the Venus of Berekhat Ram (establish on the Golan Heights) and the Venus of Tan-Tan (discovered in Kingdom of morocco) were dated to between roughly 200,000 and 500,000 BCE (the onetime is more aboriginal).

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

The Middle Paleolithic catamenia is the 2nd phase of the Paleolithic Era, every bit practical to Europe, Africa and Asia. The dominant Paleolithic culture was Mousterian, a scrap tool industry largely characterized by the indicate and side scraper, associated (in Europe) with Homo neanderthalensis. This was not a period of dandy invention - obviously paw-axes, for case, were still regularly employed - but major improvements were made in the bones procedure of tool-making, and in the range and proper utilization of manufactured implements. Towards the end of the period, Mousterian tool technology was enhanced by some other culture known as Levallois, and practised in North Africa, the Centre East and as far afield as Siberia.

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

The name Mousterian derives from the type-site of Le Moustier, a cave in the Dordogne region of southern French republic, although the aforementioned technology was practised across the unglaciated zones of Europe and also the Middle Due east and North Africa. Tool forms featured a wide variety of specialized shapes, including barbed and serrated edges. These new blade designs helped to reduce the need for humans to apply their teeth to perform certain tasks, thus contributing to a diminution of facial and jaw features among later humans.

The Tool-Making Process

Mousterian Man was able to standardize the tool-making process and thus introduce greater efficiency, possibly through division and specialization of labour. Tool-makers went to swell efforts to create blades that could be regularly re-sharpened, thus endowing tools with a greater lifespan. Their product of serrated edge blades, special animal-hibernate scrapers and the similar, together with a range of os instruments such as needles (suggesting the employ of animal furs and skins as trunk coverings and shoes) reveal a growing improvement in cognitive ability - something illustrated by Neanderthal Man'due south success in hunting large mammoths, an action which required much greater social organization and cooperation.

Levallois Flake-Tool Culture (c.100,000 - xxx,000 BCE)

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

Middle Paleolithic Art

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

Upper Paleolithic Era
(xl,000 - eight,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 Centre Paleolithic. When referring to Africa it is more commonly known as the late Stone Age. In addition to more specialized tools and a more sophisticated style of life, Upper Paleolithic culture spawned the first widespread appearance of human painting and sculpture, which appeared simultaneously in almost every corner of the globe. Also, from the start of the Upper Paleolithic period, the Neanderthal Homo sub-species of Homo sapiens was replaced by "anatomically mod humans" (eg. Cro-Magnon Man, Chancelade Human being and Grimaldi Man) who became the sole hominid inhabitants across continental Europe. Merely run into for instance the Neanderthal engraving at Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar (37,000 BCE).

Stone Tool Cultures

The 5 master tool cultures of the Upper Paleolithic were (1) Perigordian (aka Chatelperronian; (two) Aurignacian; (3) Gravettian; (4) Solutrean; and (5) Magdalenian.

Upper Paleolithic Club

The era saw the construction of the earliest man-fabricated dwellings (by and large semi-subterranean pit houses), while the location of settlements indicates a more complex design of social interreaction, involving collective hunting, organized fishing, social stratification, ceremonial events, supernatural and religious ritual. Other developments included the beginning of individual property, the use of needle and thread, and wear.

Upper Paleolithic Art

The Upper Paleolithic period witnessed the get-go of fine fine art, featuring drawing, modelling, sculpture, and painting, besides every bit jewellery, personal adornments and early forms of music and trip the light fantastic. The 3 main art forms were cave painting, rock engraving and miniature figurative carvings.

Upper Paleolithic Cave Painting

During this period, prehistoric society began to accept ritual and anniversary - of a quasi-religious or shaman-type nature. As a result, certain caves were reserved as prehistoric art galleries, where artists began to paint animals and hunting scenes, every bit well as a variety of abstract or symbolic drawings.

Cave art starting time appeared during the early Aurignacian culture, as exemplified by the dots and mitt stencils of the El Castillo Cave paintings (c.39,000 BCE), the stencils and animal images in the Sulawesi Cave art (c.37,900 BCE), the figurative Fumane Cavern paintings (c.35,000 BCE) and the fabulous monochrome Chauvet Cavern paintings (c.30,000 BCE) of animals. A recent discovery is the Coliboaia Cavern Art (thirty,000 BCE) - now radiocarbon dated - in north-west Romania.

Examples of Gravettian art include the prehistoric hand stencils at the (now 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). But without doubt, the most evocative art of the period is the Gargas Cave hand stencils (25,000 BCE), featuring a chilling assortment of mutilated fingers.

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

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

In Australia, the oldest cave art is the Nawarla Gabarnmang charcoal drawing in Arnhem Country, 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 have been carbon-dated to 15,500 BCE. In Africa, the animal figure paintings in charcoal and red ochre on the Apollo 11 Cave Stones in Namibia date from 25,500 BCE, while in the Americas the hand stencil images at the Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) in Argentina, date from around 9,500 BCE.

For details of the colour pigments used past Stone Age cave painters, see: Prehistoric Color Palette.

Upper Paleolithic Stone Engraving

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

Further afield, Ancient rock art began in the northward of Australia, where the first 'modern' humans arrived from SE Asia. Ubirr rock art and Kimberley rock fine art are both believed to appointment from every bit early as 30,000 BCE, equally are the ancient Burrup Peninsula stone engravings in the Pilbara, Western Australia. All these Australian Paleolithic sites are famous for their open air engraved drawings, whereas almost all the European engravings were created within caves: the leading exception existence the Coa Valley Engravings, Portugal (22,000 BCE).

Upper Paleolithic Sculpture

Upper Paleolithic artists produced a vast number of small sculptures of female person figures, known equally 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.xxx,000 BCE). During the following Gravettian civilization, more appeared, such every bit: the Venus of Dolni Vestonice (ceramic clay figurine: c.26,000 BCE); the Venus of Monpazier (limonite carving: 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 etching: 22,000 BCE), the Venus of Gagarino (volcanic rock: 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: twenty,000 BCE), to proper name but a few. Other not-female examples include the ivory Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel (c.38,000 BCE). For later sculptures from the Magdalenian catamenia, please run across: Venus of Eliseevichi (14,000 BCE), the German Venus of Engen ("Petersfels Venus") (xiii,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 past the Dordogne limestone relief known as the Venus of Laussel (c.23,000-20,000 BCE); the beautiful Perigord carving of a salmon/trout in the Abri du Poisson Cave (c.23,000-20,000 BCE); the exceptional frieze at Roc-de-Sers Cave (17,200 BCE) in the Charente; the Cap Blanc Frieze (xv,000 BCE) in the Dordogne; the Tuc d'Audoubert Bison reliefs (c.13,500 BCE) constitute in the Ariege; and the limestone frieze at Roc-aux-Sorciers (c.12,000 BCE), uncovered at Angles-sur-fifty'Anglin in the Vienne.

Upper Paleolithic Tool Technology

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

Art and Tool Cultures During the Upper Paleolithic

Aurignacian Civilisation (almost forty,000 - 26,000 BCE)

One of several cultures which co-existed in Upper Paleolithic Europe, information technology was as well practised as far abroad as due south west Asia, its proper name derives from the blazon-site nearly the hamlet of Aurignac in the Haute Garonne, France. Its tools included sophisticated bone implements like points with grooves cutting in the bottom for zipper to handles/spears, scrapers (including nose-scrapers), burins, chisels, and armed forces-way batons.

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

In addition, Aurignacian humans produced the first personal ornaments fabricated from decorated bone 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 civilisation of the Stone Age.

Perigordian/Chatelperronian Culture: (nigh 33,000-27,000 BCE)

Châtelperronian was an important Upper Paleolithic culture of cardinal and southern France. Derived from the earlier Mousterian, practised past Homo neanderthalensis, it employed Levallois chip-tool technology, producing toothed and serrated stone tools as well as a signature flint blades (possibly used to make jewellery) with blunted backs known as "Châtelperron points". No item art is associated with this civilization.

Gravettian Civilisation (most 26,000 - xx,000 BCE)

The Gravettian was a European Upper Palaeolithic culture 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 small-scale pointed blade with a blunt but direct back - chosen a Gravette Point. Personal jewellery continued 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 sometime is exemplified by the wonderful stencil art at Cosquer cavern and the coloured charcoal and ochre pictures at Pech-Merle cavern. The almost famous Gravettian sculpture consists of venus figurines, such as the Venuses of Dolni Vestonice (Czech Democracy), Willendorf (Republic of austria), Savignano (Italian republic), Kostenky (Russian federation), Moravany (Slovakia), Laussel (French republic), Brassempouy (French republic), Lespugue (France), and Gagarino (Russian federation).

Solutrean Civilisation (most 20,000 – 15,000 BCE)

This civilization comes from the type-site of Solutré in the Mâcon district of eastern France. Curiously, Solutrean tool-makers appear to have adult a number of uniquely advanced techniques, some of which were not seen for several thousand years afterward their departure. In any event, Solutrean people produced the finest Paleolithic flint craftsmanship in western Europe.

Even so, 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 civilisation (every bit evidenced by artifacts found at Blackwater Draw in New Mexico, USA), indicating that Solutreans migrated across the frozen Atlantic to America. Other experts believe that Solutrean civilisation was overcome past a wave of new invaders.

Solutrean Art

Perchance because of its focus on tool technology, Solutrean art is noted above all for its achievements in engraving and relief sculpture - see, for instance the fabulous rock engravings and frieze at the Roc-de-Sers Cave (c.17,200 BCE) - fifty-fifty though the glorious Lascaux cave paintings engagement from the flow. Experts believe that the artists who created the cave murals at Lascaux and La Pasiega were influenced either past belatedly Gravettian or early on Magdalenian culture.

Ancient pottery also appeared at this time in East Asia. The oldest known sherds come from the Xianrendong Cavern Pottery (c.xviii,000 BCE), discovered in northeast Jiangxi Province, People's republic of china. After this comes Yuchanyan Cave Pottery (c.xvi,000 BCE) from China's Hunan province, and Amur River Basin Pottery (14,300 BCE). Meanwhile, in Nippon, ceramics began with Jomon Pottery (from 14,500 BCE). For more chronological details, run across: Pottery Timeline.

Magdalenian Culture (about xv,000 - 8,000 BCE)

Magdalenian is the final civilisation of the menstruum and the apogee of Paleolithic art, of the Old Rock Historic period. Its name comes from the type-site of La Madeleine nigh Les Eyzies in the French Dordogne. Magdalenian tool technology is defined by the production of smaller and more sophisticated tools (from barbed points to needles, well-crafted scrapers to parrot-pecker gravers) made from fine flint-flakes and animal sources (bone, ivory etc), whose specialized functions and effeminateness testify to the civilization's advanced nature.

Magdalenian Art

Magdalenian civilization attached a growing importance to artful objects, such as personal jewellery, ceremonial accessories, clothing and specially fine art. Ceramics also appeared in Europe - see Vela Spila pottery (15,500 BCE), for instance, from Croatia.

Indeed, the cultural horizons of Magdalenian people are hands appreciated by studying the upsurge of drawing, painting, relief sculpture of the period, exemplified by the Altimira Cave paintings - whose symbolism in particular represents the first attempt past humans to impose their ain sense of significant on a relatively uncertain world - as well as the Addaura Cave engravings (xi,000 BCE) whose style is remarkably modernistic. This unstoppable trend would - within simply a few millennia - lead to the advent of pictographs, hieroglyphics and written language. For details, see: Magdalenian Art.

[Notation: Dates for the next 4 periods of prehistory are strictly approximate. In the case of Mesolithic and Neolithic, this is considering their defining characteristics appeared at differing times according to the ice conditions of the region or country. In the case of the Bronze and Iron Ages, this is because certain civilizations developed metallurgical skills at unlike times. Thus, there are no universal dates for the first and end of these eras, so our focus is on Europe.]

Mesolithic Culture
c. 10,000 - 4,000 BCE - Northern and Western Europe
c. 10,000 - 7,000 BCE - Southeast Europe
c. ten,000 - 8,000 BCE - Middle East and Residual of Earth

The Mesolithic menses is a transitional era betwixt the water ice-affected hunter-gatherer culture of the Upper Paleolithic, and the farming culture of the Neolithic. The greater the issue of the retreating water ice on the environment of a region, the longer the Mesolithic era lasted. So, in areas with no water ice (eg. the Middle East), people transitioned quite rapidly from hunting/gathering to agriculture. Their Mesolithic menses was therefore brusk, and often referred to as the Epi-Paleolithic or Epipaleolithic. By comparison, in areas undergoing the change from water ice to no-water ice, the Mesolithic era and its civilisation lasted much longer.

NOTE: The term "Mesolithic" is no longer used to denote a worldwide period in the evolution of European cultural evolution. Instead, it describes simply the situation in northwestern Europe - Scandinavia, Britain, France, Netherlands, Kingdom of denmark, Germany - and cardinal Europe.

European Mesolithic Humans

Archeological discoveries of Mesolithic remains testify to a great diverseness 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

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

Mesolithic Rock Art

Mesolithic art reflects the arrival of new living atmospheric condition and hunting practices caused by the disappearance of the great herds of animals from Kingdom of spain and France, at the stop of the Ice Age. Forests now cloaked the landscape, necessitating more careful and cooperative hunting arrangements. European Mesolithic rock art gives more space to human figures, and is characterized by keener observation, and greater narrative in the paintings. Also, considering of the warmer weather, information technology moves from caves to outdoor sites in numerous locations.

Famous Works of Art From the Mesolithic Catamenia

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

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

Artwork: Bhimbetka Rock Art (c.nine,000-seven,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 Period: Mesolithic
Location: Satpura Range of Primal Republic of india

Artwork: Wonderwerk Cavern Engravings (c.8200 BCE)
Type: Geometric Designs and Representations of Animals
Local Menstruation: African Neolithic
Location: Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape Province, Due south Africa

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

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

Neolithic Culture
c. 4,000 - 2,000 BCE: Northern and Western Europe
c. 7,000 - 2,000 BCE: Southeast Europe
c. 8,000 - two,000 BCE: Centre Due east & Rest of World

The Neolithic era saw a key modify in lifestyle throughout the world. OUT went the archaic semi-nomadic style of hunting and gathering food, IN came a much more settled course of being, based on farming and rearing of domesticated animals. Neolithic culture was characterized past stone tools shaped past 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 well-nigh 9,000 BCE in the villages of south asia, from where it spread to the Chinese interior - run across Neolithic Art in China - and too to the fertile crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates in the Heart East (c.seven,000), before spreading to Republic of india (c.5,000), Europe (c.4,000), and the Americas (independently) (c.2,500 BCE).

The establishment of settled communities (villages, towns and in due grade cities) triggered a variety of new activities, notably: a rapid stimulation of trade, the structure of trading vehicles (mainly boats), new forms of social organizations, forth with the growth of religious beliefs and associated ceremonies. And due to improvements in nutrient supply and environmental command, the population rapidly increased. For tens of millennia before the advent of agriculture, the full human population had varied between 5 million and 8 1000000. By 4,000 BCE, after less than 5,000 years of farming, numbers had risen to 65 million.

Neolithic Art

In general, the more settled and ameliorate-resourced the region, the more art it produces. So it was with Neolithic art, which branched out in several dissimilar directions. And although most ancient fine art remained essentially functional in nature, at that place was a greater focus on ornamentation and decoration. For example, jade carving - one of the neat specialities of Chinese fine art - first appeared during the era of Neolithic culture, as does Chinese lacquerware and porcelain. See: Chinese Art Timeline (xviii,000 BCE - present.)

Portable Fine art

With greater settlement in villages and other pocket-sized communities, stone painting begins to be replaced by more than portable art. Discoveries in Catal Huyuk, an ancient village in Asia Minor (modernistic Turkey) include beautiful murals (including the world'south commencement landscape painting), dating from 6,100 BCE. Artworks get progressively ornamented with precious metals (eg. copper is first used in Mesopotamia, while more advanced metallurgy is discovered in South-E Europe). Free standing sculpture, in rock and forest begins to exist seen, equally well as bronze statuettes (notably by the Indus Valley Civilization, ane of the early engines of painting and sculpture in India), primitive jewellery and decorative designs on a diversity of artifacts.

Ceramics

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

Other Cultural Developments

Other of import art-related trends which surface during the Neolithic art include writing and religion. The appearance 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 Art

The emergence of the outset city land (Uruk, in Mesopotamia) predicts the establishment of more secure communities around the world, many of which volition compete to establish their ain independent cultural and creative identity, creating permanent architectural megaliths in the procedure. (Run into: History of Architecture). The Neolithic age also saw the emergence of awe-inspiring tomb buildings similar the Egyptian pyramids and individual monoliths like the Sphinx at Giza - meet Ancient Egyptian Architecture for details. For details of tomb compages and decorative engravings in Ireland during this catamenia, delight see Irish Stone Age fine art.

Other Famous Works of Art From the Neolithic Menstruation

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

Artwork: Jiahu Carvings (c.7000–5700 BCE)
Type: Turquoise Carvings, Bone Flutes
Local Period: Chinese Neolithic
Location: Yellowish River Basin of Henan Province, Central China

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

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

Artwork: Egyptian Naquada I Female Figurines (c.5500-3000 BCE)
Blazon: Small-scale Carved Figures: Bone, Ivory, Stone (Ornamented westward. Lapis Lazuli)
Local Period: Egyptian Predynastic Period (Naquada I Period, 4000-3500 BCE)
Location: Arab republic of egypt

Artwork: Farsi Chalcolithic Pottery (c.5000-3500 BCE)
Type: Ceramic Ware painted with Human, Bird, Institute or Creature Motifs
Local Menses: Chalcolithic Culture
Location: Islamic republic of iran (Persia)

Artwork: Thinker of Cernavoda (c.5,000 BCE)
Type: Terracotta
Local Period: Neolithic Hamangia Civilisation
Location: Romania

Artwork: Fish God of Lepenski Vir (c.5000 BCE)
Type: Sandstone Carving
Local Catamenia: 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 Rock Engravings
Local Catamenia: Taureg Culture
Location: Agadez, Niger, Africa

Artwork: Artwork: Valdivia Figurines (c.4000–3500 BCE)
Blazon: First representational images in the Americas, in limestone and marble
Local Menses: Neolithic
Location: Real Alto and Colina Alta sites, Republic of ecuador

Artwork: Sus scrofa Dragon Pendant (Hongshan Civilisation) (c.3800 BCE)
Type: Jade Carving
Local Period: Hongshan Culture
Location: Tomb 4, Niuheliang, Jianping, Liaoning Province, NE China

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

Characterized by the development of metallurgy, in item copper mining and smelting, along with can-mining and smelting, as reflected in the exquisite statuary, aureate and silver sculptures. Emergence of Egyptian architecture, metallurgy, encaustic painting and stone sculpture. See: Bronze Age Fine art.

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

This extraordinary 18-inch high sculpture (British Museum, London) features a ram continuing 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 fine art of the fourth dimension.
Type: Sculpture in golden-leaf, copper, lapis lazuli, blood-red limestone
Local Period: Early Dynastic
Location: Neat Death Pit, Ur, Mesopotamia (Iraq)

Artwork: Maikop Gold Bull (c.2500 BCE)
Type: Gold Sculpture (Lost-Wax Casting Method) (Institute with 3 more than; one silver, 2 gold)
Local Menses: Maikop Civilization
Location: Due north Caucasus, Russia

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 great schools of Greek art and Western farsi fine art also as the culture and architecture of the Minoan, Mycenean, and Etruscan civilizations. See: Iron Historic period Fine art.

In India, around 200 BCE, the get-go paintings appeared in the Ajanta Caves. For more, see: Classical Indian Painting (up to 1150 CE).

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

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