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NOTES: Chapter 1 Prehistoric Art in Europe

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


Link to this article: Yes, there were spotted ponies, for your interest

Learning Objectives:
i. The variety of works found in diverse continents
ii. Materials used and their application
iii. Understand how the visual 'record' infers social and cultural information about the makers who made them
iv. Connect the works to Formal Elements & Principles of Design

p. 19
Prehistory = Human existence before the emergence of writing. 
These individuals were not making "art" nor were they "artists."  
What we have found thus far, is only a very tiny portion of what was probably created on a very wide scale. 


Homo sapiens appeared about 400,000 years ago. 
Our sub-species to which we belong is Homo sapiens sapiens appear about 120,000 BCE.

Archaeological evidence has made it clear that modern humans spread from Africa across Asia, into Europe and finally to Australia and the Americas on glaciers and land masses.

This enormous 'trek' happened between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago.

What did our ancestors do?
Painting onto cave walls,  - put pigment onto a cave wall, additively with a binder (some substance to make it stick (to bind)

Substances such as milk, blood, other enzymes. 
Think of these works on cave walls as murals

Recall 20th c. Keith Haring's murals I had shown you earlier? The dancing figures on the sides of NYC buildings made in late 1980's. The two are quite alike. We still paint murals in public spaces to express our ideas. 





Painting on the walls, like a canvas or a piece of paper is an additive process. Whereas, the sculpture that was created was used by making subtractive carving processes with tools.  

How is this work dated?
Paintings in a Spanish cave known as El Castillo dates to 40,000 BCE by technology known as uranium-thrium method.

BCE = before the Common Era

BP = before present
CE = the Common Era

19th c. scholars began this study with various world findings.
The Stone Age is divided int 2 parts: 

The Lower Paleolithic Period 
Known as the Early Stone Age, is currently believed to have lasted from between about 2.7 million years ago to 200,000 years ago. Wowza!

2.5 milion years ago earlier simple objects made by our ancestors - tools with sharp edges - finding them, we understand that our early ancestors shaped the world around them.

We have material evidence from 
The Upper Paleolithic Period c. 42,000 - 8,000 BCE 
Hunter and gatherer ancestors lived in small nomadic groups. Glaciers of the last Ice Age still covered stretches of Europe, North America and Asia.

Representational imagery appear in the archaeological record beginning around 38,000 BCE (some have dated it to 42,000 BCE) in Australia, Africa and Europe.

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

Kahn: History & Prehistory  10 minutes -> view, please

38,000 BCE images appear in Australia, Africa and Europe.
Early humans made tools by flaking and chipping away at stone, also known as knapping.

Archaeological proof has discovered that Neanderthals lived amongst modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens for some time.

Homo sapiens sapiens (us) outlasted Neanderthals because we had cognitive abilities to solve problems.

One of the most important abilities was for our early ancestors to think symbolically and to create representational analogies of our world.  Even way back then!

This is the beginning of visual communication between individuals and our ability to create symbolic form. 

WORDS ARE SYMBOLS FOR IDEAS

Words reveal a certain idea about the world
Recall, when I said context is everything?  Here's a perfect example...





CONTEXT helps EXPRESSES MEANING 
When considering context it provides a certain view of the world 
and shape our thinking


Female figures are predominantly found from the Upper Paleolithic period.  Period may be called Old Stone Age, begining about 40,0000 years ago. Characterized by using rudimentary stone tools that chipped and flaked (carving technique).



p.21
The woman from Willendorf, found in Austria,, 24,000 BCE

is a 4 1/2" carving from limestone with traces of red ochre around the pubic region. 
The sculpture is highly exaggerated, small feet, thus cannot the sculpture cannot stand in the round, enlarged breasts and stomach area.  
Is this an expression of a particular woman? 
Symbol of women from the group, to express health and fertility?

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

We can also look at the way we name objects.  Obviously, the Upper Paleolithic individual did not name, nor title this artifact.  The discovers of the artifact named it, The Venus of Willendorf
Ask yourself, what is in a name?  
It is a label that brings meaning to an object. 

The word Venus is from Ancient Rome, meaning love and beauty. Thus this figure and so many like it sent the messages of female figure artifacts was associated with religious belief, a representation of fertility and Mother Goddesses.  
Perhaps so, perhaps not. This tiny sculpture is now known as 
"The Woman of Willendorf" 



The Woman of Dolní Věstonice 
(Czech: Věstonická Venuše) 
is a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE 
The artifact is very important - it is fired clay, thus supporting the element of fire and mixing soil with water to make clay. 

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




The woman from Brassempouy, (image above) discovered in a grotto in Brassempouy, FRANCE 30,000 BCE carved in ivory.  

It is an abstraction of a head, noting only a few features that reduce representation to simple shapes and forms. 
What was it's cultural context? 
What was it's purpose? 
Was there a body attached to it?

Image above, Bird-Headed Man with bison, Lascaux Caves, France, c. 15,000 BCE
Paint on limestone.  Approximate length 9' wide!

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


Why paint the cave?
Well, why not.

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

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

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

1903, Salomon Reinach (FR archaeologist) suggested were expressions of sympathetic magic to capture prey.
Abbe Henri Breuil suggested that caves were places of worship and the setting for initiation rites. 

Rigorous scientific methods indicate that the animals that were used usually for food, were not the ones portrayed.
Archeologists are constantly reinterpreting evidence, with the addition of new evidence and suggesting additional motivations. 

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


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


The charcoal used to draw the mammals date to 32,410 BCE.




Even a footprint left in once soft clay. Notice the print closest to us is that of a right foot, the furthest in the background is a left foot.  
Interesting, I believe this indicates something.  
A community that uses team work!





Above, recall the spots you've seen on many cave walls, this is how many archaeologists believe the "spots" were applied. 



Handprints are found througout caves in Australia, France, Spain and Africa


LASCAUX - perhaps one of the most famous discoveries found in 1940, in southern FRANCE dates to 15,000 BCE - known as the The Neolitich Period or the new stone age. Three images above
Note: where the images are placed?
What does this infer?
Note their scale.

Once opened to the public after WWII, closed in 1963. 
Why?
Contains 600 paintings and 1,500 engravings

They produced:
PAINTINGS
RELIEF CARVING - one sided sculpture




SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND (in all directions) similar to the Woman of Willendorf.


THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD > The 'NEW' STONE ART
c. 6500 - 2300 BCE
- Development of ingenious technologies
- People in context with their environment 
- Hunting and gathering societies
- People began to exert increasing control over their immediate environment
- New technologies developed, skills, plant and animal allowed for the produce of food
- Domestication of animals and plants were cultivated
- Beginnings of architecture (made of stone, timber, clay, straw, had trenches, supporting walls)
- Developed at the similar time period in Europe and Near East


Mesolithic site of (the Middle stone age)
Lepenski Vir is an important Mesolithic archaeological site located in Serbia on the central Balkan peninsula. The latest radiocarbon and AMS data suggests that the chronology of Lepenski Vir is compressed between the periods of 
9500 and 7200-6000 BCE  years old in the Mesolithic period. 

Carvings in stone, carve away negative material to reveal the positive forms of eye, mouths, other. 

Archaeologists believe, the Lepenski Vir  area housed some 3,000 people it is believed and flourished as a cultural group.

Architectural Types:


1. Post and lintel (upper left)
2. Cross section of post and lintel underground burial chamber (upper center)



3. Cross section of the corbeled underground burial chamber (upper right)




4. wood-post framing 

Study: The Bronze Age





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