I.

Global Prehistory

Global prehistory: 30,000-500

B.C.E. Paleolithic, Mesolithic
and Neolithic
• Prehistory (or the prehistoric period) refers to the time before written
records, however, human expression existed across the globe long before
writing.
• Writing emerged at different times in different parts of the world. The earliest
writing is found in ancient Mesopotamia, c. 3200 B.C.E.
• Often, art history texts begin with the prehistoric art of Europe. However,
very early art is found worldwide.
• Homo sapiens (modern humans are a subspecies) - homo
sapiens migrated out of Africa between 120,000 and 50,000 years ago.
• The stone age is a prehistoric period when stone implements were widely
used. The stone age is divided into the Paleolithic (old stone age) and
Neolithic (new stone age). After the Stone age, the next periods are known
as the bronze age and the iron age.
• Historians distinguish the Neolithic period by the transition from people
living as hunter-gatherers to the development of farming and the
domestication of animals. The "Neolithic revolution" allowed people to
create a more settled way of life. This happened at different times in
different parts of the world. The first agriculture occurred in southwest
Asia—in an area historians call the "fertile crescent."
Art making
The earliest peoples were hunter-gatherers (until about 12,000 years ago)
who created imagery in many different media—fired ceramics, painting,
sculpture and who built architecture.
The oldest “art” found to date are rock paintings and sculpture from c.
77,000 years ago.

In Asia, we have found Paleolithic and Neolithic cave paintings that feature animal
imagery (in the mountains of Central Asia and Iran). Animal imagery has also been
found in rock shelters throughout central India. In prehistoric China, we find ritual
objects created in jade, (beginning a 5,000-year tradition of working with the precious
medium).

In Europe, we have found small human figural sculptures (central Europe), cave
paintings (France and Spain), and outdoor, monumental stone assemblages (British
Isles) that date from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.

In the Pacific region, people migrated from Asia approximately 45,000 years over
land bridges. The earliest created objects have been dated to c. 8,000 years ago.

On the American continent, peoples who migrated from Asia (before 10,000 B.C.E.)
first made sculptures from animal bone and later from clay.
 CHRONOLOGY
• Prehistoric = before writing

• Paleolithic Period (Paleo =old, lithos = stone) c.

40,000 – 8,000 BCE
Nomadic
Hunters and Gatherers

• Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age) c. 10,000

– 4,500 BCE (transitional)

• Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) c. 8,000 –

1,500 BCE
Transition to farming
• The oldest art: ornamentation
• Humans make art. We do this for many reasons and with whatever technologies are
available to us. Extremely old, non-representational ornamentation has been found
across Africa. The oldest firmly-dated example is a collection of 82,000 year old
Nassarius snail shells found in Morocco that are pierced and covered with red ochre.
Wear patterns suggest that they may have been strung beads. Nassarius shell beads
found in Israel may be more than 100,000 years old and in the Blombos cave in South
Africa, pierced shells and small pieces of ochre (red Haematite) etched with simple
geometric patterns have been found in a 75,000-year-old layer of sediment.

• The oldest representational art

• The oldest known representational imagery comes from the Aurignacian culture of the
Upper Paleolithic period (Paleolithic means old stone age). Archeological discoveries
across a broad swath of Europe (especially Southern France, Northern Spain, and
Swabia, in Germany) include over two hundred caves with spectacular Aurignacian
paintings, drawings and sculpture that are among the earliest undisputed examples of
representational image-making. The oldest of these is a 2.4-inch tall female figure
carved out of mammoth ivory that was found in six fragments in the Hohle Fels cave
near Schelklingen in southern Germany. It dates to 35,000 B.C.E.
PALEOLITHIC ART

40,000 – 8,000 BCE

SCULPTURES
The oldest of these is a 2.4-inch tall Title: Woman from Willendorf
female figure carved out of Date: c. 28,000 – 24,000 BCE
mammoth ivory that was found in six Medium: Limestone
fragments in the Hohle Fels cave Size: height 4⅜" (11 cm)
near Schelklingen in southern Source/Museum: Austria.
Germany. It dates to 35,000 B.C.E. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna

Also, found in this cave was a

zoomorphic figure of a Lion Man
(31,000-40,000).
Title: Two Bison
Date: c. 15,000 – 10,000 BCE
Medium: Unbaked clay
Size: length 25" ( 63.5 cm) and 24" (60.9 cm)
Source/Museum: Le Tuc d’Audoubert, France
 Paleolithic Art
• Must interpret the artifacts left behind
• Aesthetic value was inseparable from function
• Mainly sculptures
• Some portable objects such as spears, jewelry, and instruments
• Use of pigments predates both paintings and sculptures
• Instruments, tools and weapons (technology) led to innovations

• Assumptions are made for why they made this art:

– Documenting herd
– Observation over time (foul to horse)
– Trophy kills
– Use of valuable resources such as fat to create the work
– Ladders and scaffolds
– Hidden but well travelled
– Visited through the ages
– Petroglyphs (incising, picking, carving, or abrading) and symbols
– So many all over the world

Speleology- the study or exploration of caves

 A significant discovery
Approximately 25,000 years ago, in a rock
shelter in the Huns Mountains of Namibia on
the southwest coast of Africa (today part of the
Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park), an
animal was drawn in charcoal on a hand-sized
slab of stone. The stone was left behind, over
time becoming buried on the floor of the cave
by layers of sediment and debris until 1969
when a team led by German archaeologist
W.E. Wendt
• Apollo 11 STONES
In total seven stone fragments of brown-grey
The Apollo 11 Cave Stones quartzite, some of them depicting traces of animal
But the most well-known of the rock shelter’s figures drawn in charcoal, ocher, and white, were
finds, and the most enigmatic, remain the Apollo
11 cave stones (image above). On the cleavage found buried in a concentrated area of the cave floor
face of what was once a complete slab, an less than two meters square.
unidentified animal form was drawn resembling a
feline in appearance but with human hind legs that
were probably added later. Barely visible on the The stones remain the oldest examples of figurative
head of the animal are two slightly-curved horns art from the African continent. Their discovery
likely belonging to an Oryx, a large grazing
antelope; on the animal’s underbelly, possibly the contributes to our conception of early humanity’s
sexual organ of a bovid creative attempts, before the invention of formal
writing, to express their thoughts about the world
around them.
CAVE PAINTINGS
 Early Discoveries
• Cosquer • Chauvet
– Over 300 paintings
– Unusual lots of sea animals
– Also had bear skeletons, fire pits,
depicted
footprints
– Hands and symbols – Lots of rhinoceri, large felines and
– Underwater now due to the rise wooly mammoths featured
of the sea level – The Caves of Lascaux are the most
famous of all of the known caves in
the region. In fact, their popularity
has permanently endangered them.
Title: Spotted Horses and Human Hands
Date: Horses 25,000–24,000 BCE; hands c 15,000 BCE
Medium: Paint on limestone
Size: individual horses are over 5' (1.5 m) in length.
Source/Museum: Pech-Merle Cave, Dordogne, France
Title: Hall of Bulls
Date: c. 15,000 BCE
Medium: Paint on limestone
Size: length of the largest auroch (bull) 18' (5.50 m)
Source/Museum: Lascaux Cave, Dordogne, France
Title: Bird-Headed Man with Bison
Date: c. 15,000 BCE
Medium: Paint on limestone
Size: length approx. 9' (2.75 m)
Source/Museum: Shaft scene in Lascaux Cave
A form drawn under
the bison’s abdomen
is interpreted as
internal organs,
spilling out from a
wound. A more
crudely drawn form
positioned below and
to the left of the bison
may represent a Interpreters of this image tend to agree that some sort of
humanoid figure with interaction has taken place among these animals and the bird-
the head of a bird. headed human figure—in which the bison has sustained injury
Nearby, a thin line is either from a weapon or from the horn of the rhinoceros. Why
topped with another the person in the image has the rudimentary head of a bird, and
bird and there is also why a bird form sits atop a stick very close to him is a mystery.
an arrow with barbs. Some suggest that the person is a shaman—a kind of priest or
Further below and to healer with powers involving the ability to communicate with
the far left the partial spirits of other worlds. Regardless, this riveting image appears
outline of a rhinoceros to depict action and reaction, although many aspects of it are
can be identified. difficult to piece together.
Title: Bison
Medium: Paint on limestone
Size: length approx. 8'3" (2.5 m)
Date: c. 12,500 BCE
Source/Museum: Ceiling of a cave at
Altamira, Spain
 ABORIGINAL PREHISTORIC ART
Title: Mimis and Kangaroo
Medium: Red and yellow ocher and white pipe clay
Date: Older painting 16,000–7000 BCE
Source/Museum: Prehistoric rock art, Oenpelli, Arnhem Land, Australia
The Wandjina are cloud and rain
spirits from Australian Aboriginal
mythology that are depicted
prominently in rock art in Australia.
Some of the artwork in the
Kimberley region of Western
Australia dates back approximately
4,000 years ago.
The cave of Lascaux, France is one of almost 350 similar sites that are known to exist—
most are isolated to a region of southern France and northern Spain. Both Neanderthals
(named after the site in which their bones were first discovered—the Neander Valley in
Germany) and Modern Humans (early Homo Sapiens Sapiens) coexisted in this region
30,000 years ago. Life was short and very difficult; resources were scarce and the
climate was very cold
• Approximately 15,000 years later in the valley of Vèzére, in southwestern France,
modern humans lived and witnessed the migratory patterns of a vast range of wildlife.
They discovered a cave in a tall hill overlooking the valley. Inside, an unknown
number of these people drew and painted images that, once discovered in 1940,
have excited the imaginations of both researchers and the general public.
• Through small openings and narrow passages, access to larger rooms beyond,
prehistoric people discovered that the cave wall surfaces functioned as the perfect,
blank "canvas" upon which to draw and paint. White calcite, roofed by nonporous
rock, provides a uniquely dry place to feature art. To paint, these early artists used
charcoal and ochre (a kind of pigmented, earthen material, that is soft and can be
mixed with liquids, and comes in a range of colors like brown, red, yellow and white).
We find images of horses, deer, bison, elk, a few lions, a rhinoceros and a bear—
almost as an encyclopedia of the area’s large prehistoric wildlife. Among these
images are abstract marks—dots and lines in a variety of configurations. In one
image, a humanoid figure plays a mysterious role
• The Caves of Lascaux are the most famous of all of the known caves in the region. In
fact, their popularity has permanently endangered them.
• The discovery of the caves has been credited to 4 boys and a dog.
• The animals are rendered in what has come to be called twisted perspective or
composite view in which their bodies are depicted in profile while we see the horns from
a more frontal viewpoint. The images are sometimes entirely linear—line drawn to
define the animal's contour. In many other cases, the animals are described in solid and
blended colors blown by mouth onto the wall. In other portions of the Lascaux cave,
artists carved lines into the soft calcite surface. Some of these are infilled with color—
others are not.
• The Hall of Bulls can fit 50 people.
• It appears that the work had a process: sketching out and adding through the ages.
Apprentices to master artists was evident. Layers over time shows that the site was
used almost as a ritual site. This may be why using precious resources like animal fat
and dye were used. Shamanistic and otherworldly animals are shown. Zoomorphic and
anamorphic.
• Perhaps the most famous theory was put forth by a priest named Henri Breuil. Breuil
spent considerable time in many of the caves, meticulously recording the images in
drawings when the paintings were too challenging to photograph. Relying primarily on a
field of study known as ethnography, Breuil believed that the images played a role in
"hunting magic." The theory suggests that the prehistoric people who used the cave
may have believed that a way to overpower their prey involved creating images of it
during rituals designed to ensure a successful hunt. This seems plausible when we
remember that survival was entirely dependent on successful foraging and hunting
though it is also important to remember how little we actually know about these people.
Running horned woman

Northern Africa Cave Art

Although the styles and

subjects of north African rock
art vary, there are
commonalities: images are
most often figurative and
frequently depict animals, both
wild and domestic. There are
also many images of human
figures, sometimes with
accessories such as
recognisable weaponry or
clothing. These may be
painted or engraved, with
frequent occurrences of both,
at times in the same context.
Engravings are generally
more common, although this
may simply be a preservation
bias due to their greater
durability.
Interpretation of the Running Horned Woman

Who was the Running Horned Woman? Was she indeed a goddess, and her rock shelter
some sort of sanctuary? What does the image mean? And why did the artist make it?

Running Horned Woman was found on an isolated rock whose base was hollowed out into a
number of small shelters that could not have been used as dwellings. This remote location,
coupled with an image of marked pictorial quality—depicting a female with two horns on her
head, dots on her body probably representing scarification, and wearing such attributes of the
dance as armlets and garters—suggested to him that the site, and the subject of the painting,
fell outside of the everyday. More recent scholarship has supported Lhote’s belief in the
painting’s symbolic, rather than literal, representation. As Jitka Soukopova has noted,
"Hunter- gatherers were unlikely to wear horns (or other accessories on the head) and to
make paintings on their whole bodies in their ordinary life."[1] Rather, this female horned
figure, her body adorned and decorated, found in one of the highest massifs in the Tassili—a
region is believed to hold special status due to its elevation and unique topology—suggests
ritual, rite, or ceremony.
Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine
Prehistoric art around the globe
When we think about prehistoric art (art before the invention of writing), likely the
first thing that comes to mind are the beautiful cave paintings in France and Spain
with their naturalistic images of bulls, bison, deer and other animals. But it’s
important to note that prehistoric art has been found around the globe—in North
and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia—and that new sites and objects
come to light regularly, and many sites are just starting to be explored. Most
prehistoric works we have discovered so far date to around 40,000 B.C.E. and
after.
This fascinating and unique prehistoric sculpture of a dog-like animal (below) was
discovered accidentally in 1870 in Tequixquiac, Mexico—in the Valley of Mexico
(where Mexico City is located). The carving likely dates to sometime between
14,000–7000 B.C.E. An engineer found it at a depth of 12 meters (about 40 feet)
when he was working on a drainage project—the Valley of Mexico once held
several lakes. The geography and climate of this area was considerably different
in the prehistoric era than it is today.
Today, scholars agree that the carving and markings were made by human hands
(incised) —the two circular spaces that represent the nasal cavities were carefully
carved and are perfectly symmetrical and were likely shaped by a sharp
instrument. However, the lack of information from the find spot makes precise
dating very difficult. It is quite common, in prehistoric art, for the shape of a natural
form (like a sacrum) to suggest a subject (dog or pig head) to the carver, and so
we should not be surprised that the sculpture still strongly resembles a sacrum.
Anthropomorphic Stele- 4000-3000 B.C.E.
While today Saudi Arabia is known for its desert sands and oil reserves, in prehistoric
times the environment and landscape were dramatically different—more fertile and lush,
and readily accessible to humans: early stone petroglyphs depict people hunting
ostriches (see below), a flightless bird that hasn’t been able to survive in the region for
thousands of years.
What is just as interesting as this common visual repertoire is the shared
anthropomorphism: each stele represents an upright male figure carved in stone—
remarkable, for it is figural representation in a land thought for so long to have none.
Indeed, for many, the history of the Arabian Peninsula began with the rise of Islam in the
seventh century C.E. when artistic expression was focused on the written word and
human form was largely absent. But what the Ha’il stele reveals—what the full corpus of
anthropomorphic stelae show us—is the existence of a pre-Islamic Arabia in which the
human figure dominates.

GRAVE MARKER?

What else could it be?

NEOLITHIC ART

8,000 – 1,500 BCE

www.pbs.org/.../case_stonehenge/index.html
Title: Stonehenge
Date: c. 2750–1500 BCE
Source/Museum: Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire England
 Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain in England, is

Tenon one of the most recognizable monuments of the

Neolithic. The people living in the fourth
millennium BC who began work on Stonehenge
were contemporary with the first dynasties of
Ancient Egypt, and their efforts predate the
building of the Pyramids.

Three Phases

Of course the most famous aspect of

Stonehenge is its relationship with the solar and
lunar calendar. This idea was first proposed by
scholars in the 18th century, who noted that the
sunrise of the midsummer solstice is exactly
framed by the end of the horseshoe of trilithons
at the interior of the monument, and exactly
opposite that point, at the center of the bend of
the horseshoe, at the midwinter sunset, the
sun is also aligned. These dates, the longest
and shortest days of the year, are the turning
point of the two great seasonal episodes of the
annual calendar. Since this discovery, several
other theories about astrological observation
have been offered but few stand up to scrutiny
together with the physical details of the
monument.

Post and Lintel

Bushel (Beaker) with ibex motifs 4000 B.C.E.
Susa Iran Painted terra cotta (unglazed thin
beaker from red clay) Ancient Near East

Goat (ibex)
twisted perspective
Geometric symbols

birds with long necks

reclined/running dog like animals repetition &
rhythm & movement

Function & Context ● Susa has fertile soil in

river valley= shows animals + agriculture (as
geometric lines) displayed on beaker ●
religious= found on necropolis(place for dead)
acropolis (hill/elevated city) mound

abstract > representational ● found among

funerary objects in cemetery and was the only
thing buried with bodies= importance ● no
living areas found near site + no written word=
not sure if it was used for everyday purposes
too
Content:
- square hollow tube
- lines and circles form human / animal / monster face on each corner
- represent dead ancestors / deities (?)
- engravings are very precise / uniform / intentional

Form:
- Made from jade
- engravings are very precise
- engravings are sanded
- jade is hard to create things out of so people needed lots of time to create
this
- shows how important culture believed congs were
- some bas relief some high relief
- some short and some tall

Context:
- The culture this cong is from developed at the Yangzi delta
- had sophisticated neolithic culture
- delta is a place with crops
- people settle down and farm
- no hunt and gather
- people grew lots of rice - no worries about food
- have more free time for leisure etc.

Function:
- show power / wealth
- protect in after life / telling one what happens after death
- found in graves but no writing so unknown
- carvings convey language (?) precise lines

- connection to nature
- animals / monsters / humans carved into it

- significance of the form

- rectangle / external part = earth
- circle / internal part = heavens of the sky / sun
The Ambum Stone, Ambum Valley, Enga
Province, Papua New Guinea. c 1500
B.C.E
Artist - Unknown
Medium - Greywacke Stone
Current Location - National Gallery of
Australia

Form: greywacke, 8 inches tall,

Function: unknown. But small and easy

to pass around. Perhaps some religious
purpose. perhaps a pestle. But small
and easy to carry around.

Content: possibly a sculpture of an

echidna. very prominent eyes and nose.

Context: Neolithic. Settled communities.

more time for sculpture.

Greywacke: REALLY hard to carve,

REALLY long lasting and durable - so
very valuable and important to whoever
made it
The figurine is a two-headed female figure.
The figurines can range in size, but normally
they are small scale and have tiny breasts and
waists.
The artists treated the hairstyles with extreme
care and delicacy, which suggested that hair
was very important to the people.

In Mesoamerica, settled village life came to

existence around 2000 BCE.
The word Tlatilco means “place of hidden
things.”
Artists during the time continued to expand on
sculptural methods and started to create
ceramic objects. Tlatilco was known for their
unique figurines. These figurines were
discovered buried with dead bodies. These
were the items found in the largest quantities
compared to other things that were buried with
corpses.
Very little is known about the functions of these
figurines, but it is suggested that they relate to
women’s roles in nature/the universe.
The double head feature may suggest that the
people of Tlatilco were interested in the idea of
duality.
Like a lot of earlier sculptures and cave
drawings, the artists rarely sculpted men and
focused on women and their significance.
-made from molded terra cotta, a reddish-brown,
unglazed type of clay
-many tools were used to create it, like stones, clam
shells, their fingernails, bird bones and coral to create
the designs on the pottery
-made on volcanic islands, interesting materials
available
-they used a method called dentate stamping, involving
carving designs into existing natural materials (turtle
shells, bamboo, or wood) and using this as a stamp on
the terra cotta clay before it was dried
-terra cotta uses fire to harden, showing their
developed civilization

-fragments are from a pot that would have been used

by the Lapita people for culinary purposes
-possibly food storage (used like a jar) or even actual
cooking (used like a pot)
-a "wagelie" was the name for a food storing vessel
-pottery was a large part of Lapita culture, it was very
widespread and even had cultural significance
-could have been a form of reverence for ancestors,
ritualistic/religious use
-different groups had specific characteristics in their
pottery, different family groups,social classes, and
economic classes
-exchanged within these groups
-clear anthropomorphic figures depicted in a central location
-faces, highly geometric, large, clear features, designs around the face are not the
focus
-nose serves as a line of symmetry in the piece, common characteristic of other
Lapita pottery
- the human face has linear designs, opposed to the designs rippling from it which
are circular and radial
-consistency in Lapita design reflects the stability and development of their culture
-the deign code ultimately influenced Polynesian art, and oceanic art in general

-created by artisans in the Lapita culture (a Pacific culture, which is an ancestor of

Polynesia, Micronesia, and parts of Melanesia)
-the pottery was discovered in New Caledonia, islands about 1,500 kilometers
northeast of Australia
-about 85,000 indigenous people lived on these islands, (known collectively as the
Kanak)
-culture had a series of villages each ruled by a chief who was politically in control
but also had perceived spiritual importance due to their spiritual ability to connect
with the ancestors
-seafaring culture, explored the ocean, and lived on the coast