NOTES: Chapter #1 > Prehistory 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.

Stokstad's text reports Homo sapiens appeared about 200,000+ 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 a 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 into 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!

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 appears 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

Paleolithic Art: an introduction by Kahn Academy

38,000 BCE images appear in Australia, Africa, and Europe.

Early humans made tools by flaking and chipping away at the 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 a 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 in the Upper Paleolithic period. The period may be called Old Stone Age, beginning 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 area.

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? What do you think?

Or is it a symbol of women from the group, to express health and fertility?

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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 discovery of the artifact named it, The Venus of Willendorf.
Ask yourself, what is in a name?
It is a label that often 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 were 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 the purpose of the object?

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 its 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, underwater, etc.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Werner Herzog, 2011

Herzog discusses the discovery and artwork of the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, in France.

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 teamwork!

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

Handprints are found throughout 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 Neolithic Period or the new stone age. Three images above

Note: Where are the images are placed?
What does this infer?
Note the scale of the creative work.

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.

Periods of Prehistoric artifacts:

Upper Paleolithic period. The period may be called Old Stone Age, beginning about 40,0000 years ago. Characterized by using rudimentary stone tools that chipped and flaked (subtractive carving technique with sharp flint stones).

The Mesolithic site of (the Middle stone age) Mesolithic is the period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic dating from circa 20,000 - 5,000 BCE

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.