Paleolithic Art Research Paper

dy of plant fossils and the understanding the evolution of plant life and ecology of earlier eras is known as paleobotany. Paleobotanists concern with fossil records of plants and their geologic history greatly describes the main concept of paleobotany. Only a small percentage of the plants that ever lived left evidence of existence. The major plant fossils that have been discovered are mineralized wood, flowers in amber, leaf imprints in coal, or other plant life many years ago. Paleobotanists document fossil records and use this evidence to find the past evolution of plants.

As the climate in ancient times began to change, Paleolithic peoples adapted. As a result, the mostly nomadic peoples began to adopt permanent settlements.

In order to understand the difficulty many contemporary artists face when trying to accurately portray their culture, it is important to know where these stereotypes originated from. The word “Indian” is a European-derived concept. Prior to the invasion of the Europeans, Native American people were not considered Indians. They were members and leaders of their own socio-political and cultural groups. Dichotomy arose soon after the arrival of the Europeans, and Native people quickly lost their identity when they were merged together under a single defining word. There are currently 10 to 20 million people in the United States today with Indian blood, but only a small percentage identify as predominantly Indian.

The Paleolithic Era consists of hunter-gather societies. Living a nomadic lifestyle, the Paleolithic people followed their PREY and used resources provided by the land. AS A RESULT, THEY WERE ALWAYS MOVING SINCE they hunted mammoths, bison, deer, and rodents and gathered roots and berries. The earliest humans used very rudimentary and basic tools for tasks like cracking open bones and preparing animal hide. These tools were later improved on to help provide protection, food, and clothing. By the end of the Paleolithic Era, the hominids made weapons for hunting and food preparation, such as spears and the bow and arrow, out of bone and were creating more advanced stone and wood structures. There is also evidence of fishing. The development of tools helped hominids adapt to different

Prehistory is the existence of humans long before the beginning of writing, painting images, creating homes, and much more. Thousands of years ago these people were not known to make art work, they were either flaking or polishing flints into their knives, and spear points. Prehistoric art deliver a significant clue to help historians understand early human life, and culture, they assume that cave art were meant to be seen as different things to different people who saw it, depending on life stages, their experience, or their needs. During the time of 24,000 BCE, one of the most famous sculptures created was Woman From Willendorf, the sculpture demonstrates that the female structure was viewed culturally, the characteristic of the woman showed

The strongest evidence known to support early art in France came from the Cro-Magnon man, who lived approximately 35,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon man decorated everyday objects, made statuettes, and crafted jewelry (Neal 12). Though these works of art seem simple, prehistoric man was also capable of creating stone structures called menhirs and dolmens. Menhirs “were upright stones of great size that were placed in circles, semicircles, or alignments” (Neal 13) while dolmens were connected to burials and death. While these artifacts reveal pieces of French history, the cave paintings at Lascaux

The Ambum Stone, said to be one of the oldest works of art in the pacific, is made of a rock called greywacke- a very tough medium that would require weeks of strenuous labor to achieve fine detail. Researchers believe that the sculpture was formed to represent the “embryo of a long-beaked echidna” (National Gallery of Australia), an animal similar to an anteater. It is also suggested that the nose resembles one comparable to a fruit bat, although no one knows the exact animal that was trying to be portrayed. Similar to the Ambum stone, the Apollo 11 Stones are said to be the “oldest known artwork of any kind from the African continent” (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History). These slabs of rock made out of quartzite feature charcoal drawings of animals that resemble cat-like figures, but like the Ambum Stone, exact species cannot be

Today, we live in homes and write history on paper with a pen, but that wasn’t always the case. Fifteen-hundred years ago, people lived in caves in France. Later, when these caves were discovered, there was proof found that people were living in these caves. This proof has become a prehistory artifact. People have found these caves in France with paintings on the walls. These paintings could have been drawn for multiple reasons, for example what they have seen, what has taken place, and a message to someone who might be after them. The caves at Lascaux had drawings of people and animals. “Archeologist speculate artists created the animal images to guarantee a successful hunt”, wrote Carol Strickland (4). This is an interesting observation and theory, because the textbook claimed there were multiple animal paintings found. During this time, there weren’t factories making ink pens or pencils and sharpeners. Without having these types of supplies, they were forced to make man-made

Thesis Statement: Although the Paleolithic era is very different and remote in time from us, their culture and history still continues to the present day, reminding us of our relatedness to these people.

Looking through the many alluring artifacts in the Egyptian exhibit of the National Museum Of Natural History, one will tend to not notice every single amazing piece of history. One artwork stands out from the usual Egyptian artwork society as a whole has become used to. The Fayum Portrait from 50-200 AD. It comes from the Fayum agricultural region where a mixed Egyptian and Greek population lived for about four centuries.

view of the Paleolithic period. Also, the people and animals are presented in groups rather than just individuals. Artworks of this time period often told narratives, rather than just being pictures. Another important fact to note about artworks of this era is that plenty of them show facial features and are additional detail than the previous Paleolithic art.

The Paleolithic Period, or Old Stone Age, mainly consisted of a nomadic lifestyle made up of hunters and gatherers. By the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, humans adopted ways of agriculture and animal farming, allowing them to permanently settle down in one area. Caves, huts, skin tents were dwelled upon during the Paleolithic Era which lead to the creation of cave art. Using chipped stone, light stone tools and wooden weapons, nomadic artists illustrated the walls of caves with pictures of animals such as deer, bison and mammoths. Neolithic wall paintings were made with sharp, polished stone tools on smooth limestone walls in rock shelters and under cliff overhangs. Paintings were mainly of people hunting animals, fighting, and dancing.

Greek sculptures are mainly divided into 7 time periods-Mycenaean Art, Sub -Mycenaean or Dark Age, Proto-Geometric, Geometric Art, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. Mycenaean art is the first era in which we find surviving examples of Greek art. This era dates from around 1550 BC to 1200 BC on the Greek mainland. During this period there were two separate civilisations living on the mainland, the Greeks and the Mycenaeans. The Greeks at the time learnt a lot from the Mycenaeans, who where more technologically advanced. The Greeks learnt how to build gates and tombs and how to use different metals in art , using Mycenaean techniques. The famous Cyclopean Wall of Mycenae before the lion gate is a good example of their masonry skills.

The Middle Paleolithic period occurred between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. It is most commonly associated with Mousterian culture, Neanderthals and early humans. Middle Paleolithic stone technologies saw a shift from core tools like the Acheulean Handaxe to flake tools, for example the Levallois point. These flake tools could be modified into simple or more complex tools. The most important difference between the Lower Paleolithic stone tools and the Middle Paleolithic stone tools is the fact that the cores were being carefully shaped to produce flakes of a predetermined shape and size for a specific purpose. The main types of tools found include:

And the continent of Africa. Sculpture of Africa, which forms the largest part of primitive art, can be seen as early as 500 BC in the Nok culture which was named from the village in Nigeria where pottery figures of this kind were first found. The way the tradition started for Africa was from the Nok statuettes. Nok statuettes are mainly of human subjects. Made of terracotta, they combine strong formal elements with a complete disregard for precise anatomy. Their expressive quality places them at the start of the African sculptural tradition. African artist have started making sculptures in 500 bc but for most of their sculptures most of them do not last a huge period of time. Most African objects bear neither labels nor signatures, and unfortunately it is impossible to date them precisely or to identify makers. The longest surviving tradition of African sculpture is figures in terracotta. They are made by an element, Cast metal, and is the only other material to withstand the continent's termites. Africa isn’t very big on using a lot of art