Nella Shope
Professor Mathew Jacob
Humanistic Traditions 2210
5 September 2015
Tracing Out the Legacy of Prehistoric Human Existence
Looking at cave art today, we see some of our earliest ancestors. Viewing and studying cave art allows us, today, to look back in time and see how our primitive ancestors perceived the world (“Prehistoric Cave Art”).
No one truly knows when cave painting first began, but “one theory links the evolution of Stone Age art to the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe during the period of the Upper Paleolithic (“Stone Age Cave Painting”).” With that theory in mind, cave art pretty much started around the same time with the movement and relocation of the Neanderthal man (“Stone Age Cave Painting”), which
The animals ranged from horses to rhinos, and even cave lions. The drawings were detailed enough to allow scientists to decipher the paintings and learn what they were witnessing at that period of time. Along with the paintings of the animals, bones were found in the cave and that also revealed more about the life in the cave other than just the cavemen and women. Using all of this information given to them, the scientists were able to learn not only how the cavemen and women lived but how animals lived during this time. The drawings in the cave in Southern France seemed to be quite anatomically correct to the animals roaming Earth today. The drawings are so detailed that there is not much hesitation on what type of animal they could have been drawing, it is obvious what their intent was. A surprise regarding the animal paintings was the lack of anything other than mammals. Throughout the cave there were a handful of paintings depicting insects such as butterflies and the one sole drawing of a human, but besides that they animals were mammals.
Paleolithic, Neolithic, Greek and Roman art movements have seen many changes through the course of their time. These periods, have produced many tremendous famous works of art. Paleolithic art was one of the earliest and most natural form of art which they shown by painting in the caves. The paintings in the cave were very interesting to look at and caught my eye every time I looked at the paintings. Each of the paintings in the caves were somewhat different. I personally think they were painting inside the caves because they were trying to chase food, which caused them to not stay in one place at a time. As the time went on, the Neolithic age saw construction of monument structures. They noticed the structures since the people of Neolithic age became settled unlike the Paleolithic ages people who were out chasing for food. I strongly believe the Greek and Roman ages are very well known, unlike the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. “Humanity, reason, and nature were central preoccupations of the Greek mind, together formulating their attitude toward life” (Rathus 296). When you are looking at their art you can see all the unique crazy designs and very skillful drawings which
The last article talks about the 59th Unnamed Cave, in Florida. This cave is located in the eastern part of the Florida Panhandle. From the dates of the artifacts and the dates of the glyph, the site was occupied in the Late Woodland period. The cave was discover in 2007 when a group of cave explorer saw fine engravings on the wall. This site was the first cave art site that was found in Florida and it is the second rock art site that was found in the states. Rock art is very rare in Florida, but now with the site found there is a wider perspective on the importance of rock art. The site did not only include the petroglyph drawing of the past, but it included some artifacts that was use to help date the time that the cave was occupied.
Cave paintings are seen now in our society is a snapshot of just what they people during that time cherished when it comes to prehistoric art. The Lascaux brought about many things and showed historians what the appreciated most during that time. In this cave, there were many depicted cows, bulls, and dear along the natural ledges of the rock, where the smooth white limestone of the ceiling and upper wall meets a rougher surface below. All of this is a great example of what the humans during that time saw and thought of importance, the many animals that they came across and what they looked like, I think it paved the way for other people to see just how dangerous they can be large. The Altamira was another example of many animists that the humans came across overall, the many details of the animal 's legs and also a depiction of humans and their interactions with the animals. Now there are many theories out there that go into detail about the originals, meaning, and purpose of these cave paintings, I will now share a couple that I think is significant. The first one had to do with how the cave paintings might be products, both of rites to strengthen clan bonds and ceremonies to enhance the fertility if animals used for food. The second one is hoof prints, patterns of animal feces, and hide colorings were recorded and
The first way art changed was when humans began to develop a system of agriculture. This ensured that humans did not have to move place to place, which gave them time to focus on other things (though it prevented them from making frequent cave paintings, as they no longer needed the caves to dwell in). Weapons were easier to make, and come across, although the types of weapons changed, along with the kind of materials and metals they were made from. In Paleolithic times, people used flint, hunting spears, and even animal bones as weapons. When the Neolithic period began, they used blades, hammers, and chisels instead. They used these as their tools for farming and hunting, as they no longer needed to worry about being so accessible to predators. As Neolithic people no longer had to search for food and water, they needed items to carry the things they collected back to their villages. This is when pottery becomes popular, not only to carry the people’s items but also to advertise their beliefs through religion.
In my I chose to compare two cave paintings from the paleolithic period, The first cave in called Lascaux, and the second cave called Altamira. As we know that the Paleolithic time period is from 30,000 BC to 10,000 BC. The most common theme in cave painting during that time period was like a bunch of a large animals such as bison, horses, cows, deers, lions, birds, and aurochs. In those two pieces of cave painting I found alots of common stuff like the animals and the story of the painting as well but their are some differences like the purpose of the paintings, so in the first cave painting which is the Lascaux Their was a story behind this painting which is telling us about the wars during that time period; in the second cave painting which
This study is focus on the 11th Unnamed Cave in Tennessee. This cave was the first of its kind because this cave is the only one that was found to contain pictograph, petroglyph, and mud glyph all in one site. The article explain that the site is significant because there are evidence to showed that the site underwent a series of diverse but interrelated uses. The first out of all the cave sites to contain all three different form of rock art. Also, because the site was found in the eighteenth century which had some form of documentations on the uses of the cave. The authors believes that since the cave showed many different kind of activities, it is possible that the activities reflect a complex behaviors more elaborated and sacred than
People today can look at the cave art or even the sculptures and see how they lived and interpreted things. And they can appreciate the creations that were left. As well as the evidence left helps scholars interpret what they were and then explain to today’s world about what happened and how people lived a million years ago. I relate to the account by Nisa because I am a female and some of the beliefs she had in the San society are the same beliefs we have in today’s world.
This article talks about the study of the Dunbar Cave in Montgomery County, Tennessee to learn more about the varied ways that the cave was used by people. Many of the artifacts that was in the cave linked its usage time to be from the Late Paleo-Indian to the Mississippian period. The article define dark-zone cave art as “the decorations in the areas of the caves that is beyond the reach of external lights”. Mug Glyph Cave art was found in the 12th Unnamed Cave in Tennessee and since then sixty-nine other caves that had dark-zone cave art were found. The artifacts and chronological data from these sites indicates that the tradition of cave art began 6000 years ago.
The Chauvet Cave, which is located in the southern part of modern day France, is full of Palaeolithic (Paleolithic) paintings created about thirty to thirty-three thousand years ago. The last Ice Age period was estimated to be around one-hundred-and-ten to twelve-thousand years ago, and places this within it. However, it was only discovered about twenty-two years ago in 1994 by a group of “cavers” led by the man himself, Jean-Marie Chauvet. Today, the cave is compelling to many observers as it is described to be loaded with “skillfully executed” charcoal and carved creations including animals such as horses/stallions, deer-like figures, lions, hyenas, owls, panthers, and rhinos.
Historically, it is always argued that the cave paintings during the Paleolithic period are one of the oldest recorded pieces of art. These include the hand imprints and spotted horses cave painting in Peche-Merle, France, the Halls of Bulls wall painting in Lascaux, France and the animal paintings in the Chauvet cave. While they are located in different locations, there are some common traits in these paintings. First, the cave paintings estimated to be between 13,000 and 15,000 years old, which means
The paintings are of 10,000 years of difference. The animal paintings are +18,000 years old and the hand paintings are 28,000 years old. There is a huge difference of time because the theory is that the cave was lost however, then it was rediscovered. The cave was
One of the earliest evidences of the belief in a higher power comes from deep within the “Lascaux Labyrinth”, a deep cave “decorated by our Paleolithic ancestors in the stone age, seventeen thousand years ago”(Armstrong 2). The great numbers and locations of art within the Lascaux and surrounding region gives evidence that these were sacred places for the purpose of rituals, and some have compared these dwellings to temples (Armstrong 3). Whether art within cave dwellings dating back to the Paleolithic era, to magnificent churches rising to great heights around the world, the wondrous temples of the Mayans, a mountain that appears to seamlessly morph into the city of Machu Picchu, to trailers, tents and fortified compounds, belief in a power higher than one’s self has been deeply ingrained throughout centuries and a multitude of cultures. These different places are what many refer to as a church, a place to record and follow the rituals specific to their belief and to worship. Through the generations of the development of the human psyche, belief in a higher power is taught young and ingrained for many, yet meaningless for some. Furthermore, throughout the evolution of many centuries, it is inevitable that branches of these religions will follow a different path, create new churches to better practice their views of religion, and for some, belief in a higher power can be contorted to the preaching’s and worship of hate. There is a fine line between preaching scriptures and
According to the History of Art, no one knew of the existence of prehistoric cave paintings until one day in 1879, when a young girl, exploring with her father in Altamira in Northern Spain, crawled through a small opening in the ground and found herself in chamber whose ceiling was covered with painted animals. Her father, a lawyer and amateur archeologist, searched the rest of the cave, and told authorities about the remarkable discovery, and published his findings the following. There is no specific meaning of why people painted such dramatic imaginary on the walls of caves, but many believe that people create art for the “sheer love of beauty”. However, scientist now believes that the effort that was put in to creating those beautiful paintings were more than just a “simple visual pleasure”.
The first evidence of cave art appeared in Western Europe (Berenguer 67). Early cave paintings were characteristic of Western art. They were supported by an acute vision,