Paleolithic and Neolithic

paleolithic

• paleolithic (old stone age) 1=2000,000-10,000BC
• neolithic (new stone age) 6500, 1000 BC

Incised ochre from Blombos Cave, 70,000BCE,

• Home to some of the earliest known prehistoric
• art in all of Africa, the archeological site known as Blombos Cave
• is located in a limestone cliff, some 100 metres from the sea on the coast
• of South Africa, about 180 miles east of Cape Town. It is famous for its
• prehistoric rock engravings, dating back
• to the Mousterian period of the Middle Paleolithic era (70,000 BCE), which
• puts it among the oldest Stone
• Age art ever discovered. (See Oldest
• Stone Age Art: Top 100 Works.) The find consisted of two pieces of
• ochre rock incised with geometric abstract
• signs, and a series of beads made from Nassarius kraussianus shells.
• The Blombos engravings are not considered
• to be "cave art", since they are
• not part of the fabric of the cave, but they are the earliest
• art created by Modern man, and the oldest known example of sub-Saharan
• African art.

"Animal Facing Left"

• Quartzite slabs depicting animals or “Animal Facing Left”, Apollo 11
• Cave, Namibia, ca. 25,000-25,300BC. Paleolithic period
• One of the earliest artworks found is a work of charcoal on stone, from
• 23 000 BCE. It was one of several of such works found during the Apollo
• 11 Cave excavation in Namibia, Africa. Although the work may appear
• simple, it was revolutionary. Prior to the Paleolithic Period, humans
• didn’t care to represent animals or men (this is one of the most major
• developments of this period). However, during that time, there were
• countless similar works being created.
• This artist chose to represent a horse, most likely a horse or a
• horse-like animal (bison, horse, mammoth, and ibex were some of the most
• common animal subjects of the time) and he represented it from a
• profile view with charcoal. Profile view (representing a figure from its
• side) was very common at the time because it was the only way for the
• artist to fully show all aspects of it (the head, the body, all legs,
• the tail, etc.)

Paleolithic art

• Two
• main types of Upper Paleolithic art have survived. The first we can
• classify as permanently located works found on the walls within caves.
• Mostly unknown prior to the final decades of the nineteenth century,
• many such sites have now been discovered throughout much of southern
• Europe and have provided historians and archaeologists new insights into
• humankind millennia prior to the creation of writing. The subjects of
• these works vary: we may observe a variety of geometric motifs, many
• types of flora and fauna, and the occasional human figure. They also
• fluctuate in size; ranging from several inches to large-scale
• compositions that span many feet in length.
• The
• second category of Paleolithic art may be called portable since these
• works are generally of a small-scale—a logical size given the nomadic
• nature of Paleolithic peoples. Despite their often diminutive size, the
• creation of these portable objects signifies a remarkable allocation of
• time and effort. As such, these figurines were significant enough to
• take along during the nomadic wanderings of their Paleolithic creators.

"Woman of Willendorf"

• It stands just over 4 ½ inches high and was carved some 25,000 years
• ago. It was discovered on the banks of the Danube River, in Austria,
• and it was most likely made by hunter-gatherers who lived in the area.
• he people who made this statue lived in a harsh ice-age environment
• where features of fatness and fertility would have been highly
• desirable. In neurological terms, these features amounted to
• hyper-normal stimuli that activate neuron responses in the brain. So in
• Paleolithic people terms, the parts that mattered most had to do with
• successful reproduction - the breasts and pelvic girdle. Therefore,
• these parts were isolated and amplified by the artist's brain.

Woman of Willendorf

• In the absence of writing, art historians rely on the objects themselves to learn about ancient peoples. The form of the Venus of Willendorf—that
• is, what it looks like—may very well inform what it originally meant.
• The most conspicuous elements of her anatomy are those that deal with
• the process of reproduction and child rearing. The artist took
• particular care to emphasize her breasts, which some scholars suggest
• indicates that she is able to nurse a child. The artist also brought
• deliberate attention to her pubic region. Traces of a pigment—red
• ochre—can still be seen on parts of the figurine. In contrast,
• the sculptor placed scant attention on the non-reproductive parts of her
• body. This is particularly noticeable in the figure's limbs, where
• there is little emphasis placed on musculature or anatomical accuracy.
• We may infer from the small size of her feet that she was not meant to
• be free standing, and was either meant to be carried or placed lying
• down. The artist carved the figure’s upper arms along her upper torso,
• and her lower arms are only barely visible resting upon the top of her
• breasts. As enigmatic as the lack of attention to her limbs is, the
• absence of attention to the face is even more striking. No eyes, nose,
• ears, or mouth remain visible. Instead, our attention is drawn to seven
• horizontal bands that wrap in concentric circles from the crown of her
• head. Some scholars have suggested her head is obscured by a knit cap
• pulled downward, others suggest that these forms may represent braided
• or beaded hair and that her face, perhaps once painted, is angled
• downwardIf
• the face was purposefully obscured, the Paleolithic sculptor may have
• created, not a portrait of a particular person, but rather a
• representation of the reproductive and child rearing aspects of a woman.
• In combination with the emphasis on the breasts and pubic area, it
• seems likely that the Venus of Willendorf had a function that related to fertility.
• One of many other small Paleolithic female nudes
• Emphasis on fertility?
• Representation of womanhood, not a specific woman
• 4 1/4 “
• Limestone
• Nude Woman
• Exaggerated reproductive anatomy
• Arms and hands very small
• No face

Slide 7

• Human with Feline Head, ca. 32,000 BC, mammoth ivory

parietal art

• Parietal art is the archaeological term for artwork done on cave walls or large blocks of stone.
• 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
• animals are rendered in what has come to be called "twisted
• perspective," 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
• cave spaces range widely in size and ease of access. The famous Hall
• of Bulls (below) is large enough to hold some fifty people. Other
• "rooms" and "halls" are extraordinarily narrow and tall.

hall of bulls

• 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.Another
• theory suggests that the images communicate narratives (stories). While
• a number of the depictions can be seen to do this, one particular image
• in Lascaux more directly supports this theory. A bison, drawn in
• strong, black lines, bristles with energy, as the fur on the back of its
• neck stands up and the head is radically turned to face us (below).
• 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 humanoid figure with the
• head of a bird. Nearby, a thin line is topped with another bird and
• there is also an arrow with barbs. Further below and to the far left the
• partial outline of a rhinoceros can be identified.
• Interpreters
• of this image tend to agree that some sort of interaction has taken
• place among these animals and the bird-headed human figure—in which the
• bison has sustained injury either from a weapon or from the horn of the
• rhinoceros. Why the person in the image has the rudimentary head of a
• bird, and why a bird form sits atop a stick very close to him is a
• mystery. Some suggest that the person is a shaman—a kind of priest or
• healer with powers involving the ability to communicate with spirits of
• other worlds.
• many are represented using colored silhouettes
• -differences in style and technique suggest painted at different times
• -her consists of several different kinds of animals of various sizes moivng in different directions
• -convention of representing horns in twisted perspective (heads in profile but horns from front)
• -painter's approach is descriptive

Peche- Merle france

• Spotted Horses and Negative Hand Prints,
• hands are negative
• -hands may be signatures
• -mural paintings allow insight into why certain subjects may have been chosen for a specific location
• -one horse may have been inspired by rock formation
• -forms were finished by accentuating the outlines with stone tools or by addition of color
• -concave surfaces (horses and hands)

Neolithic period

• The Neolithic Revolution was the most important development in human
• history. The way we live today—settled in cities, protected by laws,
• eating food from farms—dates from approximately 10,000 years ago.
• The revolution which led to our way of life was the development of
• the technology needed to plant and harvest crops and to domesticate
• animals.
• Before the Neolithic revolution, it's likely you would have lived
• with your extended family as a nomad, never staying anywhere for more
• than a few months, always living in temporary shelters, always searching
• for food and never owning anything you couldn’t easily pack in a pocket
• or a sack. The change to the Neolithic way of life was huge and led to
• many of the pleasures (lots of food, friends and a comfortable home)
• that we still enjoy today.
• The massive changes in the way people lived also changed the types of
• art they made. Neolithic sculpture became bigger, in part, because
• people didn’t have to carry it around anymore; pottery became more
• widespread and was used to store food harvested from farms. This is when
• alcohol was first produced and when architecture, and its interior and
• exterior decoration, first appears. In short, people settle down and
• begin to live in one place, year after year.

catal huyuk

• Çatalhöyük or Çatal Höyük (pronounced "cha-tal hay OOK") is not
• the oldest site of the Neolithic era or the largest, but it is extremely
• important to the beginning of art. Located near the modern city of
• Konya in south central Turkey, it was inhabited 9000 years ago by up to
• 8000 people who lived together in a large town. Çatalhöyük, across its
• history, witnesses the transition from exclusively hunting and gathering
• subsistence to increasing skill in plant and animal domestication. We
• might see Çatalhöyük as a site whose history is about one of man’s most
• important transformations: from nomad to settler. It is also a site at
• which we see art, both painting and sculpture, appear to play a newly
• important role in the lives of settled people.
• Çatalhöyük had no streets or foot paths; the houses were built right up
• against each other and the people who lived in them traveled over the
• town’s rooftops and entered their homes through holes in the roofs,
• climbing down a ladder. Communal ovens were built above the homes of
• Çatalhöyük and we can assume group activities were performed in this
• elevated space as well.
• Art is everywhere among the remains of Çatalhöyük, geometric designs as
• well as representations of animals and people. Repeated lozenges and
• zigzags dance across smooth plaster walls, people are sculpted in clay,
• pairs of leopards are formed in relief facing one another at the sides
• of rooms, hunting parties are painted baiting a wild bull. The volume
• and variety of art at Çatalhöyük is immense and must be understood as a
• vital, functional part of the everyday lives of its ancient inhabitants.

Slide 13

• Many figurines have been found at the site, the most famous of which
• illustrates a large woman seated on or between two large felines. The
• figurines, which illustrate both humans and animals, are made from a
• variety of materials but the largest proportion are quite small and made
• of barely fired clay. These casual figurines are found most frequently
• in garbage pits, but also in oven walls, house walls, floors and left in
• abandoned structures. The figurines often show evidence of having been
• poked, scratched or broken, and it is generally believed that they
• functioned as wish tokens or to ward off bad spirits.
• The use of two feline figures
• in the image (right), is a common feature in many later middle-eastern
• and European sculpture, in which they invariably
• represent 'guardians' at places of power, such as on either side of
• thrones, or at important entrances and gateways such as at Boghazkoy and
• Alaja Huyuk, (see photo's below), also both in Turkey
• It is generally thought[2] to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother Goddess[3]
• in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has
• two hand rests in the form of feline (leopard or panther) heads. The
• statuette, one of several iconographically similar ones found at the site, is associated to other corpulent prehistoric goddess figures,[4] of which the most famous is the Venus of Willendorf.

Slide 14

• Nearly every house excavated at Çatalhöyük was found to contain
• decorations on its walls and platforms, most often in the main room of
• the house. Moreover, this work was constantly being renewed; the plaster
• of the main room of a house seems to have been redone as frequently as
• every month or season. Both geometric and figural images were popular in
• two-dimensional wall painting and the excavator of the site believes that geometric wall
• painting was particularly associated with adjacent buried youths.
• Figural paintings show the animal world alone, such as, for instance,
• two cranes facing each other standing behind a fox, or in interaction
• with people, such as a vulture pecking at a human corpse or hunting
• scenes. Wall reliefs are found at Çatalhöyük with some frequency, most
• often representing animals, such as pairs of animals facing each other
• and human-like creatures. These latter reliefs, alternatively thought to
• be bears, goddesses or regular humans, are always represented splayed,
• with their heads, hands and feet removed, presumably at the time the
• house was abandoned
• The most remarkable art found at Çatalhöyük, however, are the
• installations of animal remains and among these the most striking are
• the bull bucrania. In many houses the main room was decorated with
• several plastered skulls of bulls set into the walls (most common on
• East or West walls) or platforms, the pointed horns thrust out into the
• communal space. Often the bucrania would be painted ochre red.

Slide 15