PREHISTORIC ART
Bison depicted at the Cave of Altamira in Cantabria, Spain, dated to the Upper Paleolithic period
Prehistoric is something belonging or pertaining to the period of prehistory. This last term,in turn, is linked to the existing human life before the development of writing. (which has arisen around the year 3000 B.C)
Anthropology is the study of mankind's behaviour and origins, and asides from studying bones and fossils, it also studies the ancient architecture, tools and artwork mankind left behind. Very few art pieces stand the test of time and only the toughest sculptures and paintings made with plenty of pigment (and presumably sheltered from the elements) have managed to last tens of thousands of years.Like we do, prehistoric people often represented their world and beliefs through visual images. Art emerged with the appearance and dispersion of homo sapiens from Africa, Europe, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas. Paintings, sculptures, engravings and later pottery reveal not only a quest for beauty but also complex social systems and spiritual concepts.
PHASE OF PREHISTORIC ART
PALEOLITHIC
- Lower Paleolithic ( 200,000 -2,000,000 BCE)
- Middle Paleolithic ( 40,000 BCE – 150,000 BCE)
- Upper Paleolithic ( 10,000 – 40,000 BCE)
Mesolithic ( From 10,000 BCE)
Neolithic Art (8,000 – 4,000 to 2000 BCE)
CHARACTERISTIC PREHISTORIC ART
The earliest forms of prehistoric art are extremely primitive. The cupule, for instance - a mysterious type of Paleolithic cultural marking - amounts to no more than a hemispherical or cup-like scouring of the rock surface. The early sculptures known as the Venuses of Tan-Tan and Berekhat Ram, are such crude representations of humanoid shapes that some experts doubt whether they are works of art at all. It is not until the Upper Paleolithic (from roughly 40,000 BCE onwards) that anatomically modern man produces recognizable carvings and pictures. Aurignacian culture, in particular, witnesses an explosion of rock art, including the El Castillo cave paintings, the monochrome cave murals at Chauvet, the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, the Venus of Hohle Fels, the animal carvings of the Swabian Jura, Aboriginal rock art from Australia, and much more. The later Gravettian and Magdalenian cultures gave birth to even more sophisticated versions of prehistoric art, notably the polychrome Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle and the sensational cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira.
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