Mesolithic &

Neolithic Art
Lecture 4
Mesolithic & Neolithic Era
• Spans the time of 20,000 – 2000 BC.
• Mesolithic is the short-span transition period
after Ice Age.
• Majority of the geographic climate became the
climate of today.
• About 10,000 BC cultural evolution started to
appear.
• Domestication of animals & cultivation of grain.
• Start of Pottery & Textile and metal in later
periods.
• Permanent homes and village life replaced
nomad & cave dwellings.
Mesolithic Art
• Very few artifacts from this era.
• Transition from large chipped stone tools to
smaller microliths chipped stone tools.
• Same masterful skill as predecessors living
in caves.
• Regular and frequent use of human figures in
the drawings and paintings.
• Outlines of animals and nude human figures
engraved on rock face at Addaura in Sicily.
• Athletically lithe, firmly engraved-drawn in
pure outlines, showing muscularity and
movement.

8000 BC Engraving on rock, Addaura Monte Pellegrino, Sicily

Source: A world history of Art
Mesolithic Art
• 9 inches in width with the rhythmic
repetition of shapes for movement.
• Bows, Arrows Feathered headdress visible.
• The widely splayed legs signify a march to
the battle or a ritual dance.
• Profile view for the head, legs & arms while
frontal view for torso.
• Although this composite view of human
body is artificial, but this is ideally suited
and descriptive for pre-historic artists.
• This composite of twisted reality was
preferred by artists for millennia until
Greeks rejected this perception in classical 7000 – 4000 BC Rock Painting, Remigia, Castellon, Spain
age. Source: Gardner’s Art through ages
Mesolithic Art
• Like Paleolithic cave paintings, Mesolithic rock
paintings also show a significance of magical
religion.
• Some observers believe them to be pictorial records
of memorable events.
• But the location of these rock paintings at particular
sites for a longer periods of time suggests them to be
of sacred importance.
• Iberian & Latin inscriptions indicate supernatural
significance associated with these.

8000 BC Cave Painting of The Man of Bicorp holding

onto lianas to gather honey from a beehive, Valencia,
Spain.
Source: Internet
Mesolithic Art
• The depiction of movement in static
art.
• Nine women are depicted, some
painted in black and others in red,
dancing around a male figure.
• Depiction of women is a new element
in the art of this region.
• Along with humans, several animals,
including a dead deer or buck Dance of the Cogul, Catalonia, Spain
impaled by an arrow, are depicted. Source: Internet
 Shift towards Neolithic
• The native Mesolithic populations were
slow in adapting the agricultural way of
life.
• Mesolithic’s started solely with the use of
ceramics.
• And in the Neolithic age, agriculture took
a while to get developed.
 Neolithic Era
• In neolithic era, human beings took a massive step
towards a concrete control of their environment by
settling in fixed dwellings.
• Food supply also assured from hunting to herding and
farming.
• Community formation in the villages surrounded by
cultivated fields.
• The oldest settled communities are found in the
grassy uplands which later moved into the river
valleys.
• These settlements are found to have started from the
middle-east, Mesopotamia being the most advance.
• All the innovations are believed to have spread to
Syria & Anatolia from Mesopotamia.
• Additionally, this era formulated civilized societies,
government, law & formal religion along with writing,
measurement & calculations, weaving, metal crafts Rendered image of neolithic settlement,
Source: Internet
and pottery.
 Neolithic Art
• The massive changes in the way
people lived also changed the types of
art they produced.
• Neolithic sculpture became bigger in
size, as people didn’t have to carry it
around anymore.
• Pottery became widespread and was
used to store food harvested from
farms.
• Alcohol was first produced during this
period.
• Architecture, interior & exterior
decorations also began from this era.
 Neolithic Pottery
• Researchers suggest that the idea of clay
fashioned into a shape and hardened by fire may
have been first suggested by coating clay on
basket to protect it from fire.
• Woodworks and basketry are rarely preserved.
• Pottery was made by hands, as the potter’s
wheel wasn’t developed at that time.
• The pottery was simple and rugged and
sometimes proportionated with decorations.
• Decorations being; concentric lines, spirals,
zigzags, dots, chevrons, and the basic universal
motifs.
• In the later part of 3rd millennium BC, fine pottery
became a regional specialty as compared to
universal commodity in northern Europe.
Neolithic Pottery from Northwest Bulgaria, Northern Iraq and Greece • Drinking vessels and tableware made of wood
Source: A history of Art
became common.
Neolithic Architecture
• The mudbrick villages of the earliest farmers spread
gradually across Iran & Turkey and in Europe through
Greece and Balkan.
• Famous settlements of these are Jericho, Catal Huyuk
and Ain Ghazal.
• Later in Northern Europe timber became a more
important building material as compared to
mudbricks. But due to its organic nature, relics
couldn’t survive.
• Soon after, large monumental tombs also started to be
built using large stones, serving as cult-centers and
territorial markers.
• These monuments were known as “megaliths” and
initially had two technique of erection; in one large
stones being piled on one and other and the use of
drystone construction to fill in the gaps or to roof over a
chamber.
 Neolithic Megaliths
• Neolithic art in Western Europe is best
represented by its megalithic (large stone)
monuments and passage tomb structures.
• These structures are found from Malta to
Portugal, through France and Germany, and
across southern England to most of Wales and
Ireland.
• One of the best-known prehistoric sites in the
United Kingdom, Avebury contains the largest
stone circle in Europe.
• Constructed over several hundred years in the
3rd millennium BCE.
• The monument comprises a large henge with a
large outer stone circle and two separate
smaller stone circles situated inside the center
of the monument.
 Megalith Avebury
• Its original purpose is unknown, although
archaeologists believe that it was likely used for
ritual or ceremony.
• The Avebury monument was part of a larger
prehistoric landscape containing several older
monuments.
• It was not designed as a single monument but was
the result of various projects undertaken at different
times during late prehistory.
• Experts date the construction of the central cove to
3,000 BCE, the inner stone circle to 2,900 BCE, the
outer circle and henge to 2,600 BCE, and the
avenues to 2,400 BCE.
Rendered image of Avebury, UK
Source: Internet
 Stonehenge
• The most famous megalithic monument in
Europe is, Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in
Southern England.
• It is a complex of rough-cut sarsen (form of
sandstone) and smaller bluestones (volcanic
rocks), also built in several stages over several
years.
• It was built in centuries before & after 2000 BCE.
• It is believed to be an astronomical observatory
and a remarkably accurate solar calendar.
• According to a recent theory, it also served as a
center of healing that attracted the sick & dying
from throughout the region.
• It is also believed to be a funeral site, where
Neolithic people cremated their dead.
 Passage Tomb
“Newgrange, Ireland”
• Passage tombs or graves consist of narrow
passages made of large stones and one or
multiple burial chambers covered in earth
or stone.
• A common layout is the cruciform
passage grave, characterized by a cross-
shaped structure.
• Newgrange is a collection of passage tomb
mounds built around 3200 BCE and
located in County Meath, Ireland.
• The monument is comprised of a large
mound built of alternating layers of earth
and stones, covered with growing grass
and with flat white quartz stones studded
around the circumference.
• The mound covers 4500 square meters of
ground.
Newgrange, Ireland
• Within, a passage stretches through the structure
ending at three small chambers.
• The site is believed to have some form of religious
significance due to its alignment with the rising sun
which illuminates the stone room with light on the
winter solstice.
• It is believed that the people who built Newgrange,
the winter solstice marked the start of the new year,
and symbolized fertility and rebirth.
• Thus, it was not just a place of burial but an
important ceremonial place for the people of the
area.
Ggantija & Hagar Qim,
Malta
• The megalithic temple complexes of Ggantija on
the Mediterranean islands of Gozo and Malta are
notable for their gigantic size.
• They date to around 3600 BCE.
• The temples are built in a clover-leaf shape, with
inner facing blocks marking the outline which was
then filled with rubble.
• The Maltese builders erected their temples by
piling carefully cut stone blocks in stacked
horizontal rows.
• For the construction of doorways, the post and
lintel system is used.
• The temples have been theorized as the possible
site of a fertility cult due to numerous female
figurines found on site.
 References

• https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/cavestocathedrals/chapter/neolithic/
• https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.279628/page/n51/mode/2up
• https://archive.org/details/gardnersartthrou0000gard_p8k7/page/28/mode/2up
• https://www.claddaghrings.com/newgrange-passage-tomb-ireland/
• https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781285138671/page/22/mode/2up
• https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781285138671/page/22/mode/2up
• https://archive.org/details/historyofart0000unse_j4d3/page/18/mode/2up
 Assignment 3

On a Tracing Sheet of A2 size, create a hand drawn/ traced

presentation on “Stonehenge”.
• Work in a group of 3.
• Combination of text and drawings.
• Detailed history, construction, function & current-world scenario.
• Should be presentable and legible.
• Name & roll no. mentioned on bottom right corner of sheet.
• No information from Wikipedia.