PART 3
HISTORY AND CONTEXT
Chapter 3.1
The Prehistoric
Paleolithic (ca. 40,00-8,000 BCE)
Neolithic (ca. 8,000-2,300 BCE)
Copyright © 2015 Thames & Hudson
Please remember, I integrated content and
visuals from chapters in Part 1, 2, and 4 into
chapters for Part 3. Chapter One for Part 3
was divided into four PowerPoints.
Reminder: To provide space to make the
images as large as possible on some of
the PowerPoint frames, I produced
phases, incomplete sentences, terms and
definitions.
Megalithic (big stone) found in Europe 4000-2500 B.C. Gigantic blocks
of rough-hewn stone, such as limestone. [post-and lintel] construction.
Stonehenge is a megalithic monument. Megaliths, literally meaning large
stone slabs, had become the most conspicuous forms of expression within
the European landscape for the people of this time. Indeed, by 2000 BC,
Stonehenge had become the ritual centre of southern Britain.
Dolmen: Two or more vertical stones topped by a flat “capstone,” They were
used to commemorate the dead and also may have acted as centers (the point
from which an activity or process is directed, or on which it is focused) for
various ceremonies in the area.
Heel stone
Stonehenge, Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng. 3000 to c.1500 BC
Megalithic monuments-extended.
The outermost is a circle of sandstones about 13.5 ft.high connected by lintels;
the second is a circle of bluestone menhirs (upright stones); the third is
horseshoe shaped; the innermost, ovoid. Within the ovoid lies the Altar Stone.
The Heel stone is a great upright stone in the Avenue, northeast of the circle.
Some think the reasons for the building of Stonehenge were a place of worship
and ritual. Stonehenge was used to observe the motions of the moon as well as
the sun and aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing
sunrise of the summer solstice.
Cromlech (henge): A
circular grouping of
upright stones or
domen; probably a
temple for sun-
worship; possibly also
for astronomic
calculations
New research shows that Stonehenge was used for more than 500
years as a cemetery. The burials were initially uncovered in a pit around
the edge and in the nearby ditch surrounding the monument. Among
the burials near the site have been found remains of a man who was
raised near the Alps and a teenage boy raised near the Mediterranean.
Among the burials near the site have been found remains of a man who
was raised near the Alps and a teenage boy raised near the
Mediterranean.
Prehistoric Art Caves
Human Prehistory:
no written records
A succession of
civilizations arose in
the Mediterranean
region (ancient Near
East, northern
Africa, and southern
Europe)
Their achievements
are seen today:
agriculture, planned
cities, writing, art
These achievements, which we generally describe as the beginning
of civilization, were matched independently elsewhere, for example
Asia and the Americas.
Artwork: Cave paintings from Pech Merle cave, France
Earliest paintings in the world: at least 40,000 years old
Made by blowing pigment (natural materials like charcoal or red
ochre) through a reed or bone. Used hands to create reverse
stencils 3.1.2 Cave paintings from Pech Merle cave, France, c. 23,000 BCE. Pigment with saliva.
Artwork: Hand stencils, from
El Castillo Cave
Paintings on cave walls and
sculptures
These paintings are important
records of the lives of our
early ancestors
Handprints: Made by blowing
pigment (red ocher) through a
reed, often using hand as a
stencil
Same method was used later
to create images of animals
they hunted, such as bison
3.1.2 Hand stencils, from El Castillo Cave, Cantabria, Spain,
c. 37,300 BCE
People were hunting and gathering
Nomadic: Moved PALEOLITHIC PERIOD:
from place to place to35,00-8,00 0
follow food sources - animals
A number of human cultures and their
belief systems centering on magic
and the supernatural
Stone tools are finely worked
Also used bone, horn, and
ivory and made necklaces
and other personal ornaments
Pit house-
Prehistoric
humans
also built
and lived
in pit
houses.
They did not always live in caves.
They made shelters and pit
houses.
Pit houses - the first man-made
shelters were built. They also
produced sewn clothing ,
sculpture and painting
originated.
Neanderthals
Neanderthals did indeed interbreed with modern humans circa 45,000 to
80,000 years ago (at the approximate time that modern humans migrated out
from Africa, but before they dispersed into Europe, Asia and elsewhere).
Besides caves, ancient people also used tipis (teepee), rock
shelters, pit houses, wickiups, and cribbed log structures as
shelters.
rock shelters
cribbed log tipis (teepee),
Researchers have uncovered a simple structure
from the Stone Age that may be the oldest
evidence yet of early humans building with
wood.
The construction is basic: a pair of overlapping
logs, fitted together with a notch. It's nearly half
a million years old. Burakoff, Maddie. This simple log structure may be the oldest
example of early humans building with wood. Independent News. Sept. 2023
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/zambia-log-structure-humans-wood-b2415240.html
wickiups
Chapter 3.1 The Prehistoric and Ancient Mediterranean
PART 3
HISTORY AND CONTEXT
Dec. 18, 1996
Experienced cave
explorers ( two
men and a
woman)
discovered the
Chauvet cave
Chauvet cave entrance and its 300 cave
know the name of artworks. The
all the caves. Floor of the large
cave room was
covered the
bones.
Chauvet cave, southeastern France,
c. 25,000-17,000 BCE - Chauvet sounds like “show vet”
Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts, Second Edition, Debra J. DeWitte, Ralph M. Larmann, and M. Kathryn Shields
The paintings at Chauvet are
even more finely executed,
and they must surely be the
result of a long tradition whose
origins go back even further in
time. Otherwise, there are
even older artworks not yet
discovered.
All prehistoric paintings in
Europe have been found in
deep recesses of the cave,
not at the entrance.
“Draw a Man” test was and still is used to test for IQs. Children start to overlap
images at age of 9 or 10, but the drawing above indicates a more realistic
depiction of the lion, including shading and more details. This human may
have a normal intelligence and drawing ability of a 15 or 18-year-old.
Chauvet Cave, France “detail- lion panel” 32,000 - 30,000 BC
They placed their hands on the rock
surface and blew powdered pigments
through a hollow reed. Children also
produced their handprints using this
process.
Scholars believe that the
"negative" handprints in
prehistoric cave paintings were
most likely used as signatures.
Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux Caves, France
Required great
effort
The walls of the
Lascaux
Caves in
southern
France were
painted
sometime
between 15,000
and 13,000 bce
Overlapping images: the site was visited repeatedly over time
Indicates the place was significant
Likely purposes: storytelling, and representing ritual practices
4.2.12b Hall of the Bulls. Pigment on limestone rock. Lascaux Caves
Horse. Cave Painting, Lascaux, France, c.
13,000 BC Know the name of this cave.
Until the discovery of
the Chauvet cave in
1996), the images at
Lascaux were the oldest
known paintings in
Europe.
The horse illustrated here
has fascinated scholars
because of its seemingly
pregnant condition, the
feathery forms near its
forelegs, and the mysterious Aux in French sounds like “o”,
geometric symbol depicted Lascaux sounds like “Las-go”.
above it.
Watch the two YouTube videos (web address in the links below)
I will ask questions about the content on the next exam.
Thought Earth was a living organism -Caves were
considered to be the bowels of the living earth. See video.
Place curser on the link below - right click on mouse -
click on “open link or hyperlink” and then Lascaux
virtual tour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnSq0c7jM-A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hiFqqqjTxQ
Bison, Altamira Cave, Spain,
c. 14,000-10,000 B.C.:
Altamira, Spain
Altamira (Spanish for 'high
views') is a cave in Spain
famous for its Upper
Paleolithic cave paintings
featuring drawings and
polychrome rock paintings of
wild mammals and human
hands.
Natural materials such as red
ochre and manganese oxide
were ground into powders and
blown through hollow tubes
or mixed with grease (animal
fat) or water and applied with
brushes made of moss or
matted hair.
Chance Resemblance: some cave rock formations implied an image
and the artist enhanced these images- What image do you see? Compare
this to experiences of seeing images in some cloud formations.
Chance Resemblance: some cave rock formations implied an image and
the artist enhanced these images- chance resemblance.
Mermaid Cave
Drawings. cave art of
mermaids and humans
– humans spearing
mermaids and mermen
How did these
prehistoric people know
the about mermaids
and mermen? No
answer.
Legend of the Mermaids in the
Karoo desert in South Africa -
Mermen with spears
Fertility figures were It seems clear that the
female “full” figures. statuette was a fertility image,
Traces of color possibly meant to be carried
remain. Made small around as an amulet, or
portable sculptures good- luck charm ( the Venus
Limestone height is less than 5 inches tall).
(4.33”) found in lower Only the features associated
Austria. The female with childbearing have been
reproductive anatomy stressed— the belly, breasts,
may be exaggerated, and pubic area. Venus’ face
and therefore experts is obscured. Her arms,
think it likely that it crossed above the breasts,
represents a fertility are barely defined, and her
symbol, perhaps legs taper off to nothing. If we
carried by a male take this figure literally, she
hunter/gatherer as a could not see or speak or
reminder of his mate walk or carry. What she could
back home. do was bear and nurture
children.
“Venus of Willendorf”, c. 23,000 BCE
limestone
Sculpture in the round
Woman from Willendorf, c. 23,000 BCE
Artwork: Venus of Laussel
“Fertility figure: most common
type of prehistoric art
Woman holds a horn-shaped
object with 13 short carved lines
Scholars have differing
opinions: ritual for hunting,
musical instrument, phallic
symbol, menstrual cycles
3.1.3 Venus of Laussel,
found in Marquay, Dordogne,
France, c. 23,000 bce. Low
relief on limestone block,
18⅛” high. Musée d’Aquitaine,
Bordeaux, France
MESOLITHIC PERIOD (MIDDLE
STONE AGE): 8,000-3,000 B.C.
There are traces of open-air
camps, such as firepits,
domestic debris, and bones.
Paintings found around the
Mediterranean coasts of Spain, Africa,
Italy, and Sicily, but not in caves. They
appear mostly on open-air-rock surfaces.
African Art, Art Galleries in South Africa
African Prehistoric Art. More
animals and plants to eat yea round.
Emphasis on humans, not animals
all the time.
Beginning around 9000 B. C. E. and continuing over the next four
thousand years, the Paleolithic Period, or Old Stone Age, gradually
gave way to the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.
The Neolithic is named for new types of stone tools that were
developed, but these tools were only one aspect of what in fact was a
completely new way of life. Instead of gathering wild crops as they
could find them,
Neolithic people learned to cultivate fruits and grains. Farming was
born. Instead of following migrating herds to hunt, Neolithic people
learned to domesticate animals. Dogs, cattle, goats, and other animals
served variously for help, labor, meat, milk, leather, and so on.
Dugout boats, the bow and arrow, and the technology of pottery— clay
hardened by heat— vastly improved the standard of living. Settled
communities grew up and, with them, architecture of stone and wood.
Tantalizing glimpses of daily life in
the Neolithic Period survive in the
rock paintings of the Tassili n’Ajjer
region of Algeria, in northern Africa .
Today Tassili n’Ajjer is part of the
Sahara, the world’s largest desert.
But at the time these images were
painted, roughly between 5000 and
2000 B. C. E., the desert had not yet
emerged. Instead, the region was a
Women and Cattle. Rock painting vast grassland, home to animals,
plants, and the people we see
at Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria.
depicted here— five women,
Pastoralist style, after 5000 B. C. gathered near their cattle. Other
E. images painted on the rock walls at
Tassili n’Ajjer depict women
harvesting grain or occupied with
children, men herding cattle, and
enclosures that may represent
dwellings.
Tell Abu Hureyra is an archaeological
First Civilizations site located in the Euphrates valley in
modern Syria. The site is significant
because the inhabitants (Natufian
groups) of Abu Hureyra, started out as
hunter-gatherers but gradually
transitioned to farming.
Research based on excavations at a site
known as Ohalo II, was discovered in
1989 when the water level in the sea of
Tell Abu Hureyra, porthole doorway.
Galilee dropped because of drought
and excessive water extraction -making
the site as the earliest known farmers
in the world. Significantly, however,
they discovered the presence of two
types of weeds in current crop fields:
corn cleavers and darnel.
Grain oven at Ohalo
II- 18,000-21,000 BC
Jericho, 7,000 BC
Jericho , located in the Palestinian
territories ,has evidence of
settlement dating back to 9000 BCE.
Before Jericho was built there was a
period of cold and drought.
Permanent habitation of any one
location was not possible. However,
the spring at what would become
Jericho was a popular camping
ground for Natufian hunter- Jericho spring
gatherer groups, who left a
scattering of crescent microlith
tools behind them. Around 9600
BCE the droughts and cold had
come to an end, making it possible
for Natufian groups to extend the
duration of their stay, eventually
leading to year-round habitation
and permanent settlement.
Jericho
Neolithic Period. The Neolithic is
named for new types of stone tools
that were developed. Instead of
gathering wild crops as they could
find them, Neolithic people learned
to cultivate fruits and grains.
Farming was born. Instead of
following migrating herds to hunt,
Neolithic people learned to
domesticate animals. Dogs, cattle,
goats, and other animals served
variously for help, labor, meat, milk,
leather, and so on. Dugout boats,
the bow and arrow, and the
technology of pottery— clay
hardened by heat— vastly improved
the standard of living.
NEOLITHIC ART:
(NEW STONE
AGE) 8,000-1300
B.C.
Houses in permanent
villages were either
unattached oval or
rectangular structures
or attached rectangular
clusters.
Shrines: earth-goddess
Fortifications made the first
or the sun-god were
appearance. Materials consisted of
richly decorated.
stone foundations, mud-brick walls,
thatch, timber or mud-brick roofs.
Built great walls / towers Post-and lintel construction was
to protect water and dominant with occasional use of the
grain supply corbeled arch.
Ancient Jericho, 8,500 to 7.500 BC
Structures were blockish,
low, with blank walls and
few windows. Large stone
walls protected them from
invaders and dangerous
animals.
dry fresco paintings (The
Plaster floors- painted floors & art of painting on fresh,
walls surrounded by rock cut moist plaster with
ditch .
5’ thick walls, 12’ - 17’ tall Site pigments dissolved in
covered 6 acres -- enormous for water) They were
the time. sometimes in the interiors.
Jericho skull, Oldest known city-8500-7500 BC.
Plastered skull: “Spirit traps” were
impressive sculptured heads dating from
7000 B.C. and were actual human skulls
whose faces have been “reconstituted”
with tinted plaster, with pieces of
seashell for the eyes. The Jericho
heads are not intended to “create” life
but to perpetuate it beyond death by
replacing the flesh with a more enduring
substance. Spirit traps were displayed
above ground while the rest of the body
was buried beneath the floor of the
house. Considered first portraits.
Called “spirit traps” because they did
not want the sprits haunting the
house.
Artwork: Landscape with volcano eruption, wall painting from
Çatalhöyük, Turkey- white lime-based plaster and sometimes
decorated with paintings or relief sculptures.
▪ Re-creates the design of the
Neolithic town
▪ Rectangular houses are closely
aligned
▪ fresco (a painting done rapidly in
watercolor on wet plaster on a wall
or ceiling, so that the colors
penetrate the plaster and become
fixed as it dries) from Neolithic
Çatalhöyük possibly depicting a
volcano erupting over a nearby
town
▪ first “pure” landscape (a picture of
a volcano and settlement, without
life and narrative) ever created in
the history of mankind
3.1.5 Landscape with volcano eruption, detail of watercolor copy of a wall painting from Level VII, Çatalhöyük, Turkey, c. 6150 BCE.
Wall painting: Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Turkey. Watercolor copy: Private collection
corbeled domes were used for some
structures
corbel arch
Trefoil temple: Mediterranean sites only; a clover-leaf shaped
temple with corbeled domes, usually 30-40 ft. in diameter per
section and 10 to 15 ft. high. Tarxien, Malta.
Chapter 3.1 The Prehistoric and Ancient Mediterranean
PART 3
HISTORY AND CONTEXT
Picture Credits for Chapter 3.1
3.1.1 Drazen Tomic
3.1.2 João Zilhão, ICREA/University of Barcelona
3.1.3 Erich Lessing/akg-images
3.1.4 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California
3.1.5 Images courtesy the Mellaarts/Çatalhöyük Research Project
3.1.6 Photo Jeff Morgan Travel/Alamy
3.1.7 Archaeological Museum, Heraklion
3.1.8a, 3.1.8b British Museum, London
3.1.9 Erich Lessing/akg-images
3.1.10 University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia B17694
3.1.11 Iraq Museum, Baghdad
3.1.12 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1932, Acc. no. 32.143.2. Photo Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art
Resource/Scala, Florence
3.1.13 Photo Scala, Florence/BPK, Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin
3.1.14 National Geographic/Superstock
3.1.15 Gianni Dagli Orti/Egyptian Museum, Cairo/The Art Archive
3.1.16 The Trustees of the British Museum, London
3.1.17 Egyptian Museum, Cairo
3.1.18 Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Photo Sandra Steiss. Photo Scala, Florence/BPK, Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin
3.1.19 British Museum, London
3.1.20 Peter Connolly/akg-images
3.1.21 Ralph Larmann
3.1.22 Nimatallah/akg-images
3.1.23 British Museum, London
3.1.24 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1932, Acc. no. 32.11.1. Photo Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art 3.1.25
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
3.1.26 Vatican Museums, Rome
3.1.27 Photo Scala, Florence
3.1.28 Photo Scala, Florence
3.1.29 Photo Scala, Florence
3.1.30 Raimund Kutter/imagebroker.net
3.1.31 Please note that this image is not available for digital use but can be found on p. 386 of the textbook.
3.1.32 Palazzo Torlonia, Rome
3.1.33 Giovanni Caselli
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