Cave Painting

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Cave Painting Cave Painting Cave paintings from Lascaux caves (Montignac, Dordogne, France) Some of the earliest examples of art include cave paintings found all over the world. Going as far back in time as tens of thousands of years, the paintings often show animals and humans in connection with the natural environment. These images give us a glimpse of the mind of the maker, communicating natural and possibly spiritual messages through symbolic drawings. Making art is a very human cultural experience, and our expression of art has been a constant practice right from the start. Neolithic cave paintings found in Tassil-n-Ajjer (Plateau of the Chasms) region of the Sahara Be inspired by cave paintings and make your own cave art! See below for examples of cave art from the Maxwell Museum Ancestors exhibit and click here for a video tutorial for making your own cave painting. Cave painting reproductions, Maxwell Museum – Salon Noir, Niaux, France Draw your own forms or use these traditional forms for inspiration. Resources: Cave painting online exhibit – Google Arts and Culture https://artsandculture.google.com/project/chauvet-cave Cave painting lesson plan from the National Endowment for the Humanities https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plans/cave-art-discovering-prehistoric-humans-through-pictures UNESCO page on cave art around the world https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/?search=cave+art&order=country Lascaux guided tour – French Ministry of Culture https://archeologie.culture.fr/lascaux/fr#/en/00.xml/index.html Cave Art 101 – National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjejoT1gFOc Lascaux Cave Paintings – Project #113 – United Art and Education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1HC3UeBAng Lessons on Lascaux – Dick Blick https://www.dickblick.com/lesson-plans/lessons-on-lascaux/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0yH0Ia3NDE Lulu inspired by cave art .
Recommended publications
  • The Janus-Faced Dilemma of Rock Art Heritage
    The Janus-faced dilemma of rock art heritage management in Europe: a double dialectic process between conservation and public outreach, transmission and exclusion Mélanie Duval, Christophe Gauchon To cite this version: Mélanie Duval, Christophe Gauchon. The Janus-faced dilemma of rock art heritage management in Europe: a double dialectic process between conservation and public outreach, transmission and exclusion. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, Taylor & Francis, In press, 10.1080/13505033.2020.1860329. hal-03078965 HAL Id: hal-03078965 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03078965 Submitted on 21 Feb 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Duval Mélanie, Gauchon Christophe, 2021. The Janus-faced dilemma of rock art heritage management in Europe: a double dialectic process between conservation and public outreach, transmission and exclusion, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, doi.org/10.1080/13505033.2020.1860329 Authors: Mélanie Duval and Christophe Gauchon Mélanie Duval: *Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB), CNRS, Environnements, Dynamics and Territories of Mountains (EDYTEM), Chambéry, France; * Rock Art Research Institute GAES, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Christophe Gauchon: *Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB), CNRS, Environnements, Dynamics and Territories of Mountains (EDYTEM), Chambéry, France.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Virginia's Karst
    Introduction to Virginia’s Karst A presentation of The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Karst Program & Project Underground Karst - A landscape developed in limestone, dolomite, marble, or other soluble rocks and characterized by subsurface drainage systems, sinking or losing streams, sinkholes, springs, and caves. Cross-section diagram by David Culver, American University. Karst topography covers much of the Valley and Ridge Province in the western third of the state. Aerial photo of karst landscape in Russell County. Smaller karst areas also occur in the Cumberland Plateau, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain provinces. At least 29 counties support karst terrane in western Virginia. In western Virginia, karst occurs along slopes and in valleys between mountain ridges. There are few surface streams in these limestone valleys as runoff from mountain slopes disappears into the subsurface upon contact with the karst bedrock. Water flows underground, emerging at springs on the valley floor. Thin soils over fractured, cavernous limestone allow precipitation to enter the subsurface directly and rapidly, with a minimal amount of natural filtration. The purer the limestone, the less soil develops on the bedrock, leaving bare pinnacles exposed at the ground surface. Rock pinnacles may also occur where land use practices result in massive soil loss. Precipitation mixing with carbon dioxide becomes acidic as it passes through soil. Through geologic time slightly acidic water dissolves and enlarges the bedrock fractures, forming caves and other voids in the bedrock. Water follows the path of least resistance, so it moves through voids in rock layers, fractures, and boundaries between soluble and insoluble bedrock.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstracts of Reports and Posters
    Abstracts of Reports and Posters Amira Adaileh The Magdalenian site of Bad Kösen-Lengefeld The open air site of Bad Kösen-Lengefeld is located in Sachsen-Anhalt, Eastern Germany. It was discov- ered in the mid 1950´s in the immediate vicinity of the famous Magdalenian site of Saaleck. Since that time, archaeologists collected over 2000 lithic artifacts during systematical surveys. The technological and typological analyses of the lithic artifacts confirmed the assignment of Bad Kösen-Lengefeld to a late Magdalenian. Furthermore, the investigation of the surface collections brought forward information about the character of this camp site, the duration of its occupation and the pattern of raw material procure- ment. The fact that Bad Kösen-Lengefeld is located in a region with more than 100 Magdalenian sites fostered a comparison of the lithic inventory with other Magdalenian assemblages. Thus, allowing to spec- ify the position of the Lengefeld collection within the chorological context of the Magdalenian in Eastern Germany. Jehanne Affolter, Ludovic Mevel Raw material circulation in northern french alps and Jura during lateglacial interstadial : method, new data and paleohistoric implication Since fifteen years the study of the characterization and origin of flint resources used by Magdalenian and Azilian groups in northern French Alps and Jura have received significant research work. Diverse and well distributed spatially, some of these resources were used and disseminated throughout the late Upper Paleolithic. Which changes do we observe during the Magdalenian then for the Azilian? The results of petrographic analysis and techno-economic analysis to several archaeological sites allow us to assess dia- chronic changes in economic behavior of these people and discuss the significance of these results.
    [Show full text]
  • Dating Aurignacian Rock Art in Altxerri B Cave (Northern Spain)
    Journal of Human Evolution 65 (2013) 457e464 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Human Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhevol Not only Chauvet: Dating Aurignacian rock art in Altxerri B Cave (northern Spain) C. González-Sainz a, A. Ruiz-Redondo a,*, D. Garate-Maidagan b, E. Iriarte-Avilés c a Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria (IIIPC), Avenida de los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain b CREAP Cartailhac-TRACES-UMR 5608, University de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 5 allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France c Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Dpto. CC. Históricas y Geografía, University de Burgos, Plaza de Misael Bañuelos s/n, Edificio IþDþi, 09001 Burgos, Spain article info abstract Article history: The discovery and first dates of the paintings in Grotte Chauvet provoked a new debate on the origin and Received 29 May 2013 characteristics of the first figurative Palaeolithic art. Since then, other art ensembles in France and Italy Accepted 2 August 2013 (Aldène, Fumane, Arcy-sur-Cure and Castanet) have enlarged our knowledge of graphic activity in the early Available online 3 September 2013 Upper Palaeolithic. This paper presents a chronological assessment of the Palaeolithic parietal ensemble in Altxerri B (northern Spain). When the study began in 2011, one of our main objectives was to determine the Keywords: age of this pictorial phase in the cave. Archaeological, geological and stylistic evidence, together with Upper Palaeolithic radiometric dates, suggest an Aurignacian chronology for this art. The ensemble in Altxerri B can therefore Radiocarbon dating Cantabrian region be added to the small but growing number of sites dated in this period, corroborating the hypothesis of fi Cave painting more complex and varied gurative art than had been supposed in the early Upper Palaeolithic.
    [Show full text]
  • Art and Symbolism: the Case Of
    ON THE EMERGENCE OF ART AND SYMBOLISM: THE CASE OF NEANDERTAL ‘ART’ IN NORTHERN SPAIN by Amy Chase B.A. University of Victoria, 2011 A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Archaeology Memorial University of Newfoundland May 2017 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador ABSTRACT The idea that Neandertals possessed symbolic and artistic capabilities is highly controversial, as until recently, art creation was thought to have been exclusive to Anatomically Modern Humans. An intense academic debate surrounding Neandertal behavioural and cognitive capacities is fuelled by methodological advancements, archaeological reappraisals, and theoretical shifts. Recent re-dating of prehistoric rock art in Spain, to a time when Neandertals could have been the creators, has further fuelled this debate. This thesis aims to address the underlying causes responsible for this debate and investigate the archaeological signifiers of art and symbolism. I then examine the archaeological record of El Castillo, which contains some of the oldest known cave paintings in Europe, with the objective of establishing possible evidence for symbolic and artistic behaviour in Neandertals. The case of El Castillo is an illustrative example of some of the ideas and concepts that are currently involved in the interpretation of Neandertals’ archaeological record. As the dating of the site layer at El Castillo is problematic, and not all materials were analyzed during this study, the results of this research are rather inconclusive, although some evidence of probable symbolic behaviour in Neandertals at El Castillo is identified and discussed.
    [Show full text]
  • Lascaux Cave, France  Complex Hunter Gatherers at the End of the Paleolithic  Dates: 47/45,000 – 20/18,000 B.P
    Lascaux Cave, France Complex Hunter Gatherers at the End of the Paleolithic Dates: 47/45,000 – 20/18,000 b.p. (Epipaleolithic=20/18,000-10,000 bp) Industries include microliths and bone tools—not found in previous periods Raw materials were exchanged over long distances in this period Wide range of materials, other than flint, come into use: bone tools, stone vessels, ochre, shells Some probably for ritual purposes In contrast to early modern humans (and Neanderthals): Size of teeth reduced Size of jaw reduced Muscularity diminishes Less skeletal trauma Increased longevity Cro-Magnon cranium Upper Paleolithic Artwork Cave Art Includes spectacular images of animals and abstract forms and, rarely, humans Mobiliary Art These portable art objects include Venus figurines Body Ornamentation: Pierced shells, pierced animal teeth, and bone beads were most likely work as necklaces or attached to clothing Horse, Cosquer Cave, France Penquin or Auk, Cosquer Cave, France Bear Bison ‘Venus’ figurines Dolni Vestonice Lespugue Willendorf . Appear around 25,000 bp, Europe . Carved in ivory, wood, stone, modeled in clay . Breasts, hips, buttocks, thighs, usually large . Head, arms, hands, legs & feet are only schematic . Some are pregnant, others are not 4.48.jpg Dwellings Huts with bone frameworks Floors with inlaid stone Stone-lined pits for hearths Tailored clothing Long-distance trade Blade technique Long, parallel-sided flakes are struck off the edges of a specially prepared core Blades: long flake, twice as punch long as wide • Sharp parallel edges • Removed from core like peeling carrot (sort of) • Blades provide “blank” or form, which may then be shaped into different tools: .
    [Show full text]
  • Homo Aestheticus’
    Conceptual Paper Glob J Arch & Anthropol Volume 11 Issue 3 - June 2020 Copyright © All rights are reserved by Shuchi Srivastava DOI: 10.19080/GJAA.2020.11.555815 Man and Artistic Expression: Emergence of ‘Homo Aestheticus’ Shuchi Srivastava* Department of Anthropology, National Post Graduate College, University of Lucknow, India Submission: May 30, 2020; Published: June 16, 2020 *Corresponding author: Shuchi Srivastava, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, National Post Graduate College, An Autonomous College of University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India Abstract Man is a member of animal kingdom like all other animals but his unique feature is culture. Cultural activities involve art and artistic expressions which are the earliest methods of emotional manifestation through sign. The present paper deals with the origin of the artistic expression of the man, i.e. the emergence of ‘Homo aestheticus’ and discussed various related aspects. It is basically a conceptual paper; history of art begins with humanity. In his artistic instincts and attainments, man expressed his vigour, his ability to establish a gainful and optimistictherefore, mainlyrelationship the secondary with his environmentsources of data to humanizehave been nature. used for Their the behaviorsstudy. Overall as artists findings was reveal one of that the man selection is artistic characteristics by nature suitableand the for the progress of the human species. Evidence from extensive analysis of cave art and home art suggests that humans have also been ‘Homo aestheticus’ since their origins. Keywords: Man; Art; Artistic expression; Homo aestheticus; Prehistoric art; Palaeolithic art; Cave art; Home art Introduction ‘Sahityasangeetkalavihinah, Sakshatpashuh Maybe it was the time when some African apelike creatures to 7 million years ago, the first human ancestors were appeared.
    [Show full text]
  • Cave Painting: Demons and Depictions
    EPAPER LIVE TV DAWNNEWS URDU IMAGES HERALD AURORA CITYFM89 TEELI ADVERTISE EVENTS / SUPPLEMENTS CLASSIFIEDS OBITUARIES TODAY'S PAPER | MAY 03, 2021 Cave painting: Demons and depictions Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro | Published August 16, 2015 Painting in Lahuat Rock Shelter From time to time rock paintings have been discovered in different regions of Pakistan such as the Musa Khel region of Loralai District in Balochistan, the Buner, Swat and Mansehra Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Khaplu and Astor in Gilgit-Baltisan. The earliest specimen of rock paintings is located at Malvi in the Musa Khel Tehsil of Lora Lai District, Balochistan. There are nine rock shelters at this site which depict pre- historic and pre-Buddhist paintings. But what may be surprising is that both petroglyphs and pictographs have been found in the Gadap Tehsil of Karachi while rock carvings have been found at Lahaut (Nain Mol), Rahim Bakhsh Gabol and Maher in Gadap Tehsil. The rock carvings at Rahim Bakhsh Village are engraved on bedrock and include carvings of geometric designs, shoe prints and arrows. Apart from the petroglyphs at the Rahim Bakhsh rock-art site, one also finds both petroglyphs and pictograms in the Maher Valley. Petroglyphs are found at Baithi Lak (pass) near the Lahaut rock shelter. This is the main Lak through which people enter into the valley of Maher. There are many petroglyphs on the sandstone rock wall with the majority of these engravings being geometric designs. Painting of the so-called Maher Deity Rock paintings are located in a rock shelter at Lahaut in Maher Valley, situated about 60 km north of Karachi.
    [Show full text]
  • Bataille on Lascaux and the Origins of Art
    Bataille on Lascaux and the Origins of Art Richard White Creighton University Bataille’s book Lacaux has not received much scholarly attention. This essay attempts to fill in a gap in the literature by explicating Bataille’s scholarship on Lascaux to his body of writing as a whole—an exercise that, arguably, demonstrates the significance of the book and, consequently, the shortsightedness of its neglect by critics who have not traditionally grasped the relevance of the text for illuminating Bataille’s theory of art and transgression. Bataille’s major work on the Lascaux cave paintings, Prehistoric Paint- ing: Lascaux or the Birth of Art, was originally published as the first volume in a series called “The Great Centuries of Painting.”1 It is an impressive book with color photographs and supporting documents, and in his text, Bataille deals conscientiously with the existing state of prehistoric studies and scholarly accounts of Lascaux. But in spite of this—or rather because of it—Lascaux the book has received very little attention from prehistoric scholars, art historians or even Bataille enthusiasts.2 For one thing, the format of this work seems to undermine the power of transgression which is the subject as well as the driving force behind most of Bataille’s writings. The very context of a multi-volume series on great art and artists suggests an uncritical perception of art as a universal which remains the same from Lascaux to Manet.3 In Lascaux, as opposed to most of his other writings, Bataille offers his own contribution to an existing historical controversy, and he is constrained in advance by the terms of this debate.
    [Show full text]
  • Hang Son Doong,Vietnam by Sarah Collinge
    Hang Son Doong,Vietnam By Sarah Collinge Have you ever explored a cave? A cave is an underground chamber in a hillside or clif that has been formed over time by rainwater, ocean waves, lava, or oil-eating bacteria. Places where the earth is made up of large amounts of limestone are known for having many caves. Limestone is made from the remains of shells and skeletons of sea creatures. Tis sedimentary rock is easily dissolved by slightly acidic water. Where limestone dissolves, an underground chamber forms. No one knows how many caves there are on Earth, probably millions. Many natural caves re- main undiscovered. Te largest known cave in the world is Hang Son Doong, located in the country of Vietnam. Tis cave was frst discovered 20 years ago and is more than 2.5 miles long. Its widest chambers are 300 feet wide and over 600 feet high—big enough to easily hold an entire New York City block of skyscrapers. A very large “room” in one section of the cave is equal to the size of the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Te name Hang Son Doong means Mountain River Cave. Te cave was originally discovered by a local man who heard a whistling sound made by an underground river. Flowing through the cave is a fast-fowing, subterranean river, the Rao Tuong River. During the fooding season, the river can rise close to 300 feet. References: Groleau, R. (October 1, 2002). How caves form. Retrieved June 23, 2012, from http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/nova/earth/how-caves-form.html.
    [Show full text]
  • Cave Paintings Cave Paintings Created by Primitive People Are Found on Every ▼ Cave Paintings at Continent
    Cave Paintings Cave paintings created by primitive people are found on every ▼ Cave Paintings at continent. The oldest ones were made about 35,000 years ago. Tassili n’Ajer, Algeria Cave paintings in Europe and Africa often show images of These paintings depict women, children, and hunting and daily activities. In the Americas and Australia, on cattle. Located in Algeria, the Tassili n’Ajer the other hand, the paintings tend to be more symbolic and (tah•SEEL•ee nah• ZHEER) site contains more than less realistic. 15,000 images. They depict shifts in climate, Scholars are not sure about the purpose of cave paintings. animal migrations, and changes in human life. They may have been part of magical rites, hunting rituals, or The oldest paintings date back to about 6000 B.C. Images continued to be painted until an attempt to mark the events during various seasons. Another around the second century A.D. theory is that cave paintings (especially the more realistic ones) may simply be depictions of the surrounding world. RESEARCH LINKS For more on cave paintings, go to classzone.com ▼ Cave Paintings at Cuevas de las Manos in Argentina Cuevas de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) is located in the Rio Pinturas ravine, northeast of Santa Cruz, Argentina. Its rock walls display numerous hand paintings in vivid colors. The Tehuelches (tuh•WEHL•cheez) people created the paintings between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. The cave is about 78 feet deep and, at the entrance, about 48 feet wide and 32 feet high. 12 ▲ Replica of Lascaux Cave Painting, France Discovered in 1940 , the Lascaux (lah•SKOH) cave contains more than 600 painted animals and symbols.
    [Show full text]
  • Sorting the Ibex from the Goats in Portugal Robert G
    Sorting the ibex from the goats in Portugal Robert G. Bednarik An article by António Martinho Baptista (2000) in the light-weight rock art magazine Adoranten1 raises a number of fascinating issues about taxonomy. The archaeological explanations so far offered for a series of rock art sites in the Douro basin of northern Portugal and adjacent parts of Spain contrast with the scientific evidence secured to date from these sites. This includes especially archaeozoological, geomorphological, sedimentary, palaeontological, dating and especially analytical data from the art itself. For instance one of the key arguments in favour of a Pleistocene age of fauna depicted along the Côa is the claim that ibex became extinct in the region with the end of the Pleistocene. This is obviously false. Not only do ibex still occur in the mountains of the Douro basin—even if their numbers have been decimated—they existed there throughout the Holocene. More relevantly, the German achaeozoologist T. W. Wyrwoll (2000) has pointed out that all the ibex-like figures in the Côa valley resemble Capra ibex lusitanica or victoriae. The Portuguese ibex, C. i. lusitanica, became extinct only in 1892, and not as Zilhão (1995) implies at the end of the Pleistocene. The Gredos ibex (C. i. victoriae) still survives in the region. The body markings depicted on one of the Côa zoomorphs, a figure from Rego da Vide, resemble those found on C. i. victoriae so closely that this typical Holocene sub-species rather than a Pleistocene sub-species (notably Capra ibex pyrenaica) is almost certainly depicted (Figure 1).
    [Show full text]