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Prehistoric Western Art 40,000 – 2,000 BCE

Introduction

Prehistoric was an evolving melting pot of developing cultures driven by the arrival of Homo sapiens, migrating from Africa by way of southwest Asia. Mixing and mingling of numerous cultures over the Upper , and periods in Europe stimulated the emergence of innovative advancements in farming, food preparation, animal , community development, religious traditions and the arts.

This report tracks European cultural developments over these prehistoric periods, Figure 1 Europe and the Near East emphasizing each period’s (adapted from Janson’s , 8th Edition) evolving demographic effects on art development. Then, representative arts of the periods are reviewed by genre, instead of cultural or timeline sequence, in order to better appreciate their commonalities and differences. Appendices identify Homo sapien roots in Africa and selected timeline events that were concurrent with prehistoric life in Europe.

Prehistoric Homo Sapiens in Europe Genetic, carbon dating and archeological evidence suggest that our own species, Homo sapiens, first appeared between 150 and 200 thousand years ago in Africa and migrated to Europe and Asia. The earliest archeological finds that exhibit all the characteristics of modern , including large rounded brain cases and small faces and teeth, date to 190 thousand years ago at Omo, .

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IBM announced in 2011 that the Genographic Project, charting human genetic data, supports a southern route of human migration from Africa via the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in Arabia, suggesting a role for Southwest Asia in the “Out of Africa” expansion of modern humans. Figure 2 illustrates migration routes derived from Figure 2 Human Migration Routes Defined the genetic data. by the Genographic Project

This website, titled Journey of Mankind, is an interactive genetic based human migration map. To access the site click on the URL while pressing the Ctr key. http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey

There are different opinions among paleoanthropologists as to whether or not the earliest anatomically modern humans arriving in Europe had the modern cognitive and cultural abilities that define humans today. However, archaeological evidence suggests that these traits appeared long before the migration began. At archaeological sites in South Africa (see Appendix I), researchers have discovered engraved pieces of , ostrich eggshell , and bone that suggest that by 80,000 years ago hominins (new scientific name for hominids) were making art and using symbols. Hominins in Africa during that period of time, the Middle , were also producing stone blades, using grinding stones to process plant materials, and heat-treating stone to improve its knapping (shaping of stone and weapons) quality.

By 40,000 years ago in the period, Homo sapien populations in Europe exhibited the entire suite of physical characteristics that define anatomically modern humans, replacing indigenous populations of and . Over the

2 subsequent Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods numerous archaeological cultural groups developed in, or migrated to, the European theater.

Twentieth century archeologist Gordon Childe articulated the following guidelines for classifying these groups: “We find certain types of remains - pots, implements, ornaments, rites and house forms - constantly recurring together. Such a complex of associated traits we shall call a ‘cultural group’ or just a ‘culture.’ We assume that such a complex is the material expression of what today we would call ‘a people.’ “

Upper Paleolithic Period

The Upper Paleolithic period ranged from about 40,000 to around 10,000 BCE. The most prominent cultural groups inhabiting Europe during this period were the (c, 40,000 to 26,000 BCE), the (c. 26,000 to 22,000 BCE), the (c. 22,000 to 17,000 BCE) and the (c. 17,000 to 10,000 BCE).

The geographical distribution of the culture is illustrated in Figure 3 and its origins were located in what is now and Hungary. The Aurignacian was characterized by worked bone or antler points. Their flint tools included fine blades and bladelets struck from prepared cores rather than using crude flakes.

The Aurignacians produced Figure 3 Aurignacian Culture Distribution some of the earliest known art, such as the animal engravings at Aldène and the paintings at in southern . They also made pendants, bracelets, ivory beads and three-dimensional figurines. The oldest European works of were found in this period in the Swabian Alps, Baden-Württember, Germany. Venus of , a figurine, dates to some 40,000 years ago. An Aurignacian flute (~22 cm long and 2.2 cm in diameter; from the hollow wing-bone of a vulture) along with fragments of ivory flutes found at the Hohle Fels Cave in 2009 are the oldest undisputed musical instruments.

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Around 32,000 BCE, the culture appeared in the Crimean Mountains (southern ), reaching the southwestern region of Europe around 22,000 BCE. The Gravettian soon disappeared from Europe, with the notable exception of the Mediterranean coasts of Iberia, the Caucasus and the Zagros mountains. Portable art, such as carvings of animals and Venus figurines were popular during the Gravettian era. These figurines included in-the-round subjects like the Woman of Willendorf, and relief works like the Venus of Laussels.

The culture flourished approximately 17,000 to 22,000 years ago. Solutrean flint smiths produced some of the most skillfully crafted thin bifaces (stone tools with two faces) that have ever been made. Evidence indicates that eyed needles were invented by this culture. The Solutreans produced cave art (such as the famous paintings at ) and open air art (such as the monumental Côa Valley and Mazoucoin in and Fornols- Haut in France). Artists fashioned large figures of horses, bison, reindeer and mountain goats, some of them standing out almost 6 inches in impressive bas relief.

Around 17,000 BCE, the culture became dominant in Europe with its earliest sites found in France. Figure 4 illustrates its distribution along with the Epigravettian, another similar culture appearing during the same period in Italy and Eastern Europe Figure 4 Magdalenian & Advanced Gravettian Culture Distributions (Moldavia). The Magdalenians represent the culmination of Upper Paleolithic cultural development in Europe. They lived at a time when reindeer, wild horses, and bison formed large herds. The people appear to have lived a semi-settled life surrounded by abundant food. They killed animals with , snares, and traps and lived in , shelters, or substantial dwellings in winter and in tents in summer.

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Art and decorative forms significantly increased during the Magdalenian era, indicating an abundance of leisure time. Artists were sculptors and painters, expert engravers and doodlers. The small arts, already at a high level in the Aurignacian era, reached a climax in the Magdalenian Period, with delicate, detailed engravings and carvings. Engravings were often rendered with two or more animals represented together in a recognizable scene, as exemplified by the found in France. Cave paintings from this period occur far to the east in the Urals, as far north as Central , to southwestern France and to northern . The ultimate masterpieces of the Magdalenian era are at Altamira, a cave in northern Spain. There was little interest in formal composition but the figures themselves were rendered with remarkable realism and sophisticated designs.

Magdalenian culture disappeared as the cool, near-glacial climate warmed at the end of the Fourth (Würm) Glacial Period (c. 10,000 BC), and herd animals became scarce. The Maglemosian and cultures, which followed the Magdalenian, were much simplified, and there was a poverty of art. Clearly the richness of Magdalenian culture owed much to the abundance of food, allowing time for the development of aesthetics.

Mesolithic Period

The Mesolithic period began around 10,000 BCE and ended with the introduction of farming, a date which varied in each geographical region. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last glacial period ended have a much more apparent Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In northern Europe, for example, societies were able to live on rich food supplies from the marshlands created by the warmer climate. Such conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 5000 BCE in northern Europe.

Most of the glacial ice in the Northern Hemisphere had retreated. Along with the glaciers, certain foods disappeared (for example, the wooly mammoth) and the migration patterns of others (reindeer) changed as well. People gradually adapted to the changes, assisted by invention of the bow and , more temperate weather and more diverse, edible plants. Hunting and fishing settlements appeared along rivers and on lake shores, where fish and mollusks were abundant. One of the many cultural groups of the period was known as the Kitchen- (i. e., waste product) culture for the large deposits of mollusk shells found around its settlements.

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The small art of the period was created primarily with a purpose for use. was mostly utilitarian in design. A pot just needed to hold water or grain, not necessarily exist as an artistic design. Since the invention of the arrow had occurred, much of this period's "carving" time seems to have been spent knapping flint, obsidian and other minerals which lent themselves to sharp, pointy tips. Belts and necklaces were made with beads of shell and animal teeth.

Mesolithic paintings created the first real art compositions having a clear narrative meaning, with man emerging as the chief actor in the dramas played out on cave and rock walls. Remigia Cave and the series of ten cavities with outstanding paintings at the Cingle de La Gasulla (Castellón Spain) next to it show scenes of remarkable activities; in one scene two matched groups of archers, led by a man sporting a headdress, are engaged in hand-to- hand combat, while nearby in the of Les Dogues another combat pits two bands of archers rhythmically against each other at close range. This emphasis on man was new, but even more significant was the implied element of cooperation as part of social cohesion in warfare, hunting, and .

Neolithic Period

The Neolithic period ranged from about 8,000 to around 2,000 BCE. As the climate continued to warm, nomadic lifestyle transitioned to a settled farming way of life. Cultures across Europe shared basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale, presumably family- based communities, subsisting on domesticated plants and animals, supplemented with collected wild plant foods and hunting. There were also many differences, with some Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe living in heavily fortified settlements, whereas Neolithic groups in England were small and highly mobile -herders.

Current archeological evidence suggests that Neolithic material culture was introduced to Europe from western Anatolia. Neolithic sites in Europe contain plants and animals that were domesticated in Southwest Asia (for example; einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, , lentils, pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle). Genetic data also suggest that no independent domestication of animals took place in .

Archaeologists seem to agree that the culture of the early Neolithic was relatively homogeneous. Analyses of radiocarbon dates show clearly that Mesolithic and Neolithic

6 populations lived side by side for as much as a millennium in many parts of Europe, especially in the and along the Atlantic coast.

Neolithic inhabitants made many refinements to earlier arts of statuary, pottery and painting. Figurines such as the Mother Goddess were common. was no longer created strictly by carving. In the Near East, in particular, images were now fashioned out of clay and baked. Archaeological digs near Jericho turned up an interesting human skull overlaid with delicate, sculpted plaster features.

Pottery began to be more highly decorated and paintings left the caves and cliffs to become wall art in Neolithic homes. The archeological findings at Çatal Hüyük in show unique wall paintings, including the world's earliest known landscape. Architectural trends for homes moved toward fixed locations, exemplified by Çatal Hüyük and in ’s Islands.

Emerging art and in this era included free standing sculptures and (large stone structures). Exceptional sculptures, often embellished by animals, have been discovered in Nevali Cori and Göbekli Tepe near Urfa in eastern Turkey. While the best known is on the Salisbury Plain in southern England, others have been found throughout Europe and the Near East, notably at in France and the Göbekli Tepe complex. These structures, located at fixed sites, were a significant move from the mobile nomadic styles of earlier periods. Where temples, sanctuaries and stone rings were built, gods and goddesses were provided with known destinations, and provided unmoving "visitable" resting places for the dead.

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Prehistoric Art – Genre Related, Archeological Period Surveys Art started appearing in Europe as Homo Sapiens moved into the area during the Upper Paleolithic period. The influence of these new immigrants on Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic arts and architecture are revealed by the noteworthy historical sites identified in Figure 5.

Prehistoric art works presented in this section are grouped by genre. For correlation and accountability, Table I associates each subject with its respective Archeological Period, Prehistoric Culture and Timeline date.

Figure 5 Significant European and Near East Prehistoric Sites, Denoted by Red Dots

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Table I Representative Prehistoric Artwork ― Period, Culture and Date

Upper Paleolithic Period (40,000 – 10,000 BCE), Duration is Regionally Dependent

Aurignacian Culture 40,000 BCE 38,800 • El Castillo Cave Paintings 33,000 • Venus of Hohle Fels 30,000 • Chauvet Cave paintings (25-30K BCE) 23,000 Gravettian Culture 28,000 BCE 23,000 • Woman of Willendorf 22,000 • Venus of Laussel 21,000 Solutrean Culture 22,000 BCE 20,000 • Coa Valley Outdoor 18,000 • Lascaux Cave Paintings 17,000 Magdalenian Culture 17,000 BCE 15,000 • Altamira Cave Paintings (12-16K BCE) 11,000 • Swimming Reindeer 10,000

Mesolithic Period (10,000 – 5,000 BCE), Duration is Regionally Dependent 10,000 BCE

7,000 • Remigia Cave Paintings 5,000

Neolithic Period (8,000 – 2,000 BCE), Duration is Regionally Dependent 8,000 BCE 7,500 • Gobekli Tepe (9,600-7,500 BCE) 7,200 • Neolithic Plastered Skull 6,100 • Catal Huyuk 4,000 • Carnac 3,200 • Skara Brae (32-25K BCE) 3,100 • Stonehenge (31-16K BCE) 2,000

Dates and durations of the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods varied regionally as cultures developed and advanced across Europe, sometimes even overlapping by as much as a few thousand years. For example, southeastern Europe advanced to the Neolithic era while the northwest was still in the midst of the Mesolithic. Furthermore, archeological evidence shows that settlements bridging the archeological eras intermingled and shared cultural traditions for extended periods.

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Upper Paleolithic Art Well crafted cave paintings and expertly rendered sculptures have been found at Paleolithic sites. Nearly 350 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola first encountered the Magdalenian paintings (Figure 6), of the Altamira cave, Cantabria, Spain in 1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and numerous additional discoveries have since demonstrated their authenticity, and stimulated interest in the artistry of the Upper Paleolithic people. Images on the cave walls date back to the Upper Solutrean (c. 18,500 years ago) and Lower Magdalenean (between c. 16,500 and 14,000 years ago).

This Youtube site about Altamira Cave is a 2.5 minute video. To access the site click on the URL while pressing the Ctr key. For this and subsequent videos, images will be best if viewed in the Full Screen mode. An audio track plays during the videos, so speaker volume may need to be adjusted. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/310/video/

Figure 6 Altamira Cave Paintings

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The purpose of cave paintings is not known. Evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. Paintings are also often located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of communicating with others, while other theories ascribe to them a religious or ceremonial purpose.

The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns. The animal species found most often were suitable for hunting by humans but were not necessarily the actual typical prey found in associated deposits of bones. For example, the painters of Lascaux have mainly left reindeer bones, but this species does not appear at all in the cave paintings, where equine (horse related) species are the most common. Images of humans were rare in the Upper Paleolithic and were usually schematic rather than detailed and naturalistic like the images of animal subjects. One explanation for this may be that realistically painting the human form was "forbidden by a powerful religious taboo.” used include red and yellow ochre, , manganese oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first, and in some caves all or many of the images are only engraved in this fashion, taking them somewhat out of a strict definition of ".”

National Geographic News reported in June 2012 that a recent study confirmed that the Chauvet cave paintings in France are the oldest, at least 35,000 years old, and the most elaborate ever discovered. However, less than two months later, research was published by the scientific journal Nature announcing that the El Castillo cave paintings in Spain are even older. The hand-blown paintings of hands, Figure 7, and disks at El Castillo which look startling like modern street art were dated at

40,800 years. Dr Alistair Pike of the Figure 7 Castillo Cave Hand-Blown Paintings University of Bristol, UK, the research team

11 leader, believes it’s possible that the hands may be , but he stated “… we will need to date more examples to see if this is the case.” Dr. Pike added, “We see evidence for earlier human symbolism in the form of perforated beads, engraved egg shells and pigments in Africa 70 -100,000 years ago, but it appears that the earliest cave paintings are in Europe.”

Chauvet Cave (Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave), located in southern France near Vallon- Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River, was explored in December of 1994 by three speleologists (cave explorers); Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet, for whom it was named. It appears to have been occupied by humans during two different periods, the Aurignacian and the Gravettian. Most of the artwork dates to the earlier Aurignacian era (30,000 to 32,000 years ago). The only traces left of the later occupation during the Gravettian era (25,000 to 27,000 years ago) include a child's footprints, the charred remains of ancient and carbon smoke stains from torches.

Figures 8 and 9 are examples of the hundreds of animal paintings in the cave that include at least 13 different species. In addition to commonly hunted animals the walls are covered with predatory animals; lions, panthers, bears, owls, rhinos and hyenas. Typical of

Figure 8 Chauvet Cave Art Grouping

12 most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures but there are a few panels of red ochre hand prints. The artists used techniques not often observed in cave art. Many of the paintings appear to have been made only after the walls were scraped clear of debris and concretions. This left a smoother and noticeably lighter area for the artist’s work. Similarly, a three dimensional quality was achieved by incising or etching along the outlines of figures. This visually emphasizes some of the animals and allows torch light to cast shadows about the edges.

This Youtube site, titled The Dawn of Art, is a 5 minute video showing Chauvet Cave Art. To access the site click on the URL while pressing the Ctr key. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZrZxyRBAlM&feature=related

Figure 9 Chauvet Cave Paintings

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Lascaux Cave paintings, found in a complex of caves in the Vézère Valley in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, are estimated to be up to 20,000 years old. Lascaux, discovered on 12 September 1940, has several areas; the Great Hall of the Bulls (Figure 10), the Lateral Passage, the Shaft of the Dead Man, the Chamber of Engravings, the Painted Gallery, and the Chamber of Felines. Most of the images have been painted onto the walls using mineral pigments although some designs have also been incised into the stone. Six of the paintings are displayed in Figure 11.

The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures which are primarily of large animals once native to the region. Of the animals, equines predominate (364). There are 90 paintings of stags. Also represented are cattle, bison, felines, a bird, a bear and a rhinoceros. Among the most famous images are four huge, black bulls or aurochs in the Hall of the Bulls. One of the bulls is 17 feet long - the largest animal discovered so far in cave art.

This Youtube site about Lascaux’s Prehistoric Cave Paintings is a 4.5 minute video. To access the site click on the URL while pressing the Ctr key. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnSq0c7jM-A

Figure 10 Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux Cave, Dordogne, France 14

Figure 11 Lascaux Cave Paintings

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Prehistoric Outdoor Rock Art Sites (c 20,000 BCE) in the Côa Valley (Portugal) are located on the banks of the rivers Agueda and Côa, tributaries of the river Douro. Hundreds

Figure 12 Côa Valley Outdoor Rock Art of panels with a total of at least five thousand animal figures were carved over several millennia, representing the most remarkable open-air ensemble of Prehistoric art on the Iberian Peninsula. Figure 12, shows two images from the Côa Valley site.

Upper Paleolithic inhabitants fashioned Carvings in the round of small figurines (humans and animals) and jewelry (e.g. pendants, beads) made from various material such as stone, bone, ivory, and clay. Relief carvings were executed upon tools and jewelry, as well as natural rock surfaces. Although examples of these sculptural forms have been discovered throughout the world, Europe has yielded the richest concentration.

Perhaps the most famous Upper Paleolithic sculptures are the Venus figurines. Aurignacian deposit excavations in 2008 at Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany recovered the female

Figure 13 Venus of Hohle Fels, figurine, Venus of Hohle Fels, shown in Figure Oldest Figurative Prehistoric Art 13. Carved from mammoth ivory at least 35,000 years ago, it is the earliest known depiction of a human and one of the oldest known examples of figurative art worldwide. Many of its features call to mind the limestone 25,000

16 year old Gravettien Woman of Willendorf shown in Figure 14. It was discovered in the summer of 1908 in the Danube valley, Austria.

Upper Paleolithic relief carving is exemplified by the 24,000 year old Venus of Laussel from Laussel, Dordogne, France shown in Figure 15. Many of the attributes of these Venus figurines, including their emphasis on sexual features and lack of emphasis on the head, face, arms and legs, occur in various forms throughout the rich tradition of

Paleolithic female representations. Figure 14 Woman of Willendorf Large animals were common subjects for small carved and engraved bone or ivory pieces during the Upper Paleolithic period. Figure 16 shows an image of a 13,000 year old (Magdalenian) sculpture of two

Swimming Reindeer conserved in the . The Figure 15 Venus of Laussel sculpture, showing a female reindeer on the right closely followed by a larger male reindeer, was carved in France on the tip of a mammoth tusk. They are thought to be swimming in illustration of the migration of deer that would have taken place each autumn.

Figure 16 The Swimming Reindeer Mesolithic Art

The Remigia Cave (Castellon, Spain), discovered in 1934 has 759 paintings, most notably images of hunting scenes, with a wide variety of compositions. Its paintings (c 7,000 BCE) contain some of the earliest depictions of humans, individually and in composed

17 groups. Figure 17 is a pair of wall painting reproductions illustrating this emerging Mesolithic art style.

Figure 17 Remigia Cave Paintings

Neolithic Art Pottery became more highly decorated as the Neolithic period progressed. Some examples from across Europe are illustrated in Figure 18.

Figure 18 European Neolithic Pottery

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Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey is the oldest known temple/shrine complex in the world and the planet's oldest known example of monumental architecture. Construction of the site was begun about 9,600 BCE, seven millennia before the Great of Giza. The site, shown in Figure 19, contains 20 round megalithic structures, four of which have been excavated by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeo-logical Institute. Each round structure has a diameter of between 30 and 100 ft and all contain massive, mostly T- shaped monolithic pillars of limestone that are up to 10 ft high. Many of the pillars are decorated with carved reliefs of lions, bulls, Figure 19 Göbekli Tepe Site boars, foxes, gazelles, hyenas, wild boars, insects, arachnids and snakes (Figure 20). Assumptions that the site was strictly cultic in purpose have been challenged by the suggestion that the structures may have served as large communal houses, similar to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their totem poles.

Figure 20 T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe depict two boars accompanied by ostrich-like birds, a crocodile-like creature, and vultures flying above a scorpion. Göbekli Tepe is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change our understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human societies. It seems that the erection of monumental complexes was within the capacities of hunter-gatherers and not only of sedentary farming communities as had been previously thought. Until excavations began, a complex on this scale was not thought possible for a community so ancient, and with such primitive quarrying tools.

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Neolithic sites located in North-Western that date as far back as 7250 BCE were inhabited until 5000 BCE. In many of these settlements people buried some of their dead beneath the floors of their houses. Often the head was later retrieved and used as a base for sculpting a Human Head Plaster , as displayed in Figure 21.

Neolithic settled community life inspired innovative changes in the architectural design of houses. Many Neolithic cultures flourished and left behind them sites that give rich clues to their lifestyles and beliefs. Figure 21 Çatal Hüyük in modern Turkey, is the first planned urban Neolithic Plastered Skull development in the world. Each house shared common walls with its neighbors and its entrance was on the roof. The walls, made out of mud-brick, presented a solid, windowless surface facing the city’s outside, forming an effective, continuous defensive rampart.

Inside the houses were remarkable wall paintings dating from c. 6150 BCE, depicting rich scenes of nature and wildlife. Some of the more elaborately decorated rooms were shrine rooms, which had plaster reliefs on the walls. An artist’s rendering of Catal Huyuk and a reconstructed shrine room are illustrated in Figure 22. Proliferation of home wall decoration and painting may be the reason that cave painting ended during the Neolithic era.

Figure 22 Catal Huyuk Representations

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Skara Brae, located on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Scotland, was a large stone-built Neolithic settlement. It contained ten houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE–2500 BCE. The dwellings contain a number of stone-built pieces of , including cupboards, dressers, seats, and storage boxes. Each dwelling was entered through a low doorway that had a stone slab door that could be closed "by a bar that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door jambs." A sophisticated drainage system was even incorporated into the Figure 23 Excavated House at Skara Brae village's design, one that included a primitive form of in each dwelling. The image of an excavated house in the settlement is shown in Figure 23.

Collective ceremonial burial and ritual interests inspired Neolithic people of northern and to create monumental architectural Megaliths. Three visually impressive styles that are mysterious reminders of the ancient past are the Menhir, , and Cromlech, terms that are Celtic in origin.

Menhirs are unhewn or slightly shaped single stones (), usually standing upright in the ground. They were erected individually, in clusters, or in rows as demonstrated by the Carnac alignment in , c. 4000 BCE. The Carnac , numbering almost three thousand are arranged in parallel rows nearly 13,000 feet long (Figure 24).

Dolmens are chambers or enclosures consisting of two Figure 24 Menhir Alignments at Carnac, France or more vertical stones supporting a large single stone as shown in Figure 25, a Carnac site dating back to c. 4000 21

BCE. The earliest were tombs. Later additions turned some into passageways. Some interior dolmen walls were decorated with carvings; others were painted. Dolmens, like menhirs, were instilled by Neolithic people with symbolic associations and functioned as a link between present and eternal time.

Cromlechs are megalithic structures in which groups of menhirs form circles or semicircles. Although their function and Figure 25 Dolmen, Carnac, Brittany, France symbolism have not been determined, cromlechs clearly marked sacred spaces.

Stonehenge, shown in Figure 26, is the most famous and most complex of various megaliths discovered in Western Europe. It dates back as far as 3100 BCE and was built in three phases over a time span of 1500 years. This English features a ninety seven foot diameter circle of upright stones with heights approaching 14 feet. It includes several examples of commonly used trilithic post- and-lintel construction techniques (two upright stones supporting a third horizontal capstone).

We do not know why Stonehenge was built. It possibly Figure 26 Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England served as a religious site for celebrating seasonal changes and astronomical phenomena. Some speculate that it was a place of dying, while others identify it was a place of healing. It was almost certainly a ritual site.

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This Youtube site about Gobekli Tepe is a 9 minute video. To access the site click on the URL while pressing the Ctr key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhUIHsZXDCo

Youtube sites about Catal Huyuk. To access the sites click on the URL while pressing the Ctr key. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrxh2H7JlP8 (6.5 Minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmFKBf5OVoI (36 Minute Lecture)

Appendix I World’s Oldest Example of Abstract Art

The world's oldest example of abstract art was found in a cave in South Africa. The engraved ochre pieces, Figure I.1, were recovered from layers at , 180 miles east of Cape Town, and are at least 70,000 years old. Some scientists say the discovery shows that modern human behavior may have developed far earlier Figure I -1 Ochre Piece, Africa than previously thought.

Appendix II Selected Prehistoric World Events Timeline

Upper Paleolithic

• 40,000 BCE: Aurignacian culture begins in Europe. • 38,800 BCE: El Castillo cave paintings. • 33 000 BCE: Venus of Hohle Fels. • 28,000 BCE: Gravettian culture begins in Europe. • 28,000 BCE: First domestic dogs, a herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley, France. • 27,000 BCE: Extinction of Homo neanderthalensis. • 23,000 BCE: First colonization of North America. • 23,000 BCE: A hamlet consisting of built of rocks and of mammoth bones, Moravia, Czech Republic.

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Mesolithic

• c. 14,000 BCE: European Bison sculpted in clay deep inside the cave in the French Pyrenees. • 13,000 BCE: The woolly rhinoceros goes extinct. • 11,000-8,000 BCE: Late Glacial Maximum, end of the Last glacial period, climate warms, glaciers recede. • 9,000 BCE: Emergence of Jericho, one of the oldest continuously inhabited. cities in the world. Giant short-faced bears and giant ground sloths go extinct. Horse Family goes extinct in North America. • 8,000 BCE: Many ice age megafaunas go extinct, including the woolly rhinoceros, Irish elk, cave bear, cave lion, and the last of the sabre-toothed cats. The mammoth goes extinct in Eurasia and North America.

Neolithic

• 7,000-8,000 BCE: In northern cultivation of barley and wheat begins. • 7,500 BCE: Çatal Höyük urban settlement founded in Anatolia. • 5,000 BCE: Invention of the . • 3,700 BCE: Minoan culture begins on Crete. • 3,500 BCE: Writing is invented in Sumer, triggering the beginning of history. • 3,300 BCE: begins in the Near East. • 3,200 BCE: Cycladic civilization in Greece. • 3,200 BCE: Skara Brae Scotland stone houses. • c. 3,000 BCE: Sumerian cuneiform writing system. • c. 3,000 BCE: Stonehenge construction begins. • 3,000 BCE: First known use of papyrus by Egyptians. • 2,700 BCE: Minoan Civilization palace city Knossos reach 80,000 inhabitants. • 2,700 BCE: Pharaonic rule in begins. • 2,675 BCE: King Khufu completes construction of . • 2,600 BCE: Emergence of Maya culture in the Yucatán Peninsula. • 2,600 BCE: Completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza. • 2,500 BCE: The mammoth goes extinct. • 2,000 BCE: Domestication of the horse.

Bill Rudd Art History Richland College Fall Semester 2012 Revised December 2019

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