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Home , Middle Stone Age, Pech Merle, Wattle (construction)

PART 1 The Ancient World

RT HISTORY IS MORE THAN the “history” began? Obviously, large plant-eating animals roamed the study of a stream of art objects was far from uneventful. Yet the major plains and valleys; the ancestors of today’s Acreated over time. It is inextricably events of prehistory, decisive as they lions and tigers preyed upon them, as did bound to the study of history itself, that is, may have been, seem to have unfolded our own ancestors. These people lived in the recorded evidence of events. sporadically and gradually when measured or under the shelter of overhanging History, it is often thought, began with against the events of the last 5,000 years. rocks, as many sites bear witness, mostly the invention of writing by the civilizations Another criterion that defines “history,” in and in southern . Scholars of Mesopotamia and some 5,000 then, is a sudden acceleration in the call this phase of prehistory the years ago. To be sure, without writing, the occurrence of momentous events, a shift or Old , because human beings growth human beings have known over from low gear to high gear, as it were. crafted their from stone. They lived in the millennia would have been impossible. There was also a change in the kinds of a manner that was suited to the conditions However, writing seems to have developed events that occurred. Historic societies of a waning ice age, and as those conditions over the course of several hundred years literally make history. The challenges changed, so did their way of life. after these civilizations had evolved— they face produce “great individuals and The Paleolithic era came to a close with roughly between 3300 and 3000 BCE, with great deeds” (one definition of history) by what is termed the Revolution. Mesopotamia in the lead. Thus “history” demanding human effort on a large scale. Even though this was a period of transition was under way by the time scribes Their achievements were memorable; that extended over several thousand years began to use writing to create records. that is, they were not only “worth during the (Middle Stone) Age, For historians, the invention of writing remembering,” but also capable of being it was indeed revolutionary, and ushered is a huge landmark: the lack of written grasped by human memory because they in the New Stone Age. It began in the records is one of the key criteria that occurred within a short time-span, not over “fertile crescent” of the Near East (an area differentiates prehistoric from historic the course of centuries. covering what is now , , , societies. Yet this raises some intriguing Of the vast prehistoric era we know , , , and Syria) around questions. First of all, how valid is the almost nothing, until the last ice age in 12,000–8000 BCE, with the first successful distinction between “prehistoric” and Europe began to recede, from about attempts to domesticate animals and “historic”? Is it more about the state of our 40,000 to 8000 BCE. (At least three cultivate food grains. Arriving later in knowledge of the past (inasmuch as we previous ice ages had alternated with Europe, the revolution then spread much know a great deal more about societies who periods of subtropical warmth, at intervals more rapidly. wrote than those who did not) than about of about 25,000 years.) At the time, the The production of a regular food supply the past itself? Or was there a real change in climate between the Alps and Scandinavia was one of the most decisive achievements the way things happened, and in the kinds resembled that of present-day Siberia or of human history, and scholars still struggle of things that happened, after writing and Alaska. Huge herds of reindeer and other to understand why it came about. People

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 18 15/10/2012 14:52 in Paleolithic societies had led the unsettled uncertain; perhaps it was competition for before. First in Mesopotamia and Egypt, life of the hunter and food-gatherer, reaping grazing land among groups of herders or somewhat later in neighboring areas, and in wherever nature sowed. This placed them for arable among farming communities. the Indus Valley and along the Yellow River at the mercy of forces that they neither Perhaps, in fact, the in , people would henceforth live in a understood nor controlled. But having had been too successful, and allowed more dynamic world. Their ability to survive determined how to ensure the regular population groups to grow beyond their was challenged less by the forces of nature provision of food, they settled in permanent available food supplies. A number of than by human forces: by tensions and villages. The new way of life resulted in the solutions might have eased this problem. conflicts arising either within or between introduction of a number of crafts, among Constant warfare could have checked societies. The problems and pressures them , , and spinning, as the population, or the people could have faced by historic societies thus are very well as basic methods of construction in united in larger and more structured social different from those faced by peoples in the wood, brick, and stone. Around 4500 BCE, units bound by ambitious goals—such Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, and through people in southeastern Europe developed as building fortifications—that a loosely the centuries, efforts to cope with them , in the form of copper-working. organized society would struggle to achieve have proved to be a far greater challenge This was the beginning of the so-called on its own. than the earlier struggle with nature. Eneolithic era. Inasmuch as it involved We do not know the outcome of These momentous changes also spurred use of intense heat, this grew the tensions in the region, though future the development of new in naturally out of the technology used excavations may reveal how far the what scholars term the and the in pottery and thus it did not in itself urbanizing process extended. About 3,000 , which, like the Neolithic Age , are constitute a major development; nor did years later, similar conflicts, on a larger stages rather than distinct eras. People first it have an immediate impact. scale, arose in the Nile Valley and again began to cast bronze, an alloy of copper The Neolithic Revolution placed human in the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates and tin, in the Near East around 3500 BCE, beings on a new level, where the forces rivers, and forced people in these regions at the same time that the earliest cities of nature would not challenge them in the to abandon Neolithic village life. Thus arose there and in Egypt. The smelting same ways as they had Paleolithic peoples. emerged the first civilizations. The word and forging of iron were invented about In a few places, however, a new threat civilization derives from the Latin term for 2000–1500 BCE by the Hittites, an Indo- emerged, posed not by nature but by something pertaining to a city, civilis, and European-speaking people who settled in human beings themselves. Symptomatic to be civilized means to live as a citizen, Cappadocia (now east central Turkey), a of that threat are the earliest Neolithic to be a city dweller. These new societies high plateau with abundant copper and fortifications, built almost 9,000 years ago organized themselves into much larger iron ore. Indeed, competition for mineral in the Near East. What fueled the conflict units—cities and city-states—that were resources helped to incite the conflicts that that made these defenses necessary is far more complex and efficient than ever beset civilizations throughout the world.

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 19 15/10/2012 14:52 L Aegean YD IA Mt. Parnassus Delphi Sea

Chios IO N IA Corinth ATTICA Athens Ephesos Olympia Mycenae Salamis Samos Cyclades Priene Atlantic PELOPONNESUS Aegina Delos Miletus Paros Didyma Ocean Naxos Halikarnassos North A E Amorgos IRELAND S Sea C Knidos I T era Siphnos L A (Santorini) Akrotiri ENGLAND B Mediterranean El Seabe R Crete Heraklion T . Knossos N ha R Mt. Ida mes R. h in e Mallia R 100 km . Phaistos 100 miles Se E in Trier e R P D . Hohlenstein-Stadel n iep BRITTANY R. er G E R M A N ula R. O Y Vist R. Loire R Willendorf E A N C Lake Constance U F R

E . R

e Altamira n G N E ô R D O h Venice DACIA R Po D O Pech-Merle R. Chauvet A B . Florence A ube R Segovia d L an Cernavoda T r K D Arno R. ib i e a A

SPAIN Arezzo r t R N

. i c S Vulci S e Tarquinia Veii a Cerveteri Rome Praeneste Byzantium Primaporta M Naples Mt. Vesuvius A C E D O N I (Constantinople) Ischia T Vergina y Herculaneum Mt. Olympus r Pompeii Samothrace r h Paestum Troy e n i a Lemnos Pergamon A n L Corfu A S e Y a e M Actium Mt. Parnassus D g I e O I e a A n N d Ionian I Sicily Athens S A Mt. Etna e Tralles i Sea a Carthage t e Rhodes r Crete r a See inset n e a n S e a

NORTH A

B Y A S L I

L I B L Y A N D E ’ S E e Roman Empire R at the time of Hadrian T

500 km

500 miles

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 20 15/10/2012 14:53 THE ANCIENT WORLD

D o n

R S . C Y T Aral H I Sea V A ol ga R.

C a s p i a n

S e a S e B l a c k a

I A H R T Lake P A . Van R Lake Urmia ls aly H BACTRIA N R. E Tigris A Dur Sharrukin A R M N AT E O L S Nimrud IA C A P P A D O C O L I A P U PERSIA O ASSYRIA R I Issos T Assur S T A A N E M Antioch up I A ELAM hr at Tel Asmar es S R. AK K A A Y D Persepolis I R C I A Ancient coastline (?) I A Babylon N I N LO E B Y SUMER O BA H Uruk P Ur J

o

r d J a O P n R D T e R A S r s . N i E A a n N E G I Dead Sea u l f Alexandria T S E E L L A Petra P D D Cairo I Giza Gulf Of Saqqara Suez M Fayum Mt. Sinai ARABIA LOWER EGYPT

E A Tel El S T E ’Amarna Akhetaten R R N e Deir ebes D d E S S el-Bahri Luxor E R e Hierakonpolis T a

UPPER EGYPT

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 21 15/10/2012 14:53 CHAPTER 1

POINTS OF INQUIRY 1.1 Explore the reasons why fi rst started making art in prehistoric times. 1.2 Assess the signifi cance of paintings to early humans. 1.3 Consider the ways in which sculptural works functioned in Paleolithic and Neolithic life. 1.4 Investigate the developments in architecture from Paleolithic to Neolithic times and the social changes that accompanied them.

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Major Events in Prehistory hen modern humans first encountered pre- reported with regularity, the study of prehistoric art Whistoric cave paintings in the 1870s, they continues to develop and refine its interpretations ca. 2,000,000 BCE Earliest known making could not believe the evidence of their own eyes. and conclusions. ca. 70,000– Last ice age Although the evidence indicated that the site at Though fully modern humans have lived on the 8000 BCE in Europe Altamira in Spain dated to around 13,000 bce, the Earth for over 100,000 years, the dates assigned to ca. 40,000– Old Stone paintings found there had been executed with the earliest objects classed as “art” go back about 8000 BCE (Paleolithic) Age such skill and sensitivity that historians initially 40,000 years; earlier humans crafted tools from ca. 40,000 BCE Earliest known considered them forgeries (see fig. 1.1). Since then, stone and bone, but what inspired them to make stone figures in Europe some 200 similar sites have been found throughout detailed representations of forms found in nature?

ca. 28,000 BCE Earliest known the world. As recently as 1994, the discovery of a The skill with which the earliest objects were exe- cave paintings cave in southeastern France (see fig. 1.2) brought cuted may have been the product of a lost period ca. 8000–2300 BCE New Stone hundreds more paintings to light, pushing back the of experimentation in carving and painting tech- (Neolithic) Age date of the first prehistoric paintings even further, niques, making the practice of art much older than ca. 8000–1000 BCE Plants and to approximately 30,000 bce. Carved objects have the surviving objects. Yet it has also been proposed animals domesticated been discovered that are equally old. that image making and symbolic language result

ca. 4500–1500 BCE Megalithic These earliest forms of art raise more questions from a new brain structure associated with Homo tombs and than they answer. Why did prehistoric humans sapiens sapiens, when a sudden neurological muta- monuments expend time and energy to make art? What tion opened up the capacity for abstract thought. ca. 3300–3000 BCE Earliest writing functions did these visual representations serve? Indeed, art emerges at about the time that fully developed What do the images mean? Art historians often modern humans moved from Africa into Europe, ca. 3000–1000 BCE Bronze Age use contemporaneous written texts to supplement Asia, and , encountering—and eventually their understandings of art; yet prehistoric art displacing—the earlier (Homo nean- dates to a time before writing, for which works of derthalensis). Tens of thousands of works survive art are among our only evidence. Art historians from this time before history, most of which were deploy scientific and anthropological tools in their discovered in Europe. Many are breathtakingly attempts to interpret them. With new finds being accomplished. Whatever led to the ability to create

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LK038_P0022EDJanson9E.indd 22 06/11/2012 11:24 art, its impact on the emergence of human culture ago to about 40,000 years ago, and the most recent This 30,000-year-old image of was enormous, and these prehistoric works force layers reveal the (about 40,000 bce an owl in the was us to reevaluate many of our assumptions about art to around 10,000 bce). It is in the Upper Paleolithic made by pressing a flat-ended and the creative process. that the earliest works of art emerged, over a wide tool into the soft limestone surface of the cave wall, a process called swath of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia (see map 1.1). incising. Most prehistoric incising This period falls in the era, also known produced chiseled lines that are as the Ice Age, when glaciers covered much of the narrower than those of this owl, Paleolithic Art but the process is the same. northern hemisphere. For the era before the written word (prehistory), Prehistoric paintings first came to light in 1878 historians use the activity of toolmaking as the defin- in a cave named Altamira, in Santillana del Mar in ing for measuring human time. They divide northern Spain. Accompanying her father, Count the broad span of prehistory into the Paleolithic or Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, as he scoured Old Stone Age (from the Greek palaio-, meaning the ground for flints and animal bones, 12-year- “ancient,” and lithos, “stone”), the Mesolithic or Mid- old Maria spied bison painted on the ceiling (fig. dle (meso-) Stone Age, and the Neolithic or New (neo-) 1.1). There, and in other more recently discovered Stone Age. The Paleolithic era spans from two mil- caves, painted and engraved images depict mainly lion years ago to about 10,000 bce. Within this range, animals. The greatest variety known is in the vast scholars describe the oldest material as belonging to cave complex of Chauvet, near Vallon-Pont-d’Arc the (ending about 100,000 years in southeastern France. Here the 427 animal repre- ago), since it lies at the lowest layer of an excavation. sentations found to date depict 17 species, including The era dates from 100,000 years lions, bears, and aurochs (prehistoric oxen), in black

Orkney Islands SWEDEN

SCOTLAND

DENMARK IRELAND ENGLAND WALES

ATLANTIC Stonehenge R h

i OCEAN n e Hohlenstein-Stadel CZECH UKRAINE REPUBLIC Mezhirich

FRANCE Willendorf SWITZ. Lascaux Altamira Pech-Merle

Chauvet Cernavoda Black Sea I Danube SPAIN T Corsica A L Y

Sardinia

GREECE TURKEY

Sicily

N AFRICA M e d Crete 500 km i t e r r a n e S e a 500 miles a n

Prehistoric site Map 1.1 EGYPT

CHAPTER 1 PREHISTORIC ART 23

LK038_P0023EDJanson9E.indd 23 06/11/2012 14:58 1.1 The Great Ceiling including or red outlines (fig. 1.2), sometimes polychro- overall sequence, yet radiocarbon dating proved Wounded Bison. matic (containing several colors). In rare instances, them to be among the earliest known, dating to ca. 15,000–10,000 BCE. Black images depict human or partly human forms. about 32,000 years ago. Indeed, it is a mistake to manganese outlines with red On first assessing the Altamira paintings, experts assume that naturalism was a Paleolithic artist’s— ocher and shading on limestone. Altamira, Spain declared them too advanced to be authentic and or any artist’s—inevitable or only goal. dismissed them as a hoax. Indeed, though cave art may represent the dawn of art as we know it, it is Interpreting Prehistoric Painting often highly sophisticated. The bison of Altamira As majestic as these paintings can be, they are and other sites were painted from memory, and also profoundly enigmatic. What purpose did they their forms demonstrate the painters’ acute powers serve? The simplest view, that they were merely of observation and skill in translating memory into decorative—“art for art’s sake”—is highly unlikely. image. Standing at rest, bellowing, or rolling on the Most of the existing paintings and engravings are ground, bison behave in these paintings as they do readily accessible, and many more that embellished in the wild. Shading (modeling) expresses the vol- caves opening directly to the outside have prob- ume of a bison’s belly, and the forward contour of ably perished. But some, as in the cave complex an animal’s far leg is often rendered with a lighter at Lascaux, in the Dordogne region of France, and hue to suggest distance. elsewhere, lie deep inside extensive cave systems, Initially, cave paintings were assigned relative remote from habitation and difficult to reach (fig. dates according to their degree of naturalism, that 1.3). In these cases, the image’s power may have is, how closely the image resembled the subject in resided in its making, rather than in its viewing: the nature. Since naturalism was then considered the act of creating it may have served some ritual or most advanced form of representation, the more religious purpose. naturalistic the image, the more evolved and, Approaches developed by ethnographers therefore, the more recent it was considered to be. (anthropologists who study cultural behavior) were Radiocarbon dating, developed in the mid-twentieth also adopted to interpret cave paintings and engrav- century, exposed flaws in this approach. Remark- ings. Most often, the inspiration for these works able for their naturalism, some of the paintings at was attributed to magico-religious motives. Thus Chauvet might appear to be more recent in the early humans may have equated an image with

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 24 15/10/2012 14:53 the animal it represented; to create or possess the hoped to stimulate fertility in the wild—ensuring 1.2 Lions and Bison. image was to exert power over its subject, which a continuous food supply—by depicting pregnant ca. 30,000–28,000 BCE. Limestone might result in a successful hunt. Gouge marks animals. A magico-religious interpretation might End Chamber, Chauvet Cave. on cave walls indicate that in some cases explain the choice to make animals appear lifelike, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, Ardèche Gorge, France were cast at the images. Similarly, artists may have and to control them by fixing them within outlines.

shaft

N

entrance rotunda

1.3 Schematic plan of Lascaux 0 .5 10 meters Cave system (based on a diagram 0 30 feet by the Service de l’Architecture, Paris)

Watch a video about the at Lascaux axial gallery Cave on myartslab.com

CHAPTER 1 PREHISTORIC ART 25

LK038_P0025EDJanson9E.indd 25 15/10/2012 17:25 1.4 Spotted Horses and Human Hands. Horses ca. 16,000 BCE; hands ca. 15,000 BCE. Limestone, approximate length 11Ј2Љ (3.4 m). Pech-Merle Cave. Dordogne, France

More recent theories concerning shamanism— hardly explains those at Chauvet, where 72 percent a belief in a parallel spirit world accessed through of the animals represented were not hunted, judg- alternative states of consciousness—build upon ing by organic remains found in the cave. these interpretations, arguing that an animal’s “spirit” was evident where a bulge in the rock Paleolithic Carving suggested its shape, as with the Spotted Horses (fig. Prehistoric artists also carved and modeled sculp- 1.4) at Pech-Merle in southwestern France. The tures, in a variety of materials. At just under 1 foot artist’s or shaman’s power brought that spirit to high, a figure from Hohlenstein-Stadel in Germany the surface. Some experts have cast the paintings (fig. 1.5) represents a standing creature, half human as images for worship; others focus on a painting’s and half feline, crafted out of ivory. Although it is in physical context. This means examining relation- a poor state of preservation, it is clear that the crea- ships between figures to determine, in the absence tion of this figure, with rudimentary stone tools, of an artificial frame, a ground-line or a landscape, was an arduous business. It involved splitting the The earliest Upper Paleolithic art dates to the whether multiple animal images signify individual dried mammoth tusk, scraping it into shape, and period (34,000–23,000 BCE). specimens or a herd, and whether these images using a sharp flint to incise such features as Among the best-known works represent a mythical past for early communities. the striations on the arm and the muzzle. Strenu- of the subsequent It also means recognizing that a cave 15 feet deep ous polishing followed, using powdered hematite period (28,000–22,000 BCE) are carved female statuettes such as is a different space from another over a mile deep, (an iron ore) as an abrasive. Exactly what the figure the Woman of Willendorf (see and was possibly used for different purposes, and represents is unclear: perhaps a human dressed as fig. 1.6); some 130 of these have that paintings in different spaces may have func- an animal, possibly for hunting purposes. Some pre- been found over a vast area from France to Siberia. The zenith of tioned differently. It means factoring in experiential historians have named these composite creatures prehistoric art was reached during aspects of caves: a precarious path, eerie flickering shamans or “sorcerers,” who could contact the the era (18,000– lights, echoes, and the musty smells that permeate spirit world through ritualistic behavior. 10,000 BCE), the last period of the Upper Paleolithic. Its masterpieces subterranean spaces, all added texture to the view- Women were frequent subjects in prehistoric are the magnificent cave paintings ing process. Most important, recent interpretations , especially in the GRAVETTIAN period, of animals in the Dordogne acknowledge that one explanation may not suffice when they far outnumbered men as subject mate- region of France, in the Pyrenees across all time and place. For instance, even if sym- rial. Discovered in 1908, the hand-sized limestone Mountains, and at Altamira in Spain. pathetic magic makes sense of some paintings, it carving of the Woman of Willendorf from Austria

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 26 15/10/2012 14:53 dates from about 28,000–25,000 bce (fig. 1.6), and still bears traces of ocher rubbed onto the surface. The artist reduced the female form to basic, abstract shapes instead of rendering it with the naturalism found in the representations of animals. Facial fea- tures are not a priority: Schematically rendered hair covers the entire head. Instead, emphasis rests on the figure’s reproductive qualities: Diminutive arms sit on pendulous breasts, whose rounded forms are echoed in the bulging belly and copious buttocks. Genitalia are shown between large thighs. The terminology applied to figures like the Woman of Willendorf in the past has complicated our interpretations of them. At the time of their first discovery in the mid-nineteenth century, they were named “Venus” figures after the Roman god- dess of love, whom ancient sculptors portrayed as a nude female; nineteenth-century archaeologists 1.6 Woman of Willendorf. believed the prehistoric figures to be similar to the ca. 28,000–25,000 BCE. 3 Љ Roman goddess, in function if not in form. Con- Limestone, height 4 ⁄8 (11.1 cm). Naturhistorisches Museum, temporary experts are still debating their meaning, Vienna

1.5 Hybrid figure with a human body and feline head, from Hohlenstein-Stadel (Baden-Württemberg), Germany. 2 ca. 35,000 BCE. Mammoth ivory, height 11 ⁄3Љ (29.6 cm). Ulmer Museum

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 27 15/10/2012 14:53 and avoid such anachronisms in terminology. The to between 16,000 and 10,000 bce (fig. 1.7), con- emphasis on reproductive features suggests that structed out of mammoth bones: interlocked pelvis she may have been a fertility object, or was perhaps bones, jawbones, and shoulder blades provided intended to ensure a successful birth rather than a framework, and tusks were set across the top. an increase in the number of pregnancies. Accord- Animal hides probably covered the frame. Archaeo- ing to one feminist view, the apparently distorted logical evidence shows that inside these the forms of figures like this reflect a woman’s view of inhabitants engaged in cold-weather occupations her own body as she looks down at it. If so, some of such as preparing foods, manufacturing tools, and the figures may have served as obstetric aids, docu- processing skins, which suggests that the structures menting stages of pregnancy to educate women were seasonal residences for mobile groups. toward healthy births. This may indicate that some of the artists were women. Neolithic Art Paleolithic Dwellings In the Paleolithic period, people generally built Around 10,000 bce, the climate began to warm, and huts and used caves for shelter and ritual pur- the ice that had covered almost a third of the globe 1.7 House at Mezhirich, poses. In rare cases, traces of dwellings survive. At started to recede, leaving Europe with more or less Ukraine. ca. 16,000–10,000 BCE. Mammoth bone. National History Mezhirich, in the Ukraine, a farmer discovered a the geography it has today. New vegetation and Museum, Kiev series of oval dwellings with central , dating changing animal populations caused human habits

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LK038_P0018EDJanson9E.indd 28 15/10/2012 14:53 1.8 Female and male figures, from Cernavoda, Romania. ca. 1 3500 BCE. Ceramic, height 4 ⁄2Љ (11.5 cm). National Museum of Antiquities, Bucharest

MEGALITHS: Generally undressed or rough-hewn stones, are often found on hilltops from southern France to Scotland and are particularly common in Brittany, in northwestern France. , the simplest form of to mutate. In the Neolithic period, or New Stone Elbowless arms meet where her hands rest on her megalithic tomb, have several large upright stones supporting a Age, people began to build more substantial struc- raised knee, delineating a triangle and enclosing single massive capstone. About tures than before, choosing settlement places for space within the sculptural form. This emphasizes 50,000 of these survive from Spain favorable qualities, such as a water supply, rather the figurine’s three-dimensionality, encouraging a to Sweden. There has been much than moving seasonally. Instead of hunting and viewer to look at it from several angles, moving debate about how the 30- to 40- ton capstones were placed atop gathering what nature supplied, they domesticated around it or shifting it in the hand. The abstraction the standing stones. animals and plants. This gradual change occurred highlights the pose; yet, tempting as it may be to at different times across the world; in some places, interpret it, perhaps as coquettishness, we should hunting and gathering are still the way of life. be cautious about reading meaning into it, since gestures can have dramatically different meanings Settled Societies and Neolithic Art from one culture to another. Found in a tomb, the During the Neolithic period, technologies devel- couple may represent the deceased, or mourners; oped that suggest the beginnings of specialization. perhaps they were gifts that had a separate purpose As the community could depend on a regular before burial. food supply, some members could devote time to acquiring special skills, including oven-fired pot- Architecture: Tombs and Rituals menhirs tery, weaving, and smelting of copper and lead. Neolithic dwellings were mostly framed in wood, In Europe, artists fashioned figurines, such with walls of (branches woven into a frame) as a woman and man from Cernavoda in Romania, and daub (mud or earth), and roofs of thatch, which of about 3500 bce (fig. 1.8). Like the Woman of Wil- rarely survive. In western and northern Europe, lendorf, they are highly abstract, yet their forms are concerns about ceremonial burial and ritual inspired more linear than rounded: The woman’s face is monumental architecture, using huge blocks of a flattened oval poised on a long, thick neck, and stone known as . They were usually sharp edges articulate her corporeality—across her mounted in a post-and-lintel arrangement (two breasts, for instance, and at the fold of her pelvis. upright stones supporting a horizontal capstone).

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LK038_P0029EDJanson9E.indd 29 07/11/2012 11:11 1.9 Stonehenge (aerial view). Often, megaliths appear in circles, called ca. 2400 BCE. Diameter of circle cromlechs. The best-known megalithic structure 97Ј (29.6 m). Salisbury Plain, is Stonehenge, on the Salisbury Plain in southern Wiltshire, England England (figs. 1.9 and 1.10). Its seemingly unified View the Closer Look design is in fact the result of several construction for Stonehenge on phases, possibly beginning as early as 3000 bce. myartslab.com At an early stage, a huge ditch was excavated,

altar stone modern path defining a circle some 360 feet in diameter in the trilithons bluestone circles white chalk ground, and an embankment over 6 feet high running around the inside. A wide stone- lined avenue led from the circle to a pointed gray sandstone (sarsen) , known today as the sarsen circle Heel Stone. By about 2400 bce, Stonehenge had bank grown into a horseshoe-shaped arrangement of five sarsen triliths (two upright stones supporting a ditch third, horizontal one), encircled by a ring of upright heel stone blocks capped with a lintel; between the rings was a circle of smaller bluestone blocks. The entrance ad matched the direction of the midsummer sunrise modern ro and midwinter sunset. Recent excavations exposed 1.10 Diagram of original avenue arrangement of stones at remains of a similar monument built of timber Stonehenge two miles away, with its entrance set to

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LK038_P0030EDJanson9E.indd 30 15/10/2012 17:26 the midsummer sunset and the midwinter sunrise. Archaeologists believe the structures are related. ART IN TIME What Stonehenge—and its counterpart—signified to those who constructed them remains a tantalizing mystery. Excavations ca. 38,000 BCE—Production exposed burials on the site in its earliest phases, and many prehis- of the earliest objects classed torians believe that Stonehenge marked the passing of time. Given as “art” its monumentality, most also concur that it had a ritual function; its circular arrangement supports this conjecture, as circles are central to rituals in many societies. What is certain is that it represents tre- mendous manpower organization and engineering skill. The largest ca. 30,000–28,000 BCE— trilith soars 24 feet, supporting a lintel 15 feet long and 3 feet thick. Lions and bison at A recent theory holds that the stones were not brought from afar as Chauvet Cave previously thought but from a glacial deposit nearby; still, the sarsen blocks weigh up to 50 tons apiece. The blocks reveal evidence of meticulous stone-working. Holes hollowed out of the capstones fit snugly over projections on the uprights (forming a mortise and tenon joint), to make a stable structure. Moreover, upright ca. 28,000–25,000 BCE— megaliths taper upward, with a central bulge, visually implying the Woman of Willendorf weight they bear, and capturing an energy that enlivens the stones. The lintels are worked in two directions, their faces inclining out- ward by about 6 inches to appear vertical from the ground, while at the same time they curve around on the horizontal plane to make a ca. 16,000 BCE—Spotted smooth circle. This kind of refinement is usually associated with the horses and human hands Parthenon of Classical Athens (see fig. 5.16). at Pech-Merle Cave

POINTS OF REFLECTION 1.1 Scholars offer a number of possible explanations for ca. 10,000 BCE—Earth’s climate gradually begins the initial development of art. Assess the relative to warm merits of their views. 1.2 Describe the possible functions of images of animals and humans in Paleolithic cave paintings. What are the factors that complicate our understanding of

their purpose? ca. 3500 BCE—Pottery 1.3 Analyze scholars’ interpretations of the Woman manufacturing appears in of Willendorf. Western Europe 1.4 Describe the formal and functional differences between Paleolithic and Neolithic buildings. What ca. 3500 BCE—Female prompted the construction of Neolithic monumental and male figures from structures such as Stonehenge? Cernavoda

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ca. 2400 BCE—Final major phase of construction at Stonehenge

CHAPTER 1 PREHISTORIC ART 31

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