Global Prehistory Overview
Paleolithic Art: 40,000-8,000 BCE in the Near East
"Old Stone Age" 40,000-4,000 BCE in Europe
(Venus of Willendorf, Feline-headed statue, Lascaux Caves, Catal Hoyuk)
Neolithic Art: 8,000- 3,000 BCE in the Near East
"New Stone Age" 4,000- 2,000 BCE in Europe
(Stonehenge)
Key Ideas
"Old Stone Age" 40,000-4,000 BCE in Europe
(Venus of Willendorf, Feline-headed statue, Lascaux Caves, Catal Hoyuk)
- Hunter-Gatherers, Nomadic
Neolithic Art: 8,000- 3,000 BCE in the Near East
"New Stone Age" 4,000- 2,000 BCE in Europe
(Stonehenge)
- Cultivated, raised livestock, organized settlements
Key Ideas
- 75,000 BCE: Stick of ochre (a pigment of the earth, brown/yellow) are engraved in Blombos Cave, South Africa, 61,000 years before the Lascaux caves!
- Earliest works are cave paintings and portable sculptures
- Conjectures are made about the meaning of prehistoric works
- Monuments like Stonehenge show that people were able to build structures made of the post and lintel system.
- The need to create is one of the strongest human impulses.
- Focus on materials indigenous to the environment/geography
- Since context is largely unknown, focus on original location and content
Characteristics of PAintings
- Animal figures dominate- usually with a dark outline
- Humans represented as stick figures, negative handprints
- Lascaux Caves, 15,000- 13,000 BCE, France
- Altimira Caves, Spain
Characteristics of Architecture
- Shelters out of large animal bones
- Post and lintel systems (most basic type of architecture)
- Stonehenge, possibly
Characteristics of Sculpture
- All in-the-round sculpture is portable
- Some human representations have emphasis on certain body parts
- Carvings on cave walls utilize natural formations in the rock
IMAGES
1. Apollo 11 stones
2. Great Hall of the Bulls 3. Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine 4. Running horned woman 5. Beaker with ibex motifs 6. Anthropomorphic stele 7. Jade cong 8. Stonehenge 9. The Ambum Stone 10. Tlatilco female figurine 11. Terra cotta fragment Additional 12. Lion headed figure 13. Venus of Willendorf |
Videos & Links |
Vocabulary1. Paleolithic
2. Neolithic 3. shematic 4. shaman 5. abstraction 6. hunter-gatherer 7. ritual 8. cosmos 9. ceramics 10. monolithic 11. composite 12. anthropomorphic 13. motifs |