Prehistoric Art in Europe  Fossilized remains and footprints of the

earliest human believed to be 1.8 million

Time Periods: years old.
 Many tools, vessels and other handmade
 Paleolithic Art: 30,000 BCE to 8,000 in the
artifacts found here.
Near East, 30,000 BCE to 4,000 BCE in
Europe.
Prehistoric Sculpture
 Neolithic Art: 8,000 BCE to 3,000 BCE in - All portable
the Near East, 4000 BCE to 2000 in Europe - Most are very small
The earliest surviving works of art are cave - Carving on cave walls make use of
natural modulations in the wall surface
paintings and portable sculptures of humans and
to enhance the image.
animals.
Little is know about the original intention or Contours of stone used as a starting point for
meaning of prehistoric works. carvings on cave walls.

Building such as Stonehenge show the ability of Prehistoric Cave Painting

prehistoric people to build elaborate religious  Prime examples include Lascaux,
structures using the post and lintel system of France and Altamira, Spain.
construction.  Most are deeply recessed from the
cave openings
Prehistoric Background:  Images of animals dominate with black
 Paleolithic (“Old Stone Age”) outlines emphasizing their contours
 Main animals include horse, bison,
- People were hunter-gatherers
mammoth, ibex, aurochs and deer
- People used caves and other natural
 Animals are realistic, humans are stick
shelters as homes
figures with little detail.
- People were unsettled (move  Many handprints (negative done by
frequently) blowing paint over hand)
 Neolithic (“New Stone Age”)  Often left hands, some missing joints
- People cultivated the earth and raise or fingers (voluntary mutilation)
livestock  Scattered around the cave surface with
- People lived in organized settlements no relationship to one another
- People divided labor into occupations  Abstract signs and symbols included
- People constructed the first homes. with images
 No vegetation or ground/horizon line.
*Prehistoric- all human existence before writing.  Individual images often painted over
one another suggest process, or the
Even before writing, people were:
act of creation may have been more
-carving objects
important than the product.
-painting images
-creating structures/shelter
Cave Painting Theories
- a way to strengthen clan bonds
 Homo sapiens (our subspecies) evolved
- a ceremony to enhance animal fertility
about 120,000 to 100,000 years ago.
- expression of sympathetic magic
 We can only make hypothesis about
- religious or magical function
prehistoric art.
- visual record of hallucinations
 The paintings, sculptures and structures
- visual record of real life happenings
that have survived are only a fraction of
- just people enjoying the creative process.
what must have been created over a very
long period of time.
- Natural products used to make paint:
 Prehistoric art is one of the most
charcoal, iron ore, plants
speculative areas of art history.
 - 650 paintings: most common are cows,  Structures that suggest sanctuaries and
bulls, horses and deer organized religion.
- Animal placed deep inside the cave, some  New demands and reasons for art
hundreds of feet in creation.
- Bodies seen in profile, frontal or diagonal
view of horns, eyes, and hooves, some
animals appear pregnant. Relative Drawing- compare objects in a single
- Many overlapping figures excavation or nearby sites.
- Evidence still visible of scaffolding erected
to get to higher areas of the caves. Absolute Dating- aims to determine a precise
- Negative handprints: are these signature? span of calendar year in which an artifact was
- Caves were not dwellings because created.
prehistoric people led migratory lives
following herds of animals; some evidence Radiometric Dating- measures how materials
exists that people sought shelter at the disintegrated over time (carbon dating)
mouths of cave.
- Walls were scraped to an even surface; Potassium-Argon Dating, Thermo-Luminescence
paint colors were bound with animals fat; Dating, Electron Spin Resonance: other fancy
lamps light interior caves. ways.

These technologies help expert be more precise.

Neolithic Art (New Stone Age)
Three conditions: Prehistoric Architecture- most famous structures
1. Organized agriculture were for worship, not for housing.
2. Maintenance of herds of domesticated
animals Menhirs (long individual stones)- used to create a
3. Permanent, year-round settlement complex are called Megaliths.

Rock Shelter Art A circle of Megaliths, usually with Lintels on top,

 Combined geometric forms and simplified is called a Cromlech.
depictions of people and animals engaged
in everyday activities. Align with important calendar dates.
 Abstract style, simple line drawing and
little color Two uprights with horizontal beams= POST AND
 Animals in a “flying gallop” (still used LINTEL (most fundamental type of architecture in
today to show movement) history).

Structure Jericho, c.7500 B.C.

 Beginnings of architecture -the earliest stone fortifications discovered to
 Built homes, storage spaces and shelters date. It was a town of mud brick houses that
for animals out of woods, stones, animal covered 6-10 acres and had 2,000 people. They
bones and plant materials. built a huge brick wall five feet thick and 20 feet
 Examples include Jericho (7500B.C.), Catal high for protection.
Huyuk and Stonehenge.
Catal Huyuk (7500-5700 B.C, Konya, Turkey)
Pottery and Smelting -plenty of artifacts found here (plastered skulls,
 Often richly decorated clay figures, murals and wall carving)
 Objects made of non-indigenous - the best preserved Neolithic site found to date
materials suggest commerce. -all domestic building
-housed 10,000 people
Evidence of New Priestly Class -mud brick houses crammed together without
footpaths or streets
- accessed by holes in the ceilings, ladders and
stairs. The rooftops were the streets.

Stonehenge, England c. 2100 BCE (sandstone)

-whoever stood at the exact center on the
morning of the summer solstice 3,260 years ago
would have seen the sunrise directly over the
heel stone.
-there are five “trilithon” pairs of upright stones
topped by lintels.
-stone are imported 200 miles aways
-may predict eclipses
-oriented toward sunrise in longest day of the
year.
-maybe took 1000 year to build.
-Post and lintel
-lintels grooved in place by the mortise and tenon
system of building
- large megaliths in center are over 20 feet tall
form a horseshoe
-surrounding a central flat stone
-ring of megaliths surrounds horseshoe
-some stone are 50 tons
-HENGE- a neolithic monument, circular plan,
rituals and astronomy,