Determine what animal images were made by ancient artists. Rock art of primitive people: what is hidden behind it? Primitive or high level ancient artists
Rock art - images in caves, made by people of the Paleolithic era, one of the types of primitive art. Most of these objects were found in Europe, since it was there that ancient people were forced to live in caves and grottoes to escape the cold. But there are such caves in Asia, for example, Niah Caves in Malaysia.
For many years, modern civilization had no idea about any objects of ancient painting, but in 1879, the Spanish amateur archaeologist Marcelino-Sans de Sautuola, along with his 9-year-old daughter, accidentally stumbled upon the Altamira Cave, the vaults of which were decorated many drawings of ancient people - an unparalleled find shocked the researcher and encouraged him to study it closely. A year later, Sautuola, together with his friend Juan Vilanov y Pier from the University of Madrid, published their research results, which dated the execution of the drawings to the Paleolithic era. Many scientists took this message extremely ambiguously, Sautuola was accused of falsifying the finds, but later similar caves were discovered in many other parts of the world.
Rock art has been an object of great interest from the scientists of the world since its discovery in the 19th century. The first finds were made in Spain, but subsequently, rock paintings were discovered in different parts of the world, from Europe and Africa to Malaysia and Australia, as well as in North and South America.
Rock paintings are a source of valuable information for many scientific disciplines related to the study of antiquity - from anthropology to zoology.
It is customary to distinguish between single-color, or monochrome, and multi-color, or polychrome images. Developing over time, by the XII millennium BC. e. cave painting began to be performed taking into account the volume, perspective, color and proportion of figures, took into account movement. Later cave painting became more stylized.
To create drawings, dyes of various origins were used: mineral (hematite, clay, manganese oxide), animal, vegetable (charcoal). Dyes were mixed with binders, such as tree resin or animal fat, if necessary, and applied directly to the surface with the fingers; tools were also used, such as hollow tubes through which dyes were applied, as well as reeds and primitive brushes. Sometimes, to achieve greater clarity of contours, scraping or cutting out the contours of figures on the walls was used.
Since almost no sunlight penetrates into the caves in which most of the rock paintings are located, torches and primitive lamps were used to create the paintings for lighting.
Cave painting of the Paleolithic era consisted of lines and was dedicated mainly to animals. Over time, cave painting evolved as primitive communities developed; in the painting of the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras, there are both animals and handprints and images of people, their interactions with animals and with each other, as well as the deities of primitive cults, their rites. A notable proportion of Neolithic drawings are images of ungulates, such as bison, deer, elk and horses, as well as mammoths; handprints also make up a large proportion. Animals were often depicted as wounded, with arrows sticking out of them. Later rock paintings also depict domesticated animals and other subjects contemporary to the authors. Known images of the ships of the sailors of ancient Phenicia, seen by the more primitive communities of the Iberian Peninsula.
Cave painting was widely practiced by primitive hunter-gatherer societies who found shelter in or near caves. The way of life of primitive people has changed little over the millennia, in connection with which both dyes and the plots of rock paintings remained practically unchanged and were common to populations of people who lived thousands of kilometers from each other.
However, there are differences between cave paintings of different time periods and regions. Thus, in the caves of Europe, animals are mainly depicted, while African rock paintings pay equal attention to both man and fauna. The technique of creating drawings also underwent certain changes; later painting is often less crude and shows a higher level of cultural development.
Ancient rock paintings (petroglyphs) are found all over the world and have one thing in common, they describe animals, including those that are no longer found on earth. Many of these drawings are so well-preserved that experts thought they were fake at first glance. However, after careful examination, the images were found to be genuine. Below is a list of ten well-preserved prehistoric rock paintings.
Chauvet cave
A cave located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the valley of the Ardèche River in southern France. Contains the earliest known and best preserved rock art in the world dating from the Aurignacian era (36,000 years ago). The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 by three cavers - Eliette Brunel, Christian Hillaire and Jean-Marie Chauvet. The drawings in the cave depict various animals from the Ice Age.
Magura Cave
Magura is a cave located near the village of Rabisha in the Vidin region, Bulgaria. In the cave, bones of a cave bear, cave hyena and other animals were found. And on its walls you can see drawings from different historical periods. They mainly depict female figures, hunters, animals, plants, the sun and stars.
The find includes about 5,000 Aboriginal drawings on rocks in Kakadu National Park, Australia. Most of the paintings were created around 2000 years ago. Interestingly, they depict not only animals such as white sea bass, catfish, kangaroos, rock couscous and others, but also their bones (skeletons).
Tadrart-Acacus
Tadrart Acacus is a mountain range in the Ghat Desert in western Libya, part of the Sahara. The massif is known for its prehistoric rock art, which spans the period 12000 BC. e. - 100 AD e. and reflects the cultural and natural changes in the area. The drawings depict animals such as giraffes, elephants, ostriches, camels and horses, as well as people in various situations of daily life, such as dancing and playing musical instruments.
Serra da Capivara is a national park located in the northeastern part of Brazil in the eastern state of Piauí. The park contains many caves containing examples of prehistoric art. The drawings, in great detail, depict animals and trees, as well as hunting scenes. A well-known site in the park, Pedra Furada contains the oldest remnants of human activity on the continent that have significantly altered the idea of American settlement. In order to preserve numerous prehistoric exhibits and drawings, the Brazilian government created this national park.
Lascaux Cave is located in the southwest of France and is famous for its rock paintings dating back to the Paleolithic period. The cave contains about 2,000 drawings, which can be grouped into three main categories: animals, human figures, and abstract signs. The cave is one of the places on the planet where you will not be allowed.
Bhimbetka Rock Dwellings is an archaeological site of over 600 rock shelters located in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India. These shelters contain the earliest traces of human activity in India; according to archaeologists, some of them could have been inhabited more than 100 thousand years ago. Most of the drawings are in red and white and depict animals such as crocodiles, lions, tigers and others.
Laas Gaal
Laas Gaal is a cave complex located on the outskirts of the city of Hargeisa in Somalia. Known for its well-preserved rock art. The drawings date back to the ninth - third millennium BC. e. and depict mostly cows, humans, giraffes, wolves, or dogs.
Altamira Cave is located near the city of Santillana del Mar, Cantabria in Spain. It was accidentally discovered in 1879 by amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. This great archaeological discovery is known for its ancient rock paintings of the Upper Paleolithic era (35 - 12 thousand years ago), which depict bison, horses, wild boars, human palm prints and more.
Cueva de las Manos
Cueva de las Manos is a cave located in southern Argentina, in the province of Santa Cruz, in the Pinturas river valley. Known for archaeological and paleontological finds. First of all, these are rock paintings depicting human hands, the oldest of which date back to the ninth millennium BC. e. The left hands of teenage boys are depicted on the walls of the cave. This fact suggested that these images were part of an ancient rite. In addition to hands, the walls of the cave depict guanacos, rhea, cats and other animals, as well as hunting scenes for them.
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A long time ago, not the tires of cars and bicycles, and even human feet not shod in comfortable shoes, plowed the earth - a long time ago the earth was the place of residence of ancient people. And although primitive man was not the full ruler of the prehistoric planet, in the distant future he was to take the main place on it. How to draw a primitive man in a few steps - we will consider in this lesson.
- To begin with, let's designate the figure of our thug. Let's draw the outline of the head - it looks like a triangle with rounded edges. Let's draw the axes of the torso, arms and legs, not forgetting the lines of the shoulders and hips.
Advice: note that the right leg is in the foreground and slightly bent at the knee. This means that the axis with this leg will be larger (longer) and have a fold approximately in the middle.
- In the contour of the head we will draw a rounded line delimiting the face from the mane of a primitive man. On the body of a man, we will highlight the protruding places with ovals, with their help it will be easier for us to draw the figure of a Neanderthal. Let's mark the borders of the body with two vertical lines.
Advice: the far leg is separated from the main figure, so her knee and foot will be located higher than the leg in the foreground.
- And now - the most interesting. Let's sculpt the figure of our ancient warrior, based on the previously made outlines and looking at the photo of the original. A primitive man has a massive figure - strong arms and legs, a slightly sagging belly and overhanging chest, sloping cries. Moreover, the arms are longer than those of a modern person - and they remind us of the hands of a monkey. For now, we draw the feet in the form of trapeziums, expanding towards the toes.
On the face of the Neanderthal, we mark the overhanging forehead with a line, draw the eyes, outline the nose and mouth.
- Let's erase all the auxiliary lines and start drawing the face of the Neanderthal. A narrow forehead hangs over a large face, a shaggy eyebrow curved in an arch gives the face a formidable expression. Let's designate a high cheekbone. Under the big nose, draw a mustache and beard with strokes. From above we draw hair - I got something in between Igor Nikolaev and Dzhigurda.
In the left hand, we outline the axis of a large club. Divide the tips of the feet with four lines - to draw the fingers.
Let us warm the primitive man and throw a loincloth over him. On the elbows, knees and stomach, we outline the folds of the skin with strokes - to make the picture realistic.
We remove unnecessary lines of the legs from the loincloth. On the feet we draw fingers. We “dress” the primitive man in the hairline on the body with light small strokes. We also decorate the bear's skin with hairs. We draw a club along the previously drawn axis. The drawing of the primitive man is ready!
Prehistoric rock art is the most abundant evidence available of how mankind took the first steps in the field of art, knowledge and culture. It is found in most countries of the world, from the tropics to the Arctic, and in a wide variety of places - from deep caves to mountain heights.
Several tens of millions of rock paintings and artistic motifs have already been discovered, and more and more are being discovered every year. This solid, durable, cumulative monument of the past is clear evidence that our distant ancestors developed complex social systems.
Some common false claims about the origins of art should have been rejected at their very source. Art, as such, did not appear suddenly, it developed gradually with the enrichment of human experience. By the time the famous cave art appeared in France and Spain, it is believed that artistic traditions were already well developed, at least in South Africa, Lebanon, Eastern Europe, India and Australia, and no doubt in many other regions that are still should be investigated accordingly.
When did people first decide to generalize reality? This is an interesting question for art historians and archaeologists, but it is also of broad interest, given that the idea of cultural primacy has an impact on the formation of ideas about racial, ethnic and national value, even fantasy. For example, the claim that art originated in the caves of Western Europe becomes an incentive to create myths about European cultural superiority. Secondly, the origins of art should be considered closely related to the emergence of other purely human qualities: the ability to create abstract ideas and symbols, to communicate at the highest level, to develop an idea of \u200b\u200bthemselves. Apart from prehistoric art, we have no real evidence from which to infer the existence of such abilities.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ART
Artistic creativity was considered a model of "impractical" behavior, that is, behavior that seemed to be devoid of a practical goal. The oldest clear archaeological evidence of this is the use of ocher or red iron ore (hematite), a red mineral dye removed and used by people several hundred thousand years ago. These ancient people also collected crystals and patterned fossils, colorful and oddly shaped gravel. They began to distinguish between ordinary, everyday objects and unusual, exotic ones. Obviously, they developed ideas about a world in which objects could be distributed into different classes. Evidence first appears in South Africa, then in Asia, and finally in Europe.
The oldest known rock painting was made in India two or three hundred thousand years ago. It consists of bowl-shaped depressions and a sinuous line chiselled into the sandstone of the cave. Around the same time, simple linear signs were made on various kinds of portable objects (bones, teeth, tusks and stones) found at the sites of the sites of primitive man. Sets of carved lines collected in a bundle first appear in central and eastern Europe, they acquire a certain improvement, which makes it possible to recognize individual motifs: scribbles, crosses, arcs and sets of parallel lines.
This period, which archaeologists call the Middle Paleolithic (somewhere between 35,000 and 150,000 years ago), was decisive for the development of human mental and cognitive abilities. It was also the time when people acquired seafaring skills and detachments of colonists could make transitions up to 180 km. Regular maritime navigation, obviously, required the improvement of the communication system, that is, the language.
People of this era also mined ocher and flint in several world regions. They began to build large joint houses out of bones and put up stone walls inside the caves. And most importantly, they created art. In Australia, some samples of rock art appeared 60,000 years ago, that is, in the era of the settlement of the continent by people. In hundreds of places there are objects that are believed to be of more ancient origin than the art of Western Europe. But during this era, rock art also appears in Europe. Its oldest example of those that are known to us - a system of nineteen cup-like signs in a cave in France, carved on a stone rock slab, covered the place of a child's burial.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this era is the cultural unanimity that prevailed in the then world in all regions of settlement. Despite the differences in tools, no doubt due to differences in the environment, cultural behavior was surprisingly stable. The use of ocher and an expressively uniform set of geometric markings testify to the existence of a universal artistic language between archaic Homo sapiens, including European Neanderthals and others known to us from fossils.
Figurative images (sculptures) arranged in a circle first appear in Israel (about 250-300 thousand years ago), in the form of modified natural forms, then in Siberia and central Europe (about 30-35 thousand years ago), and only later in Western Europe. About 30,000 years ago, rock art was enriched by intricate finger-cuts on the soft surface of caves in Australia and Europe, and stencil images of palms in France. Two-dimensional images of objects began to appear. The oldest examples, created approximately 32,000 years ago, come from France, followed by South African drawings (Namibia).
About 20,000 years ago (very recently in terms of human history), significant differences begin to form between cultures. Late Paleolithic people in Western Europe began fine traditions, both in the sculptural and graphic arts of ritual and decorative consumption. About 15,000 years ago, this tradition led to such famous masterpieces as the painting in the caves of Altamira (Spain) and Lescaut (France), as well as the appearance of thousands of elaborately carved figures from stone, tusks, bone, clay and other materials. It was a time of the finest multicolored works of cave art, drawn or minted by a certain hand of master craftsmen. However, the development of graphic traditions in other regions was not easy.
In Asia the forms of geometrical art developed into very perfect systems, some resembling official records, others mnemonic emblems, peculiar texts intended to refresh the memory.
Starting around the end of the ice age, about 10,000 years ago, rock art has gradually moved beyond the caves. This was dictated not so much by the search for new better places, but (there is almost no doubt here) by the survival of rock art through selection. Rock art is well preserved in the permanent conditions of deep limestone caves, but not on rock surfaces more open to destruction. So, the unquestioning spread of rock art at the end of the Ice Age does not indicate the growth of artistic production, but the overcoming of the threshold of what ensured good preservation.
On all continents, bypassing Antarctica, rock art now shows the diversity of artistic styles and cultures, the progressive growth of the ethnic diversity of mankind on all continents, as well as the development of major religions. Even the last historical stage in the development of mass migrations, colonizations and religious expansion is thoroughly reflected in rock art.
DATING
There are two main forms of rock art, petroglyphs (carvings) and pictors (drawings). Petroglyphic motifs were created by carving, gouging, chasing or polishing rock surfaces. In pictograms, additional substances, usually paint, were superimposed on the rocky surface. This difference is very important, it determines the approaches to dating.
The methodology of scientific dating of rock art has been developed only during the last fifteen years. Therefore, it is still at the stage of its "childhood", and the dating of almost all world rock art remains in poor condition. This, however, does not mean that we have no idea of his age: often there are all kinds of landmarks that allow us to determine the approximate or at least probable age. Sometimes it is lucky to determine the age of a rock carving quite accurately, especially when the paint contains organic substances or microscopic inclusions that allow dating due to the radioactive isotope of carbon they contain. A careful evaluation of the results of such an analysis can determine the date quite accurately. On the other hand, the dating of petroglyphs remains extremely difficult.
Modern methods are based on determining the age of mineral deposits that could be deposited on rock art. But they allow you to determine only the minimum age. One way is to analyze the microscopic organic matter embedded in such mineral layers; laser technology can be successfully used here. Today, only one method is suitable for determining the age of the petroglyphs themselves. It is based on the fact that the mineral crystals, which were chipped during the gouging of petroglyphs, initially had sharp edges, which eventually became blunt and rounded. By determining the rate of such processes on nearby surfaces, the age of which is known, it is possible to calculate the age of petroglyphs.
Several archaeological methods can also help a little in the matter of dating. If, for example, the rock surface is covered with archaeological layers of mud whose age can be determined, they can be used to determine the minimum age of the petroglyphs. Comparisons of stylistic manners are often resorted to in order to determine the chronological framework of rock art, though not very successfully.
Much more reliable methods of studying rock art, which often resemble the methods of forensic science. For example, the ingredients of a paint can tell how it was made, what tools and additives were used, where the dyes came from, and the like. Human blood, which was used as a binder during the Ice Age, has been found in Australian rock art. Australian researchers also found up to forty superimposed layers of paint in different places, indicating the constant redrawing of the same surface over a long time. Like the pages of a book, these layers tell us the history of the use of surfaces by artists over generations. The study of such layers is just beginning and can lead to a real revolution in views.
The pollen of plants found on the fibers of brushes in the paint of rock paintings indicates what crops were grown by contemporaries of ancient artists. In some French caves, characteristic paint recipes were found out by their chemical composition. By charcoal dyes, often used for drawings, even the type of wood burned to charcoal was determined.
Rock art research has evolved into a separate scientific discipline, and is already used by many other disciplines, from geology to semiotics, from ethnology to cybernetics. His methodology provides for expressiveness through the electronic display of colors of very spoiled, almost completely faded drawings; a wide range of specialized description methods; microscopic studies of traces left by tools and scanty sediments.
VULNERABLE MONUMENTS
Methods for the preservation of prehistoric monuments are also being developed and increasingly applied. Copies of rock art pieces (fragments of the object or even the entire object) have been made to prevent damage to the originals. Yet many of the world's prehistoric monuments are in constant danger. Acid rain dissolves the protective mineral layers that cover many petroglyphs. All the turbulent flows of tourists, urban sprawl, industrial and mountain development, even unqualified research contribute to the dirty work of shortening the age of inestimable artistic treasures.
") painted pictures of the animals they hunted. They were the first people to paint using paints, although they probably painted their bodies long before that with a crushed red rock, the so-called ocher.
Apparently, the Cro-Magnons used these drawings for religious purposes. They believed that the drawings would protect against evil forces and help during the hunt, on the success of which their very existence depended. Until now, no drawings made by more ancient people have been found. Perhaps they drew or scratched with something sharp on pieces of wood that had rotted away a long time ago.
Cro-Magnons painted horses, bison and deer. Often in the drawings there are also images of spears, which, according to the artist's intention, should have brought good luck during a real hunt.
One of the Cro-Magnon artists put his hand to the rock, and then sprayed paint around it through a reed. Images of people or plants are extremely rare in early drawings.
In front of you is an image of a woolly mammoth carved on the wall of the cave, on which its long shaggy hair is clearly visible. Rock art often shows us what prehistoric animals looked like.
Cro-Magnons carved in stone figurines of very fat or pregnant women. They also sculpted figurines out of clay, after which they burned them on fire. Probably, primitive people believed that such figurines would bring them good luck.
Cave drawings
Take up rock painting
You will need plaster, a box like a large matchbox, twine, duct tape, and paints.
Take a piece of twine 6 cm long and fold it in half so that you get a loop. Attach this loop with adhesive tape to the bottom of the box from the inside.
Mix the gypsum with so that you get a thin solution, and pour it into the box, a layer about 3 cm thick should form there. Let the gypsum harden, then peel the box away from it.
Repaint one of the rock paintings on this page on this piece of plaster. Then color it in using the same colors as the caveman: red, yellow, brown and black.
You can also reproduce a carved image of an animal. Transfer the outline of the mammoth shown on this page to a piece of plaster. Then, with an old fork, push the lines in plaster along the entire contour.