Palaeolithic art

(Adapted from wikipedia for ESO)
Palaeolithic art was produced from about 32,000 to 11,000 years ago. There are two categories: Parietal or Cave Art and Mobiliary or Portable Art.

PARIETAL OR CAVE ART

• Cave art or cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings. The purpose of the palaeolithic cave paintings is not known. The 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. Also, they are often in areas of caves that are not easily accessed. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of communicating with others, while other theories ascribe them a religious or ceremonial purpose.

The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as:

Bison

(Bison from Altamira cave, Santillana del Mar, Spain)

Horses

(from Lascaux cave, Dordogne, France)

Deer

(female deer from Altamira cave, Santillana del Mar, Spain)

Aurochs

(from Lascaux cave, Dordogne, France)

But also there were tracings of human hands:

(From El Castillo cave, Puente Viesgo, Spain)

Or abstract patterns:

 (From El Castillo cave, Puente Viesgo, S,pain)

And fingers flutings (lines that fingers leave on a soft surface)

• Rock engravings: they were made with a burin (a lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which prehistoric humans may have used for engraving or for carving wood or bone.)

 (Animal engravings from Coa Valley, Portugal. Photo from wikipedia)

• Bas-reliefs:  sculptures carved on a surface so that they stand out fron the background. They occur in cave entrances or rock shelters for they are sites lit by daylight.

(Aurochs from Fourneau-du-Diable, BourdeiIles, France)

 (Wall reliefs at Roc-aux-Sorcier rock shelter, Vienne, France)

MOBILIARY OR PORTABLE ART 

Portable Art pieces are small mobile objects that could be carried from place to place; this kind of art consists of objects carved from stone, bone, ivory  or antler, and they take a wide variety of forms.

• Engraved pieces

Engraved stone

 (Hind from Parapalló Cave, Gandía, Spain)

Engraved ivory

 (Mammoth from La Madeleine cave, Dordogne, France. Photo from H. Delporte, Don's Maps)

Engraved bone

(Horses fron El Pendo Cave, Escobedo de Camargo, Spain)

• Carved pieces

Carved antler

 (Bison from La Madeleine cave, Dordogne, France)

Carved ivory 

(Horse fron Grotte des Espelugues, Lourdes, France) 

Carved bone

(From Enlène cave, Ariége, France )

• Venus figurines: prehistoric small statuettes of women (4-22cm height) portrayed with similar physical attributes (certain parts of the human anatomy are exaggerated, such as abdomen, hips, breasts and thighs meanwhile other anatomical details are neglected or absent, especially arms and feet). These figurines were carved from soft stone, bone or ivory, or formed of clay and fired. 

(Venus of Grimaldi)

(Venus of Lespugne)

(Venus of Willendorf )

Palaeolithic tools

This is a summary of an entry from Wikipedia; it has been adapted to ESO.

Lower Palaeolithic

The earliest stone tools in human history are characterised by their simple construction, predominantly comprising of core forms. These cores were rocks that had been struck repeatedly to whittle flakes away, forming a sharp tip:

Eventually, more complex tools began to be developed; these were characterised not by the core, but by the biface. The most notable form of which was the hand axe:

Middle Palaeolithic

In Europe, these bifaces evolved to produce smaller and sharper knife-like tools as well as scrapers:

                                          (picture from www.artehistoria.jcyl.es)

Upper Palaeolithic

At this time, long blades (rather than flakes) appeared:

By the end of the Upper Palaeolithic microliths appeared; they were small stone tools (one centimetre long and half a centimetre wide), sufficiently worked so as to be distinguishable from workshop waste or accidents. Regardless of type, microliths were used to form the points of hunting weapons such as spears and (in later periods) arrows and other composite tools.

(Click yellow links for further information and photos)

Comparing a gorilla skeleton to a human one

Click here and go to the Encyclopedia Britannica website to see the original entry.