SUBJECT: Prehistory
Survey Chapter: 1
RESOURCES
Student discussion readings for this lecture:
Student discussion videos for this lecture:
 The key video resource for this lecture is Dr. Nigel Spivey’s 1 hour film from the
“How Art Made the World Series” – use Part 3 “The Art of Persuasion” which
links contemporary political campaigns (the 2004 presidential race) to the art of
Prehistory, Ancient Near East, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. Have
students watch either at home or in-class.
Optional in-class video resources for this lecture:
 Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams is excellent to show in-class clips of
the Chauvet Caves.
 See PBS Nova The Secrets of Stonehenge. The first 10 mins are great for
showing Stonehenge in 3D and contemporary archeologists working there.
LECTURE NOTES
Key question for the lecture: How can Prehistoric objects help us to begin our
investigation of the relationship between Art and Power?
Timeline: c. 32,000 BCE (Chauvet Caves) to c. 7,000 (Neolithic settlements)
Historical outline: see lecture notes
Objects covered:
1. Woman of Willendorf 22,000 BCE.
2. Lion Human, 32,000 BCE
3. Spotted Horses and Human Hands, Peche-Merle, Dordogne, France 25,000
BCE
4. Hall of Bulls, Lascaux Cave, Dordogne, France c. 15,000 BCE
5. Bison, Le Tuc d’Audoubert, France c. 13,000 BCE
6. Chauvet Cave, Ardeche Gorge, France 32,000-30,000 BCE
7. Çatal Hüyük, Turkey 7400-6200 BCE
8. Sesklo Stone Foundation House, Greece, 6500 BCE
9. Stonehenge c. 3000-1500 BCE
10. Rock Art: Boat and Sea Battle, Sweden, Bronze Age c. 1500-500 BCE
Conclusion:
1
LECTURE
Art and Power
 This is the very beginning of our selective understanding of the history of art.
 Theme for the semester is Art and Power: political power, economic power,
social or ruling power displayed, operated, mirrored through art
 Today, we will look at objects from thousands of years ago. What can they tell us
about visual art and power – ie. why are we looking at ancient objects? To
discern social systems via artifacts left to us.
Target for today: understand what Prehistory is and some of its material culture
 Today, we’re going to start at the very beginning of the art history survey with
Prehistory.
 Just to put our period of study for today into chronological perspective, the earth
itself may be between 5 and 6 billions years old and Hominids, the immediate
ancestors of humans, appeared more than 10 millions years ago.
 Therefore, lots of things happened on earth by the time the first visual art comes
into existence.
 We’re going to begin our survey looking at cave paintings from around 25,000
BCE (explain BCE and CE), along with prehistoric sculpture, buildings, and
monuments.
 Our chronology will span a time period when humans roamed the earth
nomadically until about 10,000 BCE when the first settlements appear.
First things first…
What does the term “pre-history” refer to?
 Prehistory is a term that refers to all of human history that precedes the invention
of writing systems, ca 3,500BC, and the keeping of written records, and it is an
immensely long period of time, some ten million years according to current
theories.
 We will split our study of Prehistory into two camps - DEFINE: Paleolithic and
Neolithic (old, new, nomadic, settled, time periods etc)
 Lithic = stone, because these people worked with stone
 It refers to the dependence upon stone for tools and weapons. As the technology
changed (the introduction of metal), so did the culture.
 In the pre-history of mankind, there are two important periods, the Paleolithic
(Old Stone Age) Era and the Neolithic (New Stone Age) era.

By the end of the lesson we will be able to understand prehistory chronologically
and to identify and talk about a few Prehistoric objects.
How did we gain an understanding of Paleolithic culture?
 Archaeology is important for us – this will be an interdisciplinary study.
 Burial sites; burial was (and is) a cultural performance; burial goods might be
placed with the dead, or cremated with them, showing the dead person’s status
to the living who watched the burial and shared in a process or ritual of mourning
 Portable objects/sculptures
 No houses or permanent domestic architecture
 Point to map slide
2
1) Ancestors of humans originate in Africa;
2) Homo Sapiens (our species) emerges ca. 200,000 BCE after a lengthy process of
evolution – details in dispute: brain grows in size and complexity; man learns to make
and use simple tools; man develops a spiritual sense – a cognition of
cerebral/imaginative capabilities of man
3) Man begins to migrate out of Africa and settle most of the world, including Australia
and the Americas;
and 4) Man begins to invent “culture”. Part of the “Upper Paleolithic” or Late Prehistoric
Age. Representational images begin around 38,000 BCE.
In ways that are unlike those of other animals, humans are able to modify nature to fit
their needs and they are able to create and transmit culture to future generations. This
is the distinguishing factor of the homo sapien, and it’s the beginning of our story in
terms of cultural artifacts.
 Class Q: What do we mean by the term culture?
“Culture may be defined as the ways of living built up by a group and passed on from
one generation to another. It may include behavior, material things, ideas, institutions,
and religious truth. The source of human creativity is our large and convoluted brain.
We create ideas and institutions. We formulate our thoughts in speech, allowing us to
transmit our culture to future generations. We also can bring together our fingers and
thumb, enabling us to make and hold tools. The combination of speech and material
invention was necessary for the development of human culture.” [Craig, etc. Heritage,
3rd ed, 3] NO WRITING YET.
Culture is
- Learned behavior, not genetic or biological; includes languages, customs, beliefs,
technology etc
- Shared by a group – more than one person to constitute a culture
- Is a primary means of adaptation to our environment; often a survival mechanism
- A system of interrelated parts (eg. Economy related to politics, related to industry)
- Therefore change in one part affects many other parts
So, we’ll begin with a stone sculpture of a female from 22,000 years before the year zero
that some of you drew already. We’re going to spend some time looking closely this
semester, so the first thing I want you to ask yourself – for all objects – is “what do you
see?” As we discuss, fill out your Graphic Organizer
 Slide: Woman of Willendorf 22,000 BCE. 4.5 inches high
So, something like Woman of Willendorf can perhaps tell us about how the female form
was viewed culturally as this isn’t an exact replication of what we know Homo Sapien
women looked like at this time
- the body has been changed to accentuate certain characteristics. Why?
- Most of the figures from the “upper Paleolithic period” are women
3
-
Women bear children – this may have ensured the continuation of the cult
She is well nourished – health, food
Portable object – a migratory people
Could have been used for diplomatic gifts between tribes
This is substantiated by the repetition of these forms over wide geographic
expanses
Suggests a shared value of the female body promoted accord between different
migratory clans
 *Woman from Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic 23,000 BCE
Made from soil and water; early use of this method; made not to remain whole figures
but to blow up during the firing period; very few whole figures remain; therefore, while
there might be a shared conception of what the female form was, there were different
ways of using it ritually and culturally
 *Woman from Brassempouy, France, Ivory, 3.6cm
memory figure; abstract art; small and portable; just giving us the features retain from
the act of looking at someone known well; personal sculpture
What is abstraction?
The reduction of shapes and appearances to basic yet unrecognizable forms.
Summation Slide: The Characteristics of the Paleolithic Era (2,000,000 to 10/9,000
BCE):
1) name from the type of primitive stone tools used by early men and women;
2) Homo sapiens appeared about 400,000 year ago; modern homo sapiens appear as
early as 120,000
3) their migration out of Africa to Australia and the Americas (100,000-35,000 BCE) was
made possible by an Ice Age, which created land bridges;
4) Paleolithic lifestyle was a result of their relationship to nature. They were nomadic
hunters, gatherers, and fishers; they did not produce their own food and they lived
precariously as peoples completely dependent on their environment.
5) Discoveries include the use of fire for light, heat, and cooking; The invention of stone
weapons and tools such as daggers, spear points, axes, choppers, and scrapers; The
use of spoken language for communication and the preservation of culture; and religious
rituals; and probably the invention of primitive social, political, and economic institutions.
6) Shelters and clothing were made from animal skins and plants. Works of art ranged
from decorated tools and weapons to small (fertility?) figures like the Woman of
Willendorf to large-scale animal paintings on the walls of the Lascaux Caves (c. 14,00013,500BC) in southwestern France and the Altamira Cave (c. 14,000-9,500BC) in
Spain.
 *Slide: Lion Human, 32,000 BCE, 11” high, found in the German Alps in 1939
 Interpretation of the material remains of the Paleolithic era is very difficult.
4




This sculpture shares certain similarities with French cave wall paintings, which
also show hybrid creatures. The French paintings, however, are several
thousand years younger than the German sculpture.
These peoples left no written records, so the meaning and purpose of this art can
only be guessed at. At the end of the Paleolithic era, there were perhaps over
five million inhabitants of the earth.
Found with flutes, maybe part of a ritual, maybe a deity
the oldest known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world and one of
the oldest known sculptures in general.
CAVE ART
Film: Werner Herzog”s Cave of Forgotten Dreams
 1-1 Spotted Horses and Human Hands, Peche-Merle, Dordogne, France 25,000
BCE
-
cave art is often hidden deep in cave formations, suggesting that it was intended for
a privileged subset of the clan group; this theory is similar to that of burial sites such
as at Stonehenge where remains of men of a certain age are found; suggests a
society built on hierarchies, structured, ordered.
How did they work in caves?
Using animal fat lamps
 *Slide: Lamp with Ibex Design
What materials are they using?
Natural pigment derived from stone and plant, charcoal, using their hands or rough
brushes to apply the pigment
 *Slide: Archaeological reenactment of painting techniques
What is the purpose of the handprints on the walls?
Signatures? Hand signals used while stalking prey? The presence of humans in this
animal world?
 1-11 Hall of Bulls, Lascaux Cave, Dordogne, France c. 15,000 BCE
15,000 BCE. Prob best known. Great website on them: Disc. 1940; closed to public
1963; replica opened so the original could be conserved; 600 paintings and 1500
engravings depicting multiple animals
 1-14 Bison, Le Tuc d’Audoubert, France c. 13,000 BCE
How might we describe the form and context of these works?
- what was their function? There may be no one single “function” for these works –
they changed over generations, over many thousands of years so while some of
their functions may have been passed down orally, these changed and mutated too
over time
- even within one generation, or a short period of a few generations, the cave
paintings would mean different things to different people depending on their age,
experience, perhaps their gender
- we can only make educated guesses about what they were used for
- The difficulty and time required to make the works meant they weren’t just for
aesthetic pleasure alone
5
-
-
-
Perhaps used for clan rites, as an initiation for younger (male) clan members
Maybe believed to have magical powers ie. showing a successful hunt could
prefigure that happening in real life – the precursor to modern systems of belief,
modern systems of religion
This theory has since been somewhat dismissed as further archaeological evidence
suggests that the animals portrayed are not the ones that were hunted
Some of the caves are now believed to show Bison during the mating season – are
they there to teach novice hunters what happens during the seasons so they learn
about animal behavior? Does a mating painting suggest a preoccupation with the
fertility of the human clan?
Some interpret these works as the product of hallucinations; shamanism;
interpretation; magic
Is it about the act of painting or the finished work – we can’t be sure
 *Slide: Chauvet Cave, Ardeche Gorge, France 32,000-30,000 BCE
The Chauvet Cave was discovered in the Ardèche valley (in southern France) in
December 1994 by three cave explorers, after removing the rumble of stones that
blocked a passage.
- The cave is extensive, about 400 meters long, with vast chambers. The floor of the
cave is littered with archaeological and paleontological remains, including the skulls
and bones of cave bears, which hibernated there, along with the skulls of an ibex
and two wolves. The cave bears also left innumerable scratches on the walls and
footprints on the ground.
- The two major parts of the cave were used in different ways by artists. In the first
part, a majority of images are red, with few black or engraved ones. In the second
part, the animals are mostly black, with far fewer engravings and red figures.
- The dominant animals throughout the cave are lions, mammoths, and rhinoceroses.
From the archaeological record, it is clear that these animals were rarely hunted
- “using the undulations of the rock”  using the natural setting to suggest volume to
the animal shapes
Watch Herzog Video – 15 mins
Where else were rock ptgs produced?
Australia, Malta (an island between Italy and N. Africa), Algeria, among other sites. The
Australian ptgs were not discovered until 1996.
  Neolithic

The Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution followed the Paleolithic Era, and it began
in the ancient Near East [=West Asia] about 10,000BC;

Not long afterwards, Neolithic settlements appeared in Europe, Africa, Asia, and
the Western Hemisphere. During the next 3,500 years, men and women all over
the world radically transformed their relationship to nature, from a dependent one
to more independent one. SLOW CHANGE; HAPPENS AT DIFFERENT RATES
IN DIFFERENT PLACES
6

Human beings learned to manipulate nature, they invented agriculture, which
allowed production of a food surplus, they manufactured new types of tools, and
they domesticated animals, like dogs, sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, and so on.
 Slide: Çatal Hüyük, Turkey 7400-6200 BCE
&
1-18 Sesklo Stone Foundation House, Greece, 6500 BCE
And, once a food surplus was produced, human beings began to live in such fixed
village settlements as Jericho, a walled village of 2,000 inhabitants living in sun-dried
brick houses in Palestine, or Çatal Hüyük [=chuh-TUL hoo-YOOK], a village of 3,0006,000 located in modern Turkey. They develop more lasting ties to specific sites and
places.
Innovations included a division and specialization of labor, the emergence of an artisan
class, such as weavers or potters, the development of trade, the invention of private
property, and the development of basic political and social institutions.
 *Slides x 2: Archaeological remains of Çatal Hüyük, Turkey 7400-6200 BCE
-
Oldest dated early settlement is 7400 BCE
Many houses were built, and rebuilt over many, many generations
Really settled, made a settlement, not temporary
What were the buildings made of?
- rectangular mud bricks held together with mortar
- the walls and floors were held together with plaster, and painted and repainted
What materials are used in settlements?
- mud and brick at Çatal Hüyük [=chuh-TUL hoo-YOOK].
- Wattle and daub at other sites like Sesklo, which was also much less elborate
- Thatch for roofs
- Corbelling
- Intentional burning of houses – indicates the movement towards settling, nonnomadic ways of life was slow and not adopted all at once
What is their significance?
- The buildings in this settlement created a community tie that outlasted any one
generation
- Many generations of dead were buried under the houses, created a sense of
continuity – connected the past, present and future
- The redecorating – replastering and repainting had the same effect
- The skeletons were often dug up and reburied; suggests there were specific rituals
around death that didn’t end with the first burial as it might do today; suggests that
the dead were intimately connected to the living; spirit ancestors
- This “settled” sense is the marker of the Neolithic period, and sets the stage for the
flourishing of “civilizations” which we’ll look at in the next three classes in the Ancient
near East and Egypt
- Not easy to distinguish between the domestic and the sacred at sites such as these;
the two functions have not become separate at this point in time
7
 Slide: Stonehenge
 1-29 Rock Art: Boat and Sea Battle, Sweden, Bronze Age c. 1500-500 BCE
Neolithic people also created impressive megalithic [massive-stone] constructions, such
as Stonehenge
Why would stone be used for burial spaces and special sites like Stonehenge?
Durability.
Think of the words or phrases like written in stone
What is post-and-lintel?
S’henge uses post and lintel construction which will be described in the video
Megalithic means large stone. Henge means circle.
Mike Parker Pearson is the world authority on the site – he’s in the PBS video
 *Slides x 2: Others views of S’henge
[Only one of the trilithons still stands. It rises 22’ above ground and is 8’ below. It weighs
about 50 tons. The outer ditch is the oldest construction at the site. On midsummer’s
eve, the heel stone casts a shadow directly onto the circle.]
 Discuss: what similarities and differences did you notice between the two
sites?
- people lived in one and didn’t live in the other
- both are connected to death and beliefs about burial
- both suggest a settled community
- one s made form stone (enduing) and one is made from less durable materials like mid
brick, and so has sufferd over time
- both have been brought to our attention though the discpline of archaeology
As we watch the archaeologists describe the building and use functions and
beliefs that surrounded Stonehenge, make short notes.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1636852466/#
13mins max
Next Class
Next came the Urban Revolution (Mesopotamia and Egypt about 3,500BC. 1) It forms
the symbolic boundary between pre-history and history and 2) during it mankind
invented “civilization.”
8