History thru Art:
Prehistory and Prehistoric Art Notes
Prehistory refers to the time period before people could write, the time before written records.
o Objects are the documents of record.
o Challenge is to "read" the nonverbal info found in objects.
Chronology is divided into three general phases
1. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) c40,000-8,000 BCE
2. Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) c8,000-7,000 BCE
3. Neolithic (New Stone Age) c7,000-2,300 BCE
Paleolithic Period
This period marks advances (especially in tool technology) among different human cultures. In
essence, Paleolithic peoples lived solely by hunting and gathering, while their successors during
the later Mesolithic and Neolithic times developed systems of agriculture and ultimately
permanent settlements. Survival wasn't easy, not least because of numerous adverse climatic
changes: on four separate occasions the northern latitudes experienced ice ages resulting in
successive waves of freezing and thawing, and triggering migrations or widespread death. In
fact, the development of human culture during Paleolithic times was repeatedly and profoundly
affected by environmental factors. Paleolithic humans were food gatherers, who depended for
their subsistence on hunting wild animals, fishing, and collecting berries, fruits and nuts. It
wasn't until about 8,000 BCE that more secure methods of feeding (agriculture and animal
domestication) were adopted.
PAINTING-represents the most extensive example of Paleolithic art.
o Altimira, Spain, c14,000-12,000 BCE
o Lascaux, France, c15,000-10,000 BCE
SCULPTURE-examples predate painting and drawing in archaeological record.
o Venus of Willendorf Vienna, Austria, c30,000-25,000 BCE
o Venus of Laussel, c23,000-20,000 BCE
o Woman from Brassempouy, France, c22,000 BCE
o Bison, Le Tuc d'Audoubert, France, c13,000 BCE
Mesolithic Period
The Mesolithic period is a transitional era between the ice-affected hunter-gatherer culture of
the Paleolithic, and the farming culture of the Neolithic. The greater the effect of the retreating
ice on the environment of a region, the longer the Mesolithic era lasted. So, in areas with no ice
(eg. the Middle East), people transitioned quite rapidly from hunting/gathering to agriculture.
Their Mesolithic period was therefore short. By comparison, in areas undergoing the change
from ice to no-ice, the Mesolithic era and its culture lasted much longer.
As the ice disappeared, to be replaced by grasslands and forests, mobility and flexibility became
more important in the hunting and acquisition of food. As a result, Mesolithic cultures are
characterized by small, lighter flint tools, quantities of fishing tackle, stone adzes, bows and
arrows. Very gradually, at least in Europe, hunting and fishing was superceded by farming and
the domestication of animals. Peoples produced small flint blades and small flint implements
with geometrical shapes, together with bone harpoons using flint flakes as barbs. During this
time, Northern Europe was a bone and horn culture, producing flint scrapers, borers and coreaxes.
Artistically, the human figure was represented in groups rather than the
single figure of the Paleolithic. The technique used was probably
spitting or blowing the pigments onto the rock. The paintings are quite
naturalistic, though stylized. The figures are not three-dimensional, even
though they overlap.
o Marching Warriors, Castellon, Spain, c7000-4000 BCE
Neolithic Period
The Neolithic era witnessed a fundamental change in lifestyle across Europe. OUT went the
primitive semi-nomadic style of hunting and gathering food, IN came a much more settled form
of existence, based on farming and rearing of domesticated animals. Neolithic culture was
characterized by stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, and farming (staple crops: wheat,
barley and rice; domesticated animals: sheep, goats, pigs and cattle), and led directly to a
growth in crafts like pottery and weaving. All this began about 9,000 BCE in the villages of
southern Asia, after which it flourished in the fertile crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates river
valleys in the Middle East (c.7,000 BCE), before spreading to India (c.5,000 BCE), Europe
(c.4,000 BCE), China (3,500 BCE) and the Americas (independently) (c.2,500 BCE).
The establishment of settled communities (villages, towns and in due course cities) triggered a
variety of new activities, notably: a rapid stimulation of trade, the construction of trading vehicles
(mainly boats), new forms of social organizations, along with the growth of religious beliefs and
associated ceremonies. And due to improvements in food supply and environmental control,
the population rapidly increased. For tens of millennia before the advent of agriculture, the total
human population had varied between 5 million and 8 million. By 4000 BCE, after less than
5,000 years of farming, numbers had risen to 65 million.
In general, the more settled and better resourced the region, the more art it
produces. So it was with the Neolithic period. And although most ancient Neolithic
art remained essentially functional in nature, there was a greater focus on
ornamentation and decoration. For instance, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and
calligraphy first appear during the Neolithic.
The emergence of the first city state (Uruk, in Mesopotamia) predicts the
establishment of more secure communities around the world, creating permanent
large-scale works of architecture in the process. The Neolithic age also saw the emergence of
monumental public art in the form of the Egyptian pyramid architecture, as well as assemblages
of large upright stones (called menhirs or megaliths: Megaliths-Greek-Megas, made from huge
stones without mortar) such as those of Stonehenge and Avebury Circle, and complex
subterranean tombs like that of Newgrange, whose entrance stone incised with a complex
design of spirals.
o Carnac, France, c3,000 BCE
o Stonehenge, England, c2750-1500 BCE
NOTE: Later periods of history in addition to the Stone Age include the Bronze Age (c30001200 BCE) and Iron Age (c1500-200 BCE) in Europe.