Cave painting
Encyclopedia
Cave paintings are painting
s on cave
walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian
, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic
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.
can be misled by contaminated samples of older or newer material, and caves and rocky overhangs (parietal art) are typically littered with debris from many time periods. But subsequent advances made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself and the torch marks on the walls. The choice of subject matter can also indicate date, as for instance in the reindeer
at the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas which place the art in the last Ice Age
.
The oldest known cave art is that of Chauvet
in France, the paintings of which may be 35,000 years old according to radiocarbon dating, and date back to 33,000 BCE
(Upper Paleolithic). Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era and question this age. However, over 80 radiocarbon dates had been taken by 2011, with samples taken from torch marks and from the paintings themselves, as well as from animal bones and charcoal found on the cave floor. The radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet: 35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago.
Other examples may date as late as the Early Bronze Age, but the well known prolific and sophisticated Magdalenian
style seen at Lascaux
(c. 15,000 BCE) and Altamira died out about 10,000 BCE, coinciding with the advent of the Neolithic period. Some caves probably continued to be painted over a period of several thousands of years.
, horse
s, aurochs
, and deer
, and tracings of human hand
s as well as abstract patterns, called finger flutings. The species found most often were suitable for hunting by humans, but were not necessarily the actual typical prey found in associated deposits of bones; for example the painters of Lascaux have mainly left reindeer bones, but this species does not appear at all in the cave paintings, where equine species are the most common. Drawings of humans were rare and are usually schematic rather than the more detailed and naturalistic images of animal subjects. One explanation for this may be that realistically painting the human form was "forbidden by a powerful religious taboo."
Pigments used include red and yellow ochre
, hematite
, manganese oxide
and charcoal
. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first, and in some caves all or many of the images are only engraved in this fashion, taking them somewhat out of a strict definition of "cave painting".
Similar large animals are also the most common subjects in the many small carved and engraved bone or ivory, less often stone, pieces dating from the same periods. But these include the group of Venus figurines, which have no real equivalent in cave paintings.
interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals.
An alternative theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams
and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer
societies, is that the paintings were made by paleolithic shaman
s. The shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves.
R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points out that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the representation of women in the Venus figurines) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males, who made a big part of the human population at the time
. However, in analysing hand prints and stencils in French and Spanish caves, Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University
has proposed that a proportion of them, including those around the spotted horses in Pech Merle, were of female hands.
At uKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park
, South Africa
, now thought to be some 3,000 years old, the paintings by the San
people who settled in the area some 8,000 years ago depict animals and humans, and are thought to represent religious beliefs. Human figures are much more common in the rock art of Africa than in Europe.
Cave paintings found at the Apollo 11 cave in Namibia
may be among the earliest cave art. The estimated age of the images date from approximately 23,000 – 25,000 BCE.
In 2002, a French archaeological team discovered the Laas Gaa'l
cave paintings on the outskirts of Hargeisa
in the northwestern Somaliland
region of Somalia
. Dating back around 5,000 years, the paintings depict both wild animals and decorated cows. They also feature herders, whom are believed to be the creators of the rock art.
Many cave paintings are found in the Tassili n'Ajjer
mountains in southeast Algeria
. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the rock art was first discovered in 1933 and has since yielded 15,000 engravings and drawings that keep a record of the various animal migrations, climatic shifts, and change in human inhabitation patterns in this part of the Sahara from 6000 BCE to the early classical period. Other cave paintings are also found at the Akakus, Mesak Settafet
and Tadrart in Libya
and other Sahara regions including: Ayr mountains, Niger and Tibesti, Chad.
The Cave of Swimmers
is a cave
in southwest Egypt
, near the border with Libya, in the mountainous Gilf Kebir
region of the Sahara Desert. It was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian
explorer László Almásy
. It contains rock painting images of people swimming estimated to have been created 10,000 years ago during the time of the most recent Ice Age.
, Australia
. Ochre is a not an organic material, so carbon dating of these pictures is often impossible. Sometimes the approximate date, or at least, an epoch
, can be surmised from the painting content, contextual artifacts, or organic material intentionally or inadvertently mixed with the inorganic ochre paint, including torch soot.
A red ochre painting discovered at the centre of the Arnhem Land plateau about two years ago depicts two emu-like birds with their necks outstretched. They have been identified by a palaeontologist as depicting the megafauna
species Genyornis. The giant birds were thought to have become extinct more than 40,000 years ago but this may suggest that they existed later than that.
The Whitsunday Islands
are also home to a surprising number of cave paintings. The cave paintings by the sea-faring Ngaro people
on Hook Island
, Australia
, are remarkable for their non-figurative, non-representational, or abstract
content. Their significance is a mystery.
Other sites include Creswell Crags
, Nottinghamshire
, England, (Cave etchings and bas-reliefs discovered in 2003), and Magura http://www.magura.belogradchik.info/index800.htm, Belogradchik, Bulgaria
.
Rock painting was also performed on cliff faces, but fewer of those have survived because of erosion
. One well-known example is the rock paintings of Astuvansalmi
in the Saimaa
area of Finland
.
When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola
first encountered the Magdalenian
paintings of the Altamira cave
, Cantabria
, Spain in 1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and numerous additional discoveries have since demonstrated their authenticity, while at the same time stimulating interest in the artistry of Upper Palaeolithic peoples. Cave paintings, undertaken with only the most rudimentary tools, can also furnish valuable insight into the culture
and beliefs of that era.
The Bhimbetka rock shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India
; a number of analyses suggest that some of these shelters were inhabited by humans for in excess of 100,000 years. The earliest paintings on the cave walls are believed to be of the Mesolithic
period, dating to 12,000 years ago. The most recent painting, consisting of geometric figures, date to the medieval period
. Executed mainly in red and white with the occasional use of green and yellow, the paintings depict the lives and times of the people who lived in the caves, including scenes of childbirth, communal dancing and drinking, religious rites and burials, as well as indigenous animals.
that are located in present day Santa Barbara
, Ventura
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
in Southern California
. They include well executed examples at Burro Flats Painted Cave
and Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
.
There are also Native American
pictogram
examples in caves of the Southwestern United States
.
is a national park
in the north east of Brazil
. It has many prehistoric paintings. The park was created to protect the prehistoric artifacts and paintings found there. It became a World Heritage Site
in 1991. Its head archaeologist is Niède Guidon
. Its best known archaeological site is Pedra Furada.
It is located in southeast state of Piauí
, between latitudes 8° 26' 50" and 8° 54' 23" south and longitudes 42° 19' 47" and 42° 45' 51" west. It falls within the municipal areas of São Raimundo Nonato
, São João do Piauí
, Coronel José Dias
and Canto do Buriti
. It has an area of 1291.4 square kilometres (319,000 acres). The area has the largest concentration of prehistoric small farms on the American continents. Scientific studies confirm that the Capivara mountain range was densely populated in prehistoric periods.
Cueva de las Manos
(Spanish
for "Cave of the Hands") is a cave
located in the province
of Santa Cruz, Argentina
, 163 km (101 mi) south from the town of Perito Moreno
, within the borders of the Francisco P. Moreno National Park, which includes many sites of archaeological
and paleontogical
importance.
The images of hands are often negative (stencil
led). Besides these there are also depictions of human beings, guanacos, rhea
s, feline
s and other animals, as well as geometric
shapes, zigzag
patterns, representations of the sun
, and hunting
scenes. Similar paintings, though in smaller numbers, can be found in nearby caves. There are also red dots on the ceilings, probably made by submerging their hunting bolas
in ink, and then throwing them up. The colours of the paintings vary from red (made from hematite
) to white, black or yellow. The negative hand impressions are calculated to be dated around 550 BC, the positive impressions from 180 BC, and the hunting drawings to be older than 10,000 years.
Most of the hands are left hands, which suggests that painters held the spraying pipe with their dexterous hand. The size of the hands resembles that of a 13-year-old boy, but considering they were probably smaller in size, it is speculated that they could be a few years older, and marked their advancement into manhood by stamping their hands on the walls of this sacred cave.
, caves and scarps along the Thai-Burmese border, in the Petchabun Range of Central Thailand, and overlooking the Mekong River in Nakorn Sawan Province, all contain galleries of rock paintings. In Malaysia the oldest paintings are at Gua Tambun in Perak, dated at 2000 years, and those in the Painted Cave at Niah Caves
National Park are 1200 years old. The anthropologist Ivor Hugh Norman Evans visited Malaysia in the early 1920s and found that some of the tribes (especially Negritos) were still producing cave paintings and had added depictions of modern objects including what are believed to be cars. See prehistoric Malaysia
.
In Indonesia
the caves at Maros in Sulawesi are famous for their hand prints, also recently found in 38 painted caves in the Sangkulirang area of Kalimantan. The Padah-Lin Caves
of Burma contain 11,000-year-old paintings and many rock tools.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s on cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian
Aurignacian
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It lasted broadly within the period from ca. 45,000 to 35,000 years ago in terms of conventional radiocarbon dating, or between ca. 47,000 and 41,000 years ago in terms of the most...
, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
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.
Age
Nearly 350 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. Initially, the age of the paintings had been a contentious issue, since methods like radiocarbon datingRadiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
can be misled by contaminated samples of older or newer material, and caves and rocky overhangs (parietal art) are typically littered with debris from many time periods. But subsequent advances made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself and the torch marks on the walls. The choice of subject matter can also indicate date, as for instance in the reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
at the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas which place the art in the last Ice Age
Wisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
.
The oldest known cave art is that of Chauvet
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...
in France, the paintings of which may be 35,000 years old according to radiocarbon dating, and date back to 33,000 BCE
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
(Upper Paleolithic). Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era and question this age. However, over 80 radiocarbon dates had been taken by 2011, with samples taken from torch marks and from the paintings themselves, as well as from animal bones and charcoal found on the cave floor. The radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet: 35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago.
Other examples may date as late as the Early Bronze Age, but the well known prolific and sophisticated Magdalenian
Magdalenian
The Magdalenian , refers to one of the later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in western Europe, dating from around 17,000 BP to 9,000 BP...
style seen at Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
(c. 15,000 BCE) and Altamira died out about 10,000 BCE, coinciding with the advent of the Neolithic period. Some caves probably continued to be painted over a period of several thousands of years.
Themes and patterns
The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bisonBison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s, aurochs
Aurochs
The aurochs , the ancestor of domestic cattle, were a type of large wild cattle which inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct; it survived in Europe until 1627....
, and deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
, and tracings of human hand
Hand
A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs...
s as well as abstract patterns, called finger flutings. The species found most often were suitable for hunting by humans, but were not necessarily the actual typical prey found in associated deposits of bones; for example the painters of Lascaux have mainly left reindeer bones, but this species does not appear at all in the cave paintings, where equine species are the most common. Drawings of humans were rare and are usually schematic rather than the more detailed and naturalistic images of animal subjects. One explanation for this may be that realistically painting the human form was "forbidden by a powerful religious taboo."
Pigments used include red and yellow ochre
Ochre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
, hematite
Hematite
Hematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide , one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the rhombohedral system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite and corundum...
, manganese oxide
Manganese oxide
Manganese oxide is a generic term used to describe a variety of manganese oxides and hydroxides. It may refer to:* Manganese oxide, MnO* Manganese oxide, Mn3O4* Manganese oxide, Mn2O3* Manganese dioxide, , MnO2...
and charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first, and in some caves all or many of the images are only engraved in this fashion, taking them somewhat out of a strict definition of "cave painting".
Similar large animals are also the most common subjects in the many small carved and engraved bone or ivory, less often stone, pieces dating from the same periods. But these include the group of Venus figurines, which have no real equivalent in cave paintings.
Theories and interpretations
Henri BreuilHenri Breuil
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil , often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist...
interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals.
An alternative theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams
David Lewis-Williams
James David Lewis-Williams is a South African scholar. He is professor emeritus of cognitive archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg....
and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
societies, is that the paintings were made by paleolithic shaman
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
s. The shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves.
R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points out that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the representation of women in the Venus figurines) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males, who made a big part of the human population at the time
Prehistoric demography
Prehistoric demography is the study of the demography of human and hominid populations from the origin of hominids about 6,000,000 years ago through the origin of modern humans about 200,000 years ago, to the beginning of the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago.-Hominid population...
. However, in analysing hand prints and stencils in French and Spanish caves, Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
has proposed that a proportion of them, including those around the spotted horses in Pech Merle, were of female hands.
Africa
UKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park
The uKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park is a World Heritage Site in Southern Africa, covering of area. The park spans parts of both South Africa, in its KwaZulu-Natal province, and Lesotho...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, now thought to be some 3,000 years old, the paintings by the San
Bushmen
The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...
people who settled in the area some 8,000 years ago depict animals and humans, and are thought to represent religious beliefs. Human figures are much more common in the rock art of Africa than in Europe.
Cave paintings found at the Apollo 11 cave in Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
may be among the earliest cave art. The estimated age of the images date from approximately 23,000 – 25,000 BCE.
In 2002, a French archaeological team discovered the Laas Gaa'l
Laas Gaa'l
Laas Gaal is a complex of caves and rock shelters in Somaliland, a self-declared republic that is internationally recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia. Famous for their rock art, the caves are located in a rural area on the outskirts of Hargeisa, and contain some of the earliest known...
cave paintings on the outskirts of Hargeisa
Hargeisa
Hargeisa is a city in the northwestern Woqooyi Galbeed region of Somalia. With a population of approximately 2 million residents, it is the second largest city in the country. Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland, a self-declared republic that is internationally recognized as an autonomous region...
in the northwestern Somaliland
Somaliland
Somaliland is an unrecognised self-declared sovereign state that is internationally recognised as an autonomous region of Somalia. The government of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to the British Somaliland protectorate, which was independent for a few days in 1960 as the State of...
region of Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
. Dating back around 5,000 years, the paintings depict both wild animals and decorated cows. They also feature herders, whom are believed to be the creators of the rock art.
Many cave paintings are found in the Tassili n'Ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer is a mountain range in the Algerian section of the Sahara Desert. It is a vast plateau in south-east Algeria at the borders of Libya, Niger and Mali, covering an area of 72,000 sq...
mountains in southeast Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the rock art was first discovered in 1933 and has since yielded 15,000 engravings and drawings that keep a record of the various animal migrations, climatic shifts, and change in human inhabitation patterns in this part of the Sahara from 6000 BCE to the early classical period. Other cave paintings are also found at the Akakus, Mesak Settafet
Mesak Settafet
Mesak Settafet is a region in Libya known for extensive prehistoric rock art. It is most famous for the sites Matkhendush, In Ghalgiwan, Tiksaten, and In Abategh, which host some of the most interesting rock art features in the Sahara....
and Tadrart in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
and other Sahara regions including: Ayr mountains, Niger and Tibesti, Chad.
The Cave of Swimmers
Cave of Swimmers
The Cave of Swimmers is a cave with ancient rock art in the mountainous Gilf Kebir plateau of the Libyan Desert section of the Sahara. It is located in the New Valley Governorate of southwest Egypt, near the border with Libya.-History:...
is a cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
in southwest Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, near the border with Libya, in the mountainous Gilf Kebir
Gilf Kebir
Gilf Kebir is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier"...
region of the Sahara Desert. It was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
explorer László Almásy
László Almásy
László Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert researcher, aviator, Scout-leader and soldier who also served as the basis for the protagonist in Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient and the movie based on it.-Biography:Almásy was born in...
. It contains rock painting images of people swimming estimated to have been created 10,000 years ago during the time of the most recent Ice Age.
Australia
Significant early cave paintings have been found in KakaduKakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Ochre is a not an organic material, so carbon dating of these pictures is often impossible. Sometimes the approximate date, or at least, an epoch
Epoch (reference date)
In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch is an instance in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured...
, can be surmised from the painting content, contextual artifacts, or organic material intentionally or inadvertently mixed with the inorganic ochre paint, including torch soot.
A red ochre painting discovered at the centre of the Arnhem Land plateau about two years ago depicts two emu-like birds with their necks outstretched. They have been identified by a palaeontologist as depicting the megafauna
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
species Genyornis. The giant birds were thought to have become extinct more than 40,000 years ago but this may suggest that they existed later than that.
The Whitsunday Islands
Whitsunday Islands National Park
Whitsunday Islands is a national park in Queensland, Australia, northwest of Brisbane. It has beautiful scenery and also has a few walks that are open to any one that camps on the islands. To camp on the islands visitors need to book a site....
are also home to a surprising number of cave paintings. The cave paintings by the sea-faring Ngaro people
Ngaro people
The Ngaro People were a seafaring Australian Aborigine group of people that inhabited the Whitsunday Islands and coastal regions of Queensland from at least 7000 BC until 1870. Ngaro society was destroyed by warfare with traders, colonists, and the Australian Native Police...
on Hook Island
Hook Island
Hook Island is one of the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland. The island is almost uninhabited, quite rugged and almost completely contained within a section of the Whitsunday Islands National Park...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, are remarkable for their non-figurative, non-representational, or abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
content. Their significance is a mystery.
Europe
Well known cave paintings include those of:- LascauxLascauxLascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
, France - Grotte de CussacGrotte de CussacThe Grotte de Cussac is a cave containing over 150 Paleolithic artworks as well as several human remains. It is located in the Dordogne River valley in Le Buisson-de-Cadouin, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France....
, France - Pech MerlePech MerlePech Merle is a cave which opens onto a hillside at Cabrerets in the Lot département of the Midi-Pyrénées region in France, about 35 minutes by road east of Cahors. It is the home of one of the few prehistoric cave painting sites in France which remain open to the general public...
, near CabreretsCabreretsCabrerets is a commune in the Lot department in south-western France.The village of Cabrerets derives its name from cabre, meaning goat in the Occitan language.-Geography:...
, France - La MarcheLa Marche (cave)La Marche is a cave and archaeological site located in Lussac-les-Châteaux, a commune in the department of Vienne, western France. The carved etchings discovered there in 1937 show 15,000 year-old detailed depictions of humans...
, in Lussac-les-ChâteauxLussac-les-ChâteauxLussac-les-Châteaux is a commune in the Vienne department in the Poitou-Charentes region in western France.- Prehistory :The importance of the prehistoric art at Lussac is evidenced by the presence of numerous archaeological artefacts in the Museum of National Antiquities at...
, France - Chauvet CaveChauvet CaveThe Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...
, near Vallon-Pont-d'ArcVallon-Pont-d'ArcVallon-Pont-d'Arc is a commune in the Ardèche department in southern France.Vallon-Pont-d'Arc is a capital of prehistoric and cultural tourism. This small village, peaceful in wintertime, sees its population expand ten-fold in summer...
, France - Cave of NiauxCave of NiauxThe Cave of Niaux is located in Niaux in the Ariège département of south-western France. Like Lascaux it contains many prehistoric paintings of superior quality, in the case of Niaux from the Magdalenian period....
, France - Cosquer CaveCosquer CaveThe Cosquer cave is located in the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille, France, not very far from Cap Morgiou. The entrance to the cave is located 37 meters underwater, due to the rise of the Mediterranean in Paleolithic times. It was discovered by diver Henri Cosquer in 1985, but its...
, with an entrance below sea levelSea levelMean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
near Marseille, France - Font-de-Gaume, in the DordogneDordogneDordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
Valley in France - Cave of Altamira, near Santillana del MarSantillana del MarSantillana del Mar is a historic town situated in Cantabria, Spain. Certain features of this historical town includes Altamira Caves and many historic buildings, attracting thousands of holiday-makers every year....
, CantabriaCantabriaCantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria...
, Spain - Cueva de La PasiegaCueva de La PasiegaCueva de La Pasiega, or Cave of La Pasiega, situated in the Spanish municipality of Puente Viesgo, is one of the most important monuments of Paleolithic art in Cantabria...
, Cuevas de El CastilloCuevas de El CastilloThe Cueva de El Castillo, or the Cave of the Castle, is an archaeological site within the complex of the Caves of Monte Castillo, and is located in Puente Viesgo, in the province of Cantabria, Spain....
, CantabriaCantabriaCantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria...
, Spain
Creswell Crags
Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge on the border between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, England near the villages of Creswell, Whitwell and Elmton...
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, England, (Cave etchings and bas-reliefs discovered in 2003), and Magura http://www.magura.belogradchik.info/index800.htm, Belogradchik, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
.
Rock painting was also performed on cliff faces, but fewer of those have survived because of erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
. One well-known example is the rock paintings of Astuvansalmi
Astuvansalmi
The Astuvansalmi rock paintings are located in Ristiina, Southern Savonia, Finland at the shores of the lake Yövesi, which is a part of the large lake Saimaa. The rock paintings are the largest found in the whole of Scandinavia...
in the Saimaa
Saimaa
Saimaa is a lake in southeastern Finland. At approximately , it is the largest lake in Finland, and the fourth largest in Europe. It was formed by glacial melting at the end of the Ice Age. Major towns on the lakeshore include Lappeenranta, Imatra, Savonlinna, Mikkeli, Varkaus, and Joensuu. The...
area of Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
.
When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola
Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola
Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola or Marcelino de Sautuola was a Spanish jurist and amateur archaeologist, who owned the land where the Altamira cave was found.-Altamira cave:...
first encountered the Magdalenian
Magdalenian
The Magdalenian , refers to one of the later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in western Europe, dating from around 17,000 BP to 9,000 BP...
paintings of the Altamira cave
Altamira (cave)
Altamira is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands....
, Cantabria
Cantabria
Cantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria...
, Spain in 1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and numerous additional discoveries have since demonstrated their authenticity, while at the same time stimulating interest in the artistry of Upper Palaeolithic peoples. Cave paintings, undertaken with only the most rudimentary tools, can also furnish valuable insight into the culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and beliefs of that era.
India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
; a number of analyses suggest that some of these shelters were inhabited by humans for in excess of 100,000 years. The earliest paintings on the cave walls are believed to be of the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
period, dating to 12,000 years ago. The most recent painting, consisting of geometric figures, date to the medieval period
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Executed mainly in red and white with the occasional use of green and yellow, the paintings depict the lives and times of the people who lived in the caves, including scenes of childbirth, communal dancing and drinking, religious rites and burials, as well as indigenous animals.
North America
Native artists in the Chumash tribes created cave paintingsRock art of the Chumash people
Chumash rock art is a genre of paintings on caves, mountains, cliffs, or other living rock surfaces, created by the Chumash people of southern California. Pictographs and petroglyphs are common through interior California, the rock painting tradition thrived until the 19th century...
that are located in present day Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, Ventura
Ventura County, California
Ventura County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. It is located on California's Pacific coast. It is often referred to as the Gold Coast, and has a reputation of being one of the safest populated places and one of the most affluent places in the country...
, and San Luis Obispo Counties
San Luis Obispo County, California
San Luis Obispo County is a county located along the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast of the U.S. state of California, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census its population was 269,637, up from 246,681 at the 2000 census...
in Southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. They include well executed examples at Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave
Burro Flats Painted Cave is in the Burro Flats area of the Simi Hills, located between the Simi Valley, and West Hills and Bell Canyon, in Ventura County of Southern California, United States. It is a Cave containing Chumash Native American pictographs...
and Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, California
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park is a unit in the state park system of California, USA, preserving a small sandstone cave adorned with rock art attributed to the Chumash people. Adjoining the small community of Painted Cave, the site is located about north of California State Route 154...
.
There are also Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
pictogram
Pictogram
A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...
examples in caves of the Southwestern United States
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
.
South America
Serra da Capivara National ParkSerra da Capivara National Park
Serra da Capivara National Park is a national park in the north east of Brazil. It has many prehistoric paintings. The park was created to protect the prehistoric artifacts and paintings found there. It became a World Heritage Site in 1991. Its head archaeologist is Niède Guidon...
is a national park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
in the north east of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. It has many prehistoric paintings. The park was created to protect the prehistoric artifacts and paintings found there. It became a World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
in 1991. Its head archaeologist is Niède Guidon
Niède Guidon
Niède Guidon is a Brazilian archaeologist who was born on the 12 March 1933 in Jaú, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. She has won international recognition and support for her struggle to protect Brazil's rich archaeological heritage....
. Its best known archaeological site is Pedra Furada.
It is located in southeast state of Piauí
Piauí
Piauí is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country.Piauí has the shortest coastline of any of the non-landlocked Brazilian states at 66 km , and the capital, Teresina, is the only state capital in the north east to be located inland...
, between latitudes 8° 26' 50" and 8° 54' 23" south and longitudes 42° 19' 47" and 42° 45' 51" west. It falls within the municipal areas of São Raimundo Nonato
São Raimundo Nonato
São Raimundo Nonato is a city located in the southern region of the state of the Piauí, Brazil, and is 576 km away from the capital, Teresina. It is known for been the city where the administration the Serra da Capivara National Park is located....
, São João do Piauí
São João do Piauí
São João do Piauí is a town and municipality in the state of Piauí in the Northeast region of Brazil.-References:...
, Coronel José Dias
Coronel José Dias
Coronel José Dias is a town and municipality in the state of Piauí in the Northeast region of Brazil.-References:...
and Canto do Buriti
Canto do Buriti
Canto do Buriti is a town and municipality in the state of Piauí in the Northeast region of Brazil.-References:...
. It has an area of 1291.4 square kilometres (319,000 acres). The area has the largest concentration of prehistoric small farms on the American continents. Scientific studies confirm that the Capivara mountain range was densely populated in prehistoric periods.
Cueva de las Manos
Cueva de las Manos is a cave or a series of caves located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km south of the town of Perito Moreno. It is famous for the paintings of hands, made by the indigenous inhabitants some 9,000 years ago...
(Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
for "Cave of the Hands") is a cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
located in the province
Provinces of Argentina
Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...
of Santa Cruz, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, 163 km (101 mi) south from the town of Perito Moreno
Perito Moreno, Santa Cruz
Perito Moreno is a town in the northeast of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, 25 km east of Lake Buenos Aires. It should not be confused with the Perito Moreno National Park over 300 km south by road, or the Perito Moreno Glacier near El Calafate. The town is the capital of the Lago Buenos Aires...
, within the borders of the Francisco P. Moreno National Park, which includes many sites of archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and paleontogical
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
importance.
The images of hands are often negative (stencil
Stencil
A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...
led). Besides these there are also depictions of human beings, guanacos, rhea
Rhea (bird)
The rheas are ratites in the genus Rhea, native to South America. There are two existing species: the Greater or American Rhea and the Lesser or Darwin's Rhea. The genus name was given in 1752 by Paul Möhring and adopted as the English common name. Möhring's reason for choosing this name, from the...
s, feline
Felidae
Felidae is the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called a felid. Felids are the strictest carnivores of the thirteen terrestrial families in the order Carnivora, although the three families of marine mammals comprising the superfamily pinnipedia are as carnivorous as the...
s and other animals, as well as geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
shapes, zigzag
Zigzag
A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular....
patterns, representations of the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, and hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
scenes. Similar paintings, though in smaller numbers, can be found in nearby caves. There are also red dots on the ceilings, probably made by submerging their hunting bolas
Bolas
Bolas are a throwing weapon superficially similar to the surujin, made of weights on the ends of interconnected cords, designed to capture animals by entangling their legs...
in ink, and then throwing them up. The colours of the paintings vary from red (made from hematite
Hematite
Hematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide , one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the rhombohedral system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite and corundum...
) to white, black or yellow. The negative hand impressions are calculated to be dated around 550 BC, the positive impressions from 180 BC, and the hunting drawings to be older than 10,000 years.
Most of the hands are left hands, which suggests that painters held the spraying pipe with their dexterous hand. The size of the hands resembles that of a 13-year-old boy, but considering they were probably smaller in size, it is speculated that they could be a few years older, and marked their advancement into manhood by stamping their hands on the walls of this sacred cave.
Southeast Asia
There are rock paintings in caves in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma. In ThailandThailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, caves and scarps along the Thai-Burmese border, in the Petchabun Range of Central Thailand, and overlooking the Mekong River in Nakorn Sawan Province, all contain galleries of rock paintings. In Malaysia the oldest paintings are at Gua Tambun in Perak, dated at 2000 years, and those in the Painted Cave at Niah Caves
Niah Caves
Niah Caves is located within the district of Miri in Sarawak, Malaysia. Part of Niah National Park, the main cave, Niah Great Cave, is located in Gunung Subis and is made up of several voluminous, high-ceilinged chambers...
National Park are 1200 years old. The anthropologist Ivor Hugh Norman Evans visited Malaysia in the early 1920s and found that some of the tribes (especially Negritos) were still producing cave paintings and had added depictions of modern objects including what are believed to be cars. See prehistoric Malaysia
Prehistoric Malaysia
Prehistoric Malaysia may be traced back as far as 200,000 years ago from stone tools found at Bukit Jawa, an archaeological site in Lenggong Perak. The earliest human skeleton in Peninsular Malaysia, Perak Man, dates back 11,000 years and Perak Woman dating back 8,000 years, were also discovered in...
.
In Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
the caves at Maros in Sulawesi are famous for their hand prints, also recently found in 38 painted caves in the Sangkulirang area of Kalimantan. The Padah-Lin Caves
Padah-Lin Caves
Padah-Lin Caves are limestone caves located in Western Shan State, Taunggyi District, Burma near a path from Nyaunggyatt to Yebock, on a spur of the Nwalabo mountains within the Panlaung Reserved Forest...
of Burma contain 11,000-year-old paintings and many rock tools.
See also
- Venus figurinesVenus figurinesVenus figurines is an umbrella term for a number of prehistoric statuettes of women portrayed with similar physical attributes from the Upper Palaeolithic, mostly found in Europe, but with finds as far east as Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, extending their distribution to much of Eurasia, from the...
- Parietal artParietal artParietal art is artwork done on cave walls or large blocks of stone. One of the most famous examples of parietal art is the Grotte Chauvet in France. Parietal art, or cave art, refers to paintings, murals, drawings, etchings, carvings, and pecked artwork on the interior of rock shelters and caves....
- PetroglyphPetroglyphPetroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
- Prehistoric artPrehistoric artIn the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or it makes significant contact with another...
- Upper Paleolithic art
- Sympathetic magicSympathetic magicSympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.-Similarity and contagion:The theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough...
- OchreOchreOchre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
Further reading
- Fage L.-H., Chazine J.-M., 2010 - Borneo, Memory of the Caves - 25*32 cm, hard cover, 161 p. 360 full color illustrations, Le Kalimanthrope publisher, France. ISBN 978-2-9536616-1-3
- Thomas Heyd and John Clegg, eds. Aesthetics and Rock Art. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, England and Burlington, VT, USA. 2005. ISBN 0-7546-3924-X
- Gregory Curtis, The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists, Knopf, New York, NY, USA, 2006. 1-4000-4348-4
- Joseph NechvatalJoseph NechvatalJoseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.-Life and work:Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago...
, Immersive Excess in the Apse of LascauxLascauxLascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
, Technonoetic Arts 3, no3. 2005
External links
- Bradshaw Foundation The recording of cave paintings around the world
- EuroPreArt database of European Prehistoric Art
- Malaysian Caves
- Cave paintings in Castell de Castells Spain
- American Rock Art Research Association
- Tour of Afghan cave paintings
- Le Kalimanthrope Rock art of Borneo (Kalimantan, Indonesia)
- https://sites.google.com/site/journeythrougharthistory/prehistoricart Outline of prehistoric Art with emphasis on cave paintings from around the world