Resources on Prehistoric Art

This site is not intended to be a source of graphic images, though the web sites will certainly take you to some valuable images. Rather it is primarily a bibliographic site of books, articles and web sites for those wishing to further their knowledge of human creativity in prehistory. Most resources focus on the Upper Paleolithic.

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Web Sites Books Articles Core 6 Lecture Outline

Web Sites

Art History Resources on the Web - This site, from Sweet Briar College, is truly outstanding for its completeness and frequent updating. There are few additional web sites that I could list that this one site won't also lead you to discover.

Bhimbetka- caves in India containing art from the Upper Paleolithic

Contemporary Approaches to World Rock Art - a site developed by M. J. Morwood and C.E. Smith. Department of Archaeology & Palaeoanthropology at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW Australia.

Rock Art (petroglyphs, pictographs, cave paintings, etc.) - archaic North American, some good images

Books

Allman, William F. Stone Age Present. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
(good chapter on the Creative Explosion)

Bahn, Paul G. and Jean Vertut. Journey Through the Ice Age. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1997.

Burenhult, Goran, general editor. People of the Stone Age: Hunter-gatherers and Early Farmers.
Volume 2 of the American Museum of Natural History's The Illustrated History of
Humankind series. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

Chauvet, Jean-Marie, Eliette Brunel Deschamps, and Christian Hillaire. Dawn of Art: The Chauvet
Cave, The Oldest Known Paintings in the World. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
Publishers, 1996.

Clottes, Jean and David Lewis-Williams. The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the
Painted Caves. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1998.

Crosby, Harry W. The Cave Paintings of Baja California: Discovering the Great Murals of an
Unknown People. San Diego: Sunbelt Publications, 1997.

Lewis-Williams, David. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. Thames & Hudson, 2002.

Pfeiffer. John E. The Creative Explosion: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Art and Religion. Ithaca,
New York: Cornell University Press, 1982.

Rudgley, Richard. The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age. New York: The Free Press, 1999.

White, Randall. Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind. Harry N. Abrams, 2003.

Articles

Anti, Emmanuel. "The Art of Beginnings." Diogenes 47(1) 1999, pp. 5+.

Appenzeller, Tim. "Art: Evolution or Revolution?" Science November 20, 1998, pp. 1451-1454.

Balter, Michael. "New Light on the Oldest Art." Science February 12, 1999, pp. 920+.

Bjerklie, David and Andrea Dorfman. "Behold the Stone Age." Time February 13, 1995,
pp. 52-57+.

Cameron, David W. "The Archaeology of Upper Palaeolithic Art: Aspects of Uniformitarianism."
Rock Art Research: The Journal of the Australian Rock Art Research Association 10(1)
1993, pp. 3-17.

Clottes, Jean, Antonio Beltran, Jean Courtin & Henri Cosquer. "The Cosquer Cave on Cape
Morgiou, Marseilles." Antiquity 66 1992, pp. 583-98.

Clottes, Jean and Jean Courtin. "Stone Age Gallery-By-the-Sea." Archaeology May/June 1993,
pp. 38-43.

d'Errico, Francesco and Carmen Cacho. "Notation Versus Decoration in the Upper Palaeolithc: A
Case-Study From Tossal de la Roca, Alicante, Spain." Journal of Archaeological Science 21
1994, pp. 185-200.

Duhard, Jean-Pierre. "Upper Palaeolithic Figures as a Reflection of Human Morphology and Social
Organization." Antiquity 67 1993, pp. 83-91.

Lewin, Roger. "Prehistoric Paint Job." Discover July 1993, pp. 64-70.

Marshack, Alexander. "Images of the Ice Age." Archaeology July/August 1995, pp. 28-36+.

Menu, Michel and Philippe Walter. "Prehistoric Cave Painting PIXE Analysis for the Identification
of Paint 'Pots'". Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section B 64 1992,
pp. 547-552.

Mithen, Steven J. "To Hunt or to Paint: Animals and Art in the Upper Palaeolithic." Man (N.S.)
23(4) 1988, pp. 671-695.

Straus, Lawrence Guy. "The Upper Paleolithic of Europe: An Overview." Evolutionary
Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews. 4(1) 1995, pp. 4-16.

Valladas, H. et al. "Direct Radiocarbon Dates for Prehistoric Paintings at the Altamira, El Castillo
and Niaux Caves." Nature May 7, 1992, pp. 68-70.

Watchman, Alan. "Perspectives and Potentials for Absolute Dating Prehistoric Rock Paintings."
Antiquity 67 1993, pp. 58-65.

White, Randall. "BEYOND ART: Toward an Understanding of the Origins of Material
Representation in Europe." Annual Review of Anthropology 21 1992, pp. 537-64.

White, Randall. "The Dawn of Adornment." Natural History 102 May 1993, pp. 61-67.

White, Randall. "The Earliest Images: Ice Age 'Art' in Europe." Expedition 34(3) 1992,
pp. 37-51.

Core 6 Lecture Outline

I.       Models for Approaching Prehistoric Art
            A.    Traditional Model - most commonly used
                   1. Modern human behavior emerged 50,000 years ago, perhaps spurred by small genetic Change
                   2.   Artistic expression appeared rapidly on the scene about 40,000 years ago during Upper Paleolithic
           B.    Alternative Model - recently launching challenge to traditional model
                   1.   Modern human behavior emerged during the African Middle Stone Age, 250,000 to 40,000 years ago
                   2.   Artistic expression older than previously thought, e.g., deliberately engraved ochre found in South Africa and dated to 77,000 years of
                         age.
II.      Upper Paleolithic period
          A.    Dates - approx. 40,000 to 10,000 years BP
          B.    Middle-Upper Transition period
                  1. appearance of modern h. sapiens sapiens
                  2. "disappearance" of Neanderthals (approx. 30,000 BP)
                       a. died off or were killed off
                       b. interbred with modern humans
                       c. evolved into modern humans
                  3. glaciation - roughly 70,000 to 10,000 years BP - most art comes from periods
                       of intense glaciation
                  4. cultural lives
                       a. increased emphasis on aesthetic expression
                       b. increasing importance placed on social alliances
                       c. shift from generalized hunting or subsistence to cooperative, concentrated hunting of
                            herd animals in some areas
                       d. increased human population numbers and density
                       e. important technological innovations and elaborations on previously developed
                            technologies; more standarization in the shape of tools, indicating greater attention to
                            production
                       f.   distinctive artifact styles and trade in exotic items
III. Two Categories of Art
        A. Parietal or "wall" art - art attached to wall or other permanent surface
              1. paintings on cave or open air rock walls
              2. engraving in clay and stone
              3. finger drawings in clay
              4. modelling in clay
        B. Portable or Mobiliary Art
            1. modifed natural objects
            2. painted bone and stone
            3. engraved stones, bone and antler
            4. carved bone, antler and ivory
            5. terracotta figurines
IV.   Images depicted in art
        A. animal images - most numerous
            1. large herd animals most common, e.g. bison, wild horses, aurochs
            2. carnivore, e.g. bears, lions
            3. animals that have become extinct or that no longer reside in the areas where the art is
                 found, e.g. mammoths, auk (penguin-like bird)
        B. human images - e.g. outlines of human hands, "Venus" figurines (perhaps fertility symbols?)
        C. composite images having human and animal qualities, e.g. the "Shaman of Trois Freres"
        D. non-figurative images, e.g. series of dots, geometric patterns, have been interpreted as
            directional signs, as prehistoric forms of writing, and other explanations.
V.    How was the art accomplished?
       A. methods researchers have used
            1. Alexander Marshack - attempts to trace the path of lines in engravings and carvings
                to determine when artist changes tools.
            2. attempts to recreate paintings using only technologies available at the time - Lorblanchet
       B. what we know about materials available
             1. paints - derived from mineral and other elements, e.g. charcoal, manganese dioxide, red
                  ochre, limiting paint to four frequently used colors (red, yellow, black, brown) and one
                  less frequently used color (white)
             2. applying paint
                  a. ochre crayons have been found
                  b. it has been assumed that probably some kind of brush was used
                  c. paint was likely applied by spitting
        C. Natural surfaces were incorporated, e.g. artist at Chauvet used natural contours of cave to
              create "3-D" images
VI.   Dating Prehistoric Art - Methods
        A. By stratigraphy
        B. By luminescence dating
        C. By style
        D. By what is depicted
        E. By radiocarbon dating
        F. By PIXE analysis
VI. What Does the Art Mean?
       A. art for art's sake
       B. images imprinted on the human brain
       C. hunting magic
       D. fertility magic
       E. art as metaphor
       F. art as information
       G. other interpretations, e.g. "ethnic" signs, result of altered states, origin myths

Graphics: The background can be found on Penn's architectural page. Click here.

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