Cave Conjecture

Paleo (Greek) = Old

Lithic (Greek) = Stone

Paleolithic = Old Stone Age





40,000 BCE 8,000 BCE in Near
East
40,000 BCE 4,000 BCE in Europe
All prehistoric sculpture is portable. Why?

c. 28,000 21, 000 BCE
limestone
Emphasized reproductive parts
Deemphasized face, arms, legs
No feet
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Characteristics
Images of animals dominate
with black outlines
realistically represented
Images Of humans
stick figures
little detail
Handprints
negative prints
left hand
15,000-13,000 BCE, Dordogne, France

http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/#/fr/00.xml
Paint is made of natural products
Charcoal, iron ore, plants bound with animal fat

650 paintings
Cows, bulls, horses, and deer

Figures are overlapping

Negative handprints: signatures?
Caves were not dwellings
Prehistoric people lived migratory lives following
herds of animals

Paintings placed deep inside the cave
Used to ensure a successful hunt?

Ancestral animal worship?

Shamanism
A religion based on the idea that forces of nature
can be controlled by a highly regarded religious
figure called a shaman
Neo (Greek) = New
Lith (Greek) = Stone

Neolithic = New Stone Age
8,000 BCE 3,000 BCE in the Near East
4,000 BCE 2,000 BCE in Europe
Cultivated land
Raised livestock
Live in organized
settlements
Created occupations =
division of labor
Built the first homes
Shelters were huts built with animal bones
Places of worship were built to last!
Menhir = large individual stone placed on
end alone or in rows
Megalith = Menhirs cut into rectangles used
for construction
by adam.holmquist
Post-and-lintel architecture =
the most basic
Post = two uprights
Lintel = horizontal on top
Cromlech = A circle of megaliths with lintels
placed on top
Structures were aligned to important
dates: solstices, equinoxes, and lunar.
The most well known cromlech?
Stonehenge, c. 2100 BCE,
Wilshire, England