Foundation Year (1st Year)

Graphic Design Department

Lahore College For Women University, Lahore.
Difference between prehistoric and historic
Prehistoric is relating to the period before written records and language was not developed.

Historic is the time period when the writing system was introduced and written records were
maintained and language developed.

Stone Age
Stone Age is the prehistoric cultural stage, or level of human development, characterized by the
creation and use of stone tools.

1. Early humans lived in caves or simple huts and were hunters and gatherers.
2. They used basic stone and bone tools, as well as crude stone axes, for hunting
birds and wild animals.
3. They cooked their animals, including woolly mammoths, deer and bison, using
controlled fire.
4. They also fished and collected berries, fruit and nuts.
5. Ancient humans in the Paleolithic period were also the first to leave behind art.
6. They used combinations of minerals, ochers, burnt bone meal and charcoal
mixed into water, blood, animal fats and tree to etch humans, animals and
signs.
7. They also carved small figurines from stones, clay, bones and horns.

Paleolithic Era (40,000 till 20,000 BCE)

Paleolithic is a Greek word Paleo mean Old and Lith means Stone (40,000 till 9000 BC ).

Early/ lower Paleolithic (40,000 till 20,000 BC)

Later/ upper Paleolithic (20,000 till 9000 BC)
Stone tools are perhaps the first cultural evidential artifacts, which historians can use to
reconstruct the worlds of Paleolithic peoples. In fact, stone tools were so important in the
Paleolithic age that the names of Paleolithic periods are based on the progression of
tools: Lower Paleolithic, Mesolithic (middle Paleolithic), Upper Paleolithic, and Neolithic (New
Stone Age).
Lower Paleolithic Era
In this period, scientists have been found first evidence of human behavior which was analyzed
through their tool making and use of fire.
Oldowan Tool Tradition:
The earliest stone tool tradition is called the Oldowan Tradition and Oldowan tools have been
found at sites in the Olduvai Gorge in Africa dated to 2.5-1.5 million years ago.
The earliest stone tools discovered at Gona and Bouri in Ethiopia (Abyssinia-habshah) and (a
little later) Lokalalei in Kenya. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few
flakes chipped off with another stone.

Oldowan tool

Acheulian Tool Tradition:

The Acheulean (sometimes Spelled Aculian) is a stone tool technique that emerged in East Africa during
Paleolithic about 1.76 million years ago. Acheulian hand axe was approximately 5inches long sharp and
mostly used for hunting. It was made by chipping of or by flaking sides to make it a sharper one.

Homo erectus left Africa and traveled into Eurasia and eventually Asia and Europe, bringing the
technology with them. Homo erectus was both heavier and a more efficient walker, with an average
brain size of about 820 cc. They were the first human with a projecting nose, and their skulls were long
and low with large brow ridges.

Acheulian tool

Middle Paleolithic: (ca. 200,000 to 45,000 years ago)

When Human species travelled and inhabited Eurasia from the Atlantic regions of Europe
eastward to Central Asia. They explored other places but when they settled down in a valley
called Neander Valley (Neander Thal or Neander Tal) in Germany They been recognized as
Nenderthals.
Mousterian Tool Tradition
The Middle Paleolithic period is when humans including Homo sapiens, Neanderthal appeared
and flourished all over the world. Hand axe continued in use, but a new kind of stone tool kit
called the Mousterian was created.
The Mousterian tool tradition is associated with the Neanderthals in Europe and Asia and both
Early Modern Human. Mousterian stone tools were in use between about 200,000 years ago.

Mousterian tool

Living Customs and Ritual practice

Archaeological evidence shows that the Neanderthals in Europe and Southwest Asia had a
system of religious beliefs and performed rituals such as funerals.
Shanidar Cave
A burial site at Shanidar Cave in modern-day north-eastern Iraq suggests that a Neanderthal’s
family covered his body with flowers, which indicates a belief in something beyond death and a
deep sense of spirituality. In the 1950s, Smithsonian anthropologist Ralph Solecki, a team from
Columbia University and Kurdish workers found the fossils of eight adult and two infant
Neanderthal skeletons (65,000 to 35,000 years ago).
La Ferrassie
The French rock shelter of La Ferrassie in the Dordogne valley of France is important for its very
long use) by both Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans. Eight very-well preserved
Neanderthals skeletons found in the lowest levels of the cave including two adults and several
children, who are estimated to have died between 40,000-70,000 years ago.
Blombos Cave
During middle Paleolithic time some evidence for cannibalism (the practice of eating one's own
species) is also found in places such as Krapina and Blombos Cave.

Over 40 bone tools have been recovered, most of which are awls. Over 65 beads have been
discovered known as tick shells and most of them have been carefully perforated, polished, and
in some cases deliberately heat-treated. Ochre pigment was likely used as paint to decorate a
surface, object or person.
Gorham Cave

The latest known Neanderthal site is Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar (Spain). Gorham's Cave is one
of numerous cave sites on the Rock of Gibraltar that were occupied by Neanderthals from
about 45,000 years ago to perhaps as recently as 28,000 years ago. The 294 stone artifacts
Mousterian technology were fund.

Upper Paleolithic (20,000 till 9000 BCE)

The Upper Paleolithic was a period of great transition in the world. The Neanderthals in Europe
became disappeared by 33,000 years ago, and modern humans began to have the world to
them.

Timeline of the Upper Paleolithic

In Europe, it is traditional to split the Upper Paleolithic into five overlapping and somewhat
regional variants, based on differences between stone and bone tool assemblages.

 Chatelperronian (40,000-34,000 BP)

 Aurignacian (45,000-29,000 BP)
 Gravettian (29,000-22,000)
 Solutrean (22,000-18,000 BP)
 Magdalenian (17,000-11,000 BP)

Chatelperonian

The chatelperronian period refers to one of the five tool industry identified in the upper
Paleolithic period of Europe (45,000- 20,000 years ago). The Chatelperronian was believed to be
the work of early modern humans.

Upper Paleolithic period has tools and objects made of bone, teeth, ivory. Chatelperronian
stone industries are a blend of earlier tool types from the Middle Paleolithic Mousterian and
Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian style tool types. Some personal ornaments have been found at
these sites, some of which are stained with red ochre.

Aurignacian

Aurignacian tool making industry and artistic tradition of Upper Paleolithic Europe that
followed the Mousterian industry. The Aurignacian culture was marked by a great
diversification and specialization of tools, including the invention of engraving tool.
 Burin tool

At the same time, a tradition of true sculpture in the round grew up in Eastern Europe, with
vividly realistic, though simple, clay figurines of animals and highly stylized statuettes of
pregnant women, the so-called Venus figures, presumably fertility figures.

In the later part of the Aurignacian Period, a fusion of sculptural and linear traditions
occurred in the West, resulting in small carvings of greatly increased naturalism; the
engraved details show attempts at foreshortening and shading with cross-hatched lines.

Venus of Willendorf

Late Paleolithic figure found at Willendorf, Lower Austria, and known as the Venus of
Willendorf, limestone figurine originally coloured with red ochre, 30,000–25,000 BCE; in the
Natural History Museum, Vienna.

Throughout the Aurignacian period, “twisted perspective,” which shows, the head of the
animal in profile and its horns twisted to a front view. One of the finest examples of
Aurignacian art is represented by paintings of animals, such as horses and bulls, on the walls
 and ceilings of the cave at Lascaux, in south-western France. These impressive figures,
painted in vivid red, yellow, brown, and black, with solid, closed outlines, show the lively
naturalism, close observation of nature, one-dimensional approach that characterized
mature Aurignacian art.

Prehistoric cave painting in Lascaux

Lascaux Cave

The cave was discovered by four teenage boys in September 1940 and was first studied by the
French archaeologist Henri Breuil.

The paintings were done on a light background in various shades of red, black, brown, and
yellow. In places, platform was clearly used to reach high walls and the ceiling.

Hall of bull
 Hall of bull

Perhaps the most impressive collection of Paleolithic animal painting is “The Hall of Bull’ at
Lascaux. One noteworthy aspect of Lascaux murals is that they exhibit side by side two basic
approaches “silhouette and outlines”.

This also indicates that different painters created these pictures in different times. The bull is
showed in twisted perspective or composite view according to art historian, because viewer
can see head in profile but horns from the front.

Painting of animals appeared throughout the cave which features a representation of running
pregnant horse surrounded by arrows or trap.
In this mural a man makes his earliest appearance in the history of art. At left and moving
toward a left is a rhinoceros, beneath its tail is two rows of dots of uncertain significance.

Between these two animals is a bird faced man with outstretched arms and hands having only
four fingers. The painter depicted men with a far less care and details then the animal.

There is much evidence of the use of ornament: bracelets, bead necklaces,

pendants, bone pins, and colored pigments used for personal adornment.

Solutrean:

short-lived style of tool making that flourished approximately 17,000 to 21,000 years ago in
south-western France and in nearby areas.

The Solutrean contained a variety of tools such as burins woodworking tools, scrapers, blades
that were formed in the shape of leaves and carried points distinguish the Solutrean.

point tool
 leaf point

scraper

Magdalenian:

The Magdalenians lived some 11,000 to 17,000 years ago

Magdalenian stone tools include small geometrically shaped implements triangles, semilunar
blades. Bone was used extensively to make wedges, hammers, jewelry and hooked sticks. Bone
tools were often engraved with animal images.

The figures in painting were remarkably beautiful, with lively realism, excellent rendering of
volumes, delicate expressive poses, and sophisticated design. Some of the finest examples of
this late painting are at Altamira cave in northern Spain.

Atamira cave

Magdalenian sites have yielded countless fine examples of both mural and portable art.
Animals of the period, the usual subject matter, are portrayed in paintings, engravings and
sculptures.
 early bison painting

Chauvet Cave

In December 1994, a French team led by Jean-Marie Chauvet discovered Paleolithic paintings in
cave.

In Chauvet cave, in contrast to Lascaux cave, the painters depicted the horn in naturalistically,
one behind the other, not in the twisted perspective. Moreover the two rhinoceroses at lower
right appear to attack one and each other suggested that painter indented a narrative.

Pech- merle

Occasionally, the painter dipped a hand in the pigment and then pressed against the wall,
leaving a positive print. Some consider them signature of community members or less likely of
individual painter.
Old Stone Age painters and sculptors frequently used the naturally irregular surfaces of caves
to help to give the illusion of real presence to their forms.

Letuc ’Audou-bert

The bison’s from a cave, Lectuc Audoubert which was discovered in 1912. Paleolithic sculptors
sometimes created reliefs by building up forms out of clay instead of cutting into stone block
or cave wall.

A master sculptor modeled a pair of bison in clay against a large irregular freestanding rock.
Each is about 2 feet long and strictly in profile. They are among the largest sculpture known.

Human with feline head Germany (40,000- 35,000 BCE)

One of the oldest sculptures ever discovered is an extraordinary ivory statute. Found in 1939 in
fragments inside a cave in Germany. The ivory figurine represents a human with a feline (lion)
head. Such kind of composite sculpture is familiar in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Hohle Fels Goddess

The Goddess of Hohle Fels was carved from mammoth ivory around 40,000 years ago. The
main characteristics of this tiny sculpture 2.5’’ goddess are its reproductive attributes; the
massive breast, the pregnant belly and carved in elaborate detail, represents an immense
investment of time, energy and represents a force of nature, a feminine deity.

Venus of Dolni Vesto-nice

The Venus of Dolni Vesto-nice is a Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure
dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE. It was found at the Paleolithic site Dolní Věsto-nice.
This figurine and a few others from locations nearby are the oldest known ceramic articles in
the world.

It has a height of 111 millimeters and a width of 43 millimeters at its widest point and is made
of a clay body fired.
The statuette follows the general morphology of the other Venus figurines: exceptionally large
breasts, belly and hips, perhaps symbols of fertility, relatively small head and little detail on
the rest of the body.

Venus of Lespugue

The most striking thing about this ancient Goddess is the extreme exaggeration of the physical
form of the Sacred Feminine. Her breasts are big in usual size, abounding with life-giving milk so
that even her pregnant belly is small in comparison. The breasts and buttocks are huge, much
larger than any other Goddess figurine discovered to date.
It appears crudely distorted and "unrealistic." Yet at the same time, she displays a high level of
artistic talent in the carving, an appealing smooth finish, and an overall aesthetic quality.

Venus of Laussel
The Venus of Laussel ("Woman with a Horn" in French) is a Venus figurine, one of a class of
objects found in Upper Paleolithic archaeological sites throughout Europe.

The 18-inch (45-centimeter) high image is of a woman with large breasts, belly and thighs,
explicit genitals and an undefined or eroded head with what appears to have been long hair.
Her left hand rests on her (perhaps pregnant) belly, and her right hand holds what looks to be a
large horn—perhaps the core of a horn of an ancient buffalo (bison). The horn core has 13
vertical lines etched onto it.

The Technique and reasoning of making art

1. For drawing, they used chunks of charcoal and red and yellow ocher.

2. For painting, they ground this same natural material into powder then they mix it into
water before applying. Large flat stones served as palettes.

3. Researchers have purposed a lot of different theories, including that the painted and
engraved animals were decoration, some suggested that prehistoric people’s attributed
magical properties to the images they painted and sculpted.

4. Some said that Paleolithic communities believed that they were bringing the beasts
under their control by confining animals to the surfaces of their cave walls.

5. Some scholars have even hypnotized that Paleolithic people were used to perform ritual
and dance in front of these images to add luck to the hunters.
6. Others have suggested that the representation may have served as teaching tool to
instruct new hunters about the character of the various spices they will hunt.