STYLES MORGUE
THE OLD STONE AGE
TYPES OF ART FOUND IN CAVES
Animals
Animals of all sorts are seen painted on the walls of Caves throughout Europe. Some animals include bison, mammoths, wild horses, bears and felines.
MATERIALS USED IN ART
Color
Color was limited in the Stone Age to materials that artists could find. Typically, the colors were limited to reds, yellow, brown and black. Red, yellow and brown came from clay ochre/sienna. Black could be made with maganese dioxide or charcoal. Once the clay or charcoal was ground down to a powder, it was mixed with cave water (high in calcium carbonate), animal fat, vegetable juice, blood, and urine to help it stick to the wall. Sometimes, artists would also mix in ground quartz or animal bone. Artists sometimes traveled up to 25 miles to get the materials needed to create these colors. This is evident from well-beaten trails to mines that were found near caves suckh as Lascaux.
Tools
Artists used whatever tools were available to them. Starting with their fingers and hands, their methods became more elaborate. Using animal hair, brushes were made. Bones from animals were also used to carve reliefs. In addition to relief carving, bones could be hollowed out to become the first primitive spray painting system. It is believed that the hand negative and positive paintings were made in this way, by the artist blowing through a piece of bone. A hollowed out bone of a bird was found at Altamira Caves in Spain with red ochre stains on it from about 16,000 B.C.E.
Caves at Lacroux, France. You can see the sheer size of the cave paintings that cover the walls and ceiling.
THE NEW STONE AGE
Also known as the Neolithic period, the New Stone Age began around 8000 BCE and continued until about 2000 BCE in many places around Europe.
This period is characterized by the advanced use of technology including tools, weapons, and methods of cultivating the land.
The art becomes much more advanced and three dimensional. Instead of a lot of cave paintings, we see sculptures of goddesses, animals as well as huge temples of worship like Stone Henge. Their advanced technology in creating these pieces are remarkable and many times still undiscovered to this day.
The New Stone Age also brought about more housing options instead of just using caves that they found. They built bricks out of clay and formed more advanced structures.
Neolithic Temples on Malta and Gozo. These were built 1000 years before the Pyramids, and are the oldest stone buildings in the world. The construction of these buildings demonstrate a mastery of quarrying, stone working, building and engraving techniques and must be the work of a mature culture.
FIRST HOMOSEXUAL HUMAN
A male caveman from the Copper Age was found buried with the same rituals as a woman would have been. Since burial was so much a part of their sacred tradition, this is considered a purposeful thing instead of merely a mix up. The skeleton was found also buried with a pot, something typically buried with a woman, instead of the weapons, tools, food and drink that a male would have been buried with.
For more information : http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/archaeologists-unearth-5000-year-old-third-gender-caveman
EVIDENCE OF BOILING POTS
Unsure of their actual uses, a form of pot was found in China dating back 20,000 years that had evidence of being in a fire. Scientists are unsure if these pots were for making soup, alcohol, or for such uses as boiling fat out of animal bone. Before this find, archaeologists believed that this method of cooking only dated back 5,000 years.
For more information : http://nhpr.org/post/stone-age-stew-soup-making-may-be-older-wed-thought
COULD THERE HAVE BEEN UNDERGROUND TUNNELS FROM SCOTLAND TO TURKEY?
Archaeologists have discovered a network of tunnels underneath thousands of Neolithic settlements. Could it be possible that people could use these to safely travel all over Europe?
For more information : http://www.sott.net/article/233056-Going-underground-The-massive-European-network-of-Stone-Age-tunnels-that-weaves-from-Scotland-to-Turkey
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burkitt, Miles C. The Old Stone Age: A Study of Palaeolithic Times. London: Bowes & Bowes, 1955. Print.
North, John D. Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos. London: HarperCollins, 1996. Print.
Raphael, Max, and Norbert Guterman. Prehistoric Cave Paintings. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945. Print.
Windels, Fernand. The Lascaux Cave Paintings. London: Faber and Faber, 1949. Print.
Also known as the Paleolithic Period, the Old Stone Age encompasses the years between 100,000 B.C.E. until 8,000 B.C.E.
By 20,000 B.C.E., man had settled on every continent except Antartica. The earliest found "art" dates back to 100,000 B.C.E. in African rock art. However, the majority of found artifacts and art date after 20,000 B.C.E.
These artworks, usually found in and around caves, depict many things from rituals, animals, humans, and religious ceremonies.
The people tended to be hunter/gatherers and typically were nomadic in that they followed the herds of animals that they hunted. They saught shelter in caves that they overtook from the animals living there.
Archaeologists believe Stone Henge was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC it's a mystery how this feat was achieved.
Stone Age carving of Goddess of Luassel - traces of red ochre representing menstration and birth, still visible on her body
the Venus of Willendorf, now known in academia as the Woman of Willendorf, is a 4.25-inch (10.8 cm) high statuette of a female figure estimated to have been made between about 28,000 and 25,000 BCE.
Example of detail in animal carving. About 7500 BCE
Paleolithic hand stencils from the cave at Lascaux, France. 25-30,000 years old.
Venus of Gagarino. 24,000 - 22,000 years old. Don River, Russia.
The Prehistory of Homo Sapiens - Part III; Articles found at Blombos Cave, including shells pierced to be strung together into chains, ochre with geometric patterns; 77,000 B.C.E
Israeli archaeologists find 9,000-year-old 'animal statues' that pre-date Moses by thousands of years. It's believed the six-inch long statues, made from limestone and dolomite were used as good luck charms for hunters during the Stone Age.
STONE AGE
Rituals
There are several everyday life rituals depicted on cave walls like hunting, as well as some more mystical ones showing Medicine Men in costume performing some sort of ritual to assist with the everyday life rituals of the people.
Woolly Mammoth
Lions
Horse Panel
Bear
Bison
Bovines carved in relief
Spotted Horses
Deer Hunt
Costumes
There is not a lot of information about clothing from this peirod. What we know comes from cave paintings and a discovery of Otzi the Iceman. It appears that not a lot of clothing was worn, except when weather required some sort of protection. The clothing included a grass cape, animal hide leg coverings and loin cloths, leather shoes and caps. Simple clothing such as tunics and shawls were probably used to keep away from the elements.
South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. Italy. c. 3300 BCE
South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. Italy.
Architecture
Architecture in the Stone Age was mostly stone structures that were either found or assembled. Piles of rocks, caves, tree hollows, teepees, etc. worked as shelters to ward off any weather. Cliff dwellers used mud or stone that hardens to build up cities in the sides of mountians. Caves were elaborately painted as part of hunting rituals or messages to the gods. Other religious sites were created by placing huge stones in configurations that had religious meaning. Many of the techniques used in these structures are still a mystery today.
Wiltshire, England. c. 2500 BCE.
Anasazi Cliff Dwelling. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. c. 1300 BCE.