Message about primitive people and their drawings. Types and features of the art of primitive society
The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 in the south of France, in the department of Ardèche, in the steep bank of the canyon of the river of the same name, a tributary of the Rhone, near the town of Pont d'Arc, by three speleologists Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire.
All of them already had extensive experience in exploring caves, including those containing traces of prehistoric man. The half-filled entrance to the then nameless cave was already known to them, but the cave had not yet been explored. When Eleth, squeezing through a narrow opening, saw a large cavity stretching into the distance, she knew that she needed to return to the car behind the stairs. It was already evening, they even doubted whether they should postpone further examination, but nevertheless they returned behind the stairs and went down into the wide passage.
The researchers stumbled upon a cave gallery, where a flashlight beam picked out an ocher spot on the wall from the darkness. It turned out to be a "portrait" of a mammoth. No other cave of the south-east of France, rich in “murals”, can be compared with the newly discovered one, named after Chauvet, neither in size, nor in the safety and skill of drawings, and some of them are 30-33 thousand years old.
Speleologist Jean-Marie Chauvet, after whom the cave got its name.
The discovery of the Chauvet cave on December 18, 1994 became a sensation, which not only pushed back the appearance of primitive drawings by 5 thousand years ago, but also overturned the concept of the evolution of Paleolithic art that had developed by that time, based, in particular, on the classification of the French scientist Henri Leroy-Gourhan . According to his theory (as well as according to most other specialists), the development of art went from primitive forms to more complex ones, and then the earliest drawings from Chauvet should generally belong to the pre-figurative stage (dots, spots, stripes, winding lines, other scribbles) . However, the researchers of Chauvet's painting found themselves face to face with the fact that the oldest images are almost the most perfect in their execution of the Paleolithic known to us (Paleolithic - this is at least: it is not known what Picasso, who admired the Altamira bulls, would say if he happened to see lions and Chauvet bears!). Apparently, art is not very friendly with the evolutionary theory: avoiding any stage structure, it somehow inexplicably arises immediately, out of nothing, in highly artistic forms.
Here is what Abramova Z.A., the leading specialist in the field of Paleolithic art, writes about this: “Paleolithic art arises as a bright flash of flame in the mists of time. finds a direct continuation in subsequent eras ... It remains a mystery how the Paleolithic masters reached such a high perfection and what were the paths along which the echoes of the art of the ice age penetrated the brilliant work of Picasso "(quoted from: Sher Ya. When and how did art arise? ).
(source - Donsmaps.com)
The drawing of black rhinos from Chauvet is considered the oldest in the world (32.410 ± 720 years ago; information on a certain "new" dating comes across on the Web, giving Chauvet painting from 33 to 38 thousand years, but without credible references).
On this moment, this is the oldest example of human creativity, the beginning of art, not burdened with history. Typically, Paleolithic art is dominated by drawings of animals that people hunted - horses, cows, deer, and so on. The walls of the Chauvet are covered with images of predators - cave lions, panthers, owls and hyenas. There are drawings depicting a rhinoceros, tarpans and a number of other animals of the Ice Age.
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In addition, in no other cave there are so many images of a woolly rhinoceros, an animal that was not inferior to a mammoth in terms of “dimensions” and strength. In terms of size and strength, the woolly rhinoceros was almost as good as the mammoth, its weight reached 3 tons, body length - 3.5 m, front horn dimensions - 130 cm. The rhinoceros died out at the end of the Pleistocene, before the mammoth and cave bear. Unlike mammoths, rhinos were not herd animals. Probably because this powerful animal, although it was a herbivore, had the same vicious disposition as their modern relatives. This is evidenced by the scenes of violent "rock" fights of rhinos from Chauvet.
The cave is located in the south of France, on the steep bank of the canyon of the Ardege River, a tributary of the Rhone, in a very picturesque place, in the vicinity of the Pont d'Arc ("Arched Bridge"). This natural bridge is formed in the rock by a huge ravine up to 60 meters high.
The cave itself is "mothballed". Entrance to it is open exclusively to a limited circle of scientists. Yes, and those are allowed to enter it only twice a year, in spring and autumn, and work there for only a couple of weeks for several hours a day. Unlike Altamira and Lascaux, Chauvet has not been "cloned" yet, so ordinary people like you and me will have to admire the reproductions, which we will certainly do, but a little later.
"In the fifteen-plus years since the discovery, there have been far more people who have been to the top of Everest than have seen these drawings," writes Adam Smith in a review of Werner Herzog's documentary on Chauve. Haven't tested it, but it sounds good.
So, the famous German film director, by some miracle, managed to get permission to shoot. The film "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was filmed in 3D and screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, which, presumably, attracted the attention of the general public to Chauvet. It is not good for us to lag behind the public.
Researchers agree that the caves containing drawings in such a quantity were clearly not intended for habitation and were not prehistoric art galleries, but were sanctuaries, places of rituals, in particular, the initiation of young men entering adulthood (about this evidenced, for example, by preserved baby footprints).
In the four "halls" of Chauvet, along with connecting passages with a total length of about 500 meters, more than three hundred perfectly preserved drawings depicting various animals, including large-scale multi-figured compositions, were found.
Eliette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillair - participants in the opening of the Chauvet cave.
The murals also answered the question - did tigers or lions live in prehistoric Europe? It turned out - the second. Ancient drawings of cave lions always show them without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not so impressive. Often these images show the tuft on the tail characteristic of lions. The coloring of the wool, apparently, was one-color.
In the art of the Paleolithic, for the most part, drawings of animals from the "menu" of primitive people appear - bulls, horses, deer (although this is not entirely accurate: it is known, for example, that for the inhabitants of Lasko the main "forage" animal was the reindeer, while on on the walls of the cave, it is found in single copies). In general, one way or another, commercial ungulates predominate. Chauvet in this sense is unique in the abundance of images of predators - cave lions and bears, as well as rhinos. It makes sense to dwell on the latter in more detail. Such a number of rhinos, as in Chauvet, is no longer found in any cave.
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It is noteworthy that the first "artists" who left their mark on the walls of some Paleolithic caves, including Chauvet, were ... bears: in places, engraving and painting were done right on top of the traces of mighty claws, the so-called griffads.
In the late Pleistocene, at least two species of bears could coexist: brown bears have survived successfully to this day, and their relatives - cave bears (large and small) died out, unable to adapt to the damp dusk of the caves. The big cave bear wasn't just big, it was huge. Its weight reached 800-900 kg, the diameter of the found skulls is about half a meter. From a fight with such an animal in the depths of a cave, a person, most likely, could not have emerged victorious, but some zoologists are inclined to assume that, despite the frightening size, this animal was slow, non-aggressive and did not pose a real danger.
An image of a cave bear made in red ocher in one of the first rooms.
The oldest Russian paleozoologist, Professor N.K. Vereshchagin believes that "among the hunters of the Stone Age, cave bears were a kind of beef cattle that did not require care for grazing and feeding." The appearance of the cave bear is conveyed in Chauvet as distinctly nowhere. It seems to have played a special role in the life of primitive communities: the beast was depicted on rocks and pebbles, its figures were molded from clay, its teeth were used as pendants, the skin probably served as a bed, the skull was preserved for ritual purposes. So, in Chauvet, a similar skull was found, resting on a rocky foundation, which most likely indicates the existence of a bear cult.
The woolly rhinoceros died out a little earlier than the mammoth (according to various sources, from 15-20 to 10 thousand years ago), and, at least, in the drawings of the Madeleine period (15-10 thousand years BC), it almost never meets. In Chauvet, we generally see a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without any trace of wool. Perhaps this is Merck's rhinoceros, which lived in southern Europe, but is much rarer than its woolly relative. The length of its front horn could be up to 1.30 m. In a word, the monster was something else.
There are practically no images of people. There are only chimera-like figures - for example, a man with a bison's head. No traces of human habitation were found in the Chauvet cave, but in some places on the floor footprints of the primitive visitors of the cave were preserved. According to researchers, the cave was a place for magical rituals.
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Previously, researchers believed that several stages could be distinguished in the development of primitive painting. At first, the drawings were very primitive. The skill came later, with experience. More than one thousand years had to pass for the drawings on the walls of the caves to reach their perfection.
Chauvet's discovery shattered this theory. The French archaeologist Jean Clott, having carefully examined Chauvet, stated that our ancestors must have learned to draw even before moving to Europe. And they arrived here about 35,000 years ago. The most ancient images from the Chauvet cave are very perfect works of painting, in which one can see both perspective and chiaroscuro, and different angles, etc.
Interestingly, the artists of the Chauvet Cave used methods not applicable anywhere else. Before drawing the picture, the walls were scraped and leveled. Ancient artists, having first scratched the contours of the animal, gave them the necessary volume with paints. "The people who painted this were great artists," confirms French rock-artist Jean Clotte.
A detailed study of the cave will take more than a dozen years. However, it is already clear that its total length is more than 500 m at one level, the height of the ceilings is from 15 to 30 m. Four successive "halls" and numerous side branches. In the first two rooms, the images are made in red ocher. In the third - engravings and black figures. There are many bones of ancient animals in the cave, and in one of the halls there are traces of the cultural layer. Found about 300 images. The painting is well preserved.
(source - Flickr.com)
There is speculation that such images with multiple contours layered on top of each other are some kind of primitive animation. When a torch was quickly moved along the drawing in a cave immersed in darkness, the rhinoceros "came to life", and one can imagine what effect this had on the cave "spectators" - the "Arrival of the train" by the Lumiere brothers is resting.
There are other considerations in this regard. For example, that a group of animals is thus depicted in perspective. Nevertheless, the same Herzog in his film adheres to "our" version, and he can be trusted in matters of "moving pictures".
Now the Chauvet cave is closed to public access, since any noticeable change in air humidity can damage the wall paintings. The right of access, only for a few hours and subject to restrictions, can be obtained by only a few archaeologists. The cave has been cut off from the outside world since the Ice Age due to the fall of the rock in front of its entrance.
The drawings of the Chauvet cave amaze with the knowledge of the laws of perspective (the drawings of mammoths overlapping each other) and the ability to cast shadows - until now it was believed that this technique was discovered several millennia later. And for a whole eternity before the idea dawned on Seurat, primitive artists discovered pointillism: the image of one animal, it seems to be a bison, consists entirely of red dots.
But the most surprising thing is that, as already mentioned, the artists prefer rhinos, lions, cave bears and mammoths. Usually, the animals that were hunted served as models for rock art. "From all the bestiaries of that era, artists choose the most predatory, most dangerous animals," says archaeologist Margaret Conkey from the University of Berkeley in California. Depicting animals that were clearly not on the menu of the Paleolithic cuisine, but symbolized danger, strength, power, the artists, according to Klott, "learned their essence."
Archaeologists have paid attention to how exactly the images are included in the space of the wall. In one of the halls, a cave bear without a lower body is depicted in red ocher, so that it seems, Clott says, "as if he were coming out of the wall." In the same hall, archaeologists also found images of two stone goats. The horns of one of them are natural crevices in the wall, which the artist expanded.
Image of a horse in a niche (source - Donsmaps.com)
Rock art clearly played a significant role in the spiritual life of prehistoric people. This can be confirmed by two large triangles (symbols of the feminine and fertility?) and the image of a creature with human legs, but with the head and body of a buffalo. Probably, the people of the Stone Age hoped in this way to appropriate at least partially the power of animals. The cave bear, apparently, occupied a special position. 55 bear skulls, one of which lies on a fallen boulder, as if on an altar, suggest a cult of this beast. Which also explains the choice of the Chauvet cave by the artists - dozens of potholes in the floor indicate that it was a hibernation place for giant bears.
Ancient people came again and again to look at the rock art. The 10-meter "horse panel" shows traces of soot left by torches that were fixed in the wall after it was covered with paintings. These tracks, according to Konka, are on top of a layer of mineralized deposits covering the images. If painting is the first step towards spirituality, then the ability to appreciate it is undoubtedly the second.
At least 6 books and dozens of scientific articles have been published about Chauvet Cave, not counting sensational materials in the general press, four large albums of beautiful color illustrations with accompanying text have been published and translated into major European languages. The documentary film "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D" is released on December 15 in Russia. The director of the picture is the German Werner Herzog.
picture Cave of Forgotten Dreams appreciated at the 61st Berlin Film Festival. More than a million people went to see the film. It is the highest grossing documentary film of 2011.
According to new data, the age of the coal with which the drawings on the wall of the Chauvet cave are drawn is 36,000 years old, and not 31,000, as previously thought.
Refined methods of radiocarbon dating show that the settlement of modern man (Homo sapiens) in Central and Western Europe began 3 thousand years earlier than thought, and proceeded faster. The time of joint residence of sapiens and Neanderthals in most parts of Europe has decreased from about 10 to 6 or less thousand years. The final extinction of European Neanderthals may also have occurred several millennia earlier.
Renowned British archaeologist Paul Mellars has published a review of recent advances in radiocarbon dating that have significantly changed our understanding of the chronology of events that took place more than 25,000 years ago.
The accuracy of radiocarbon dating has increased dramatically in recent years due to two factors. First, there appeared methods of high-quality purification of organic substances, primarily collagen, isolated from ancient bones, from all impurities. When it comes to very ancient samples, even a tiny admixture of foreign carbon can lead to serious distortions. For example, if a 40,000-year-old sample contains only 1% of modern carbon, this would reduce the "radiocarbon age" by as much as 7,000 years. As it turned out, most of the ancient archaeological finds contain such impurities, so their age was systematically underestimated.
The second source of errors, which has finally been eliminated, is related to the fact that the content of the radioactive isotope 14C in the atmosphere (and, consequently, in the organic matter formed in different epochs) is not constant. The bones of people and animals that lived during periods of high levels of 14C in the atmosphere initially contained more of this isotope than expected, and therefore their age was again underestimated. In recent years, a number of extremely accurate measurements have been made that have made it possible to reconstruct the fluctuations of 14C in the atmosphere over the past 50 millennia. For this, unique marine deposits were used in some areas of the World Ocean, where precipitation accumulated very quickly, Greenland ice, cave stalagmites, coral reefs, etc. In all these cases, it was possible to compare radiocarbon dates for each layer with others obtained on the basis of ratios of oxygen isotopes 18O/16O or uranium and thorium.
As a result, correction scales and tables were developed, which made it possible to sharply improve the accuracy of radiocarbon dating of samples older than 25 thousand years. What did the updated dates say?
It was previously believed that modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared in southeastern Europe about 45,000 years ago. From here they gradually settled in a western and northwestern direction. The settlement of Central and Western Europe continued, according to "uncorrected" radiocarbon dates, for about 7 thousand years (43-36 thousand years ago); the average advance rate is 300 meters per year. Refined dates show that the settlement was faster and began earlier (46-41 thousand years ago; the rate of advancement is up to 400 meters per year). Approximately at the same rate, an agricultural culture later spread in Europe (10-6 thousand years ago), which also came from the Middle East. It is curious that both waves of settlement followed two parallel paths: the first along the Mediterranean coast from Israel to Spain, the second along the Danube valley, from the Balkans to South Germany and further to Western France.
In addition, it turned out that the period of cohabitation of modern humans and Neanderthals in most parts of Europe was significantly shorter than thought (not 10,000 years, but only about 6,000), and in some areas, for example, in western France, even less - only 1-2 thousand years. According to updated dates, some of the brightest examples of cave painting turned out to be much older than it was thought; the beginning of the Orignac era, marked by the appearance of various complex products made of bone and horn, also moved back in time (41,000 thousand years ago, according to new ideas).
Paul Mellars believes that the earlier published dates of the latest Neanderthal sites (in Spain and Croatia, both sites, according to "unspecified" radiocarbon dating, are 31-28 thousand years old) also need to be revised. In fact, these finds are most likely several millennia older.
All this shows that the indigenous Neanderthal population of Europe fell under the onslaught of the Middle Eastern newcomers much faster than thought. The superiority of the sapiens - technological or social - was too great, and neither the physical strength of the Neanderthals, nor their endurance, nor their adaptability to the cold climate could save the doomed race.
Chauvet's painting is amazing in many ways. Take, for example, angles. It was common for cave artists to depict animals in profile. Of course, this is also typical for most of the drawings here, but there are breaks, as in the above fragment, where the bison's muzzle is given in three quarters. In the following figure, you can also see a rare frontal image:
Maybe this is an illusion, but a distinct feeling of composition is created - the lions are sniffing in anticipation of the prey, but they still do not see the bison, and he clearly tensed up and froze, feverishly thinking where to run. True, judging by the dull look, it looks bad.
Remarkable running bison:
(source - Donsmaps.com)
At the same time, the "face" of each horse is purely individual:
(source - istmira.com)
The following panel with horses is probably the most famous and widely distributed among the people from the images of Chauvet:
(source - popular-archaeology.com)
In the recently released science fiction film Prometheus, the cave, which promises the discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization that once visited our planet, is copied clean from Chauvet, including this wonderful group, to which people who are completely inappropriate here are added.
Frame from the film "Prometheus" (dir. R. Scott, 2012)
You and I both know that there are no people on the walls of the Chauvet. What is not, is not. There are bulls.
(source - Donsmaps.com)
During the Pliocene and especially during the Pleistocene, ancient hunters exerted significant pressure on nature. The idea that the extinction of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, cave lion is associated with warming and the end of the ice age was first questioned by the Ukrainian paleontologist I.G. Pidoplichko, who expressed the then-seeming seditious hypothesis that man was to blame for the extinction of the mammoth. Later discoveries confirmed the validity of these assumptions. The development of methods of radiocarbon analysis showed that the last mammoths ( Elephas primigenius) lived at the very end of the Ice Age, and in some places survived until the beginning of the Holocene. The remains of a thousand mammoths were found at the Predmost site of a Paleolithic man (Czechoslovakia). There are mass finds of mammoth bones (more than 2 thousand individuals) at the Volchya Griva site near Novosibirsk, which are 12 thousand years old. The last mammoths in Siberia lived only 8-9 thousand years ago. The destruction of the mammoth as a species is undoubtedly the result of the activities of ancient hunters.
An important character in Chauvet's painting was a big-horned deer.
The art of the Upper Paleolithic animalists, along with paleontological and archaeozoological finds, serves as an important source of information about what animals our ancestors hunted. Until recently, the Late Paleolithic drawings from the Lascaux caves in France (17 thousand years) and Altamira in Spain (15 thousand years) were considered the oldest and most complete, but later the Chauvet caves were discovered, which gives us a new range of images of the mammalian fauna of that time. Along with relatively rare drawings of a mammoth (among them is an image of a mammoth, strikingly reminiscent of the mammoth Dima found in the permafrost of the Magadan Region) or an alpine ibex ( Capra ibex) there are many images of two-horned rhinos, cave bears ( Ursus spelaeus), cave lions ( Panthera spelaea), tarpanov ( Equus gmelini).
The images of rhinos in the Chauvet Cave raise many questions. This is undoubtedly not a woolly rhinoceros - the drawings depict a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without traces of wool, with a pronounced skin fold, characteristic of living species for a one-horned Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinocerus indicus). Maybe it's Merck's rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis), who survived in southern Europe until the end of the Late Pleistocene? However, if from the woolly rhinoceros, which was the object of hunting in the Paleolithic and disappeared by the beginning of the Neolithic, rather numerous remnants of skin with hair, horny growths on the skull were preserved (even the only stuffed animal of this species in the world is kept in Lviv), then from Merck's rhinoceros we have come down to only bone remains, and keratin "horns" were not preserved. Thus, the discovery in the Chauvet Cave raises the question: what kind of rhino was known to its inhabitants? Why are the rhinos from the Chauvet Cave shown in herds? It is very likely that Paleolithic hunters are also to blame for the disappearance of the Merck rhinoceros.
Paleolithic art does not know the concepts of good and evil. Both the peacefully grazing rhinoceros and the lions ensconced in ambush are parts of a single nature, from which the artist himself does not separate himself. Of course, you can’t get into the head of a Cro-Magnon man and don’t talk “for life” when you meet, but I can understand and at least understand the idea that art at the dawn of mankind still does not oppose nature in any way, a person is in harmony with the outside world. Every thing, every stone or tree, not to mention animals, is considered by him as carrying meaning, as if the whole world were a huge living museum. At the same time, there is no reflection yet, and the questions of being are not raised. This is such a pre-cultural, heavenly state. Of course, we will not be able to fully feel it (as well as return to paradise), but suddenly we will be able to at least touch it, communicating through tens of millennia with the authors of these amazing creations.
We do not see them resting alone. Always hunting, and always almost a whole pride.
In general, the admiration of primitive man for the huge, strong and fast animals surrounding him, whether it be a big-horned deer, a bison or a bear, is understandable. It is even somehow ridiculous to put yourself next to them. He didn't set it. We have a lot to learn, filling our virtual "caves" with immeasurable quantities of our own or family photographs. Yes, something, but narcissism was not characteristic of the first people. But the same bear was depicted with the greatest care and trepidation:
The gallery ends with the strangest drawing in the Chauvet, with a definite cult purpose. It is located in the farthest corner of the grotto and is made on a rocky ledge, which has (for good reason, presumably) a phallic shape.
In literature, this character is usually referred to as a "sorcerer" or taurocephalus. In addition to the bull's head, we see another, lion's, female legs and a deliberately enlarged, let's say, bosom, which is the center of the entire composition. Against the background of their colleagues in the Paleolithic workshop, the craftsmen who painted this sanctuary look like pretty avant-garde artists. We know individual images of the so-called. "Venuses", male sorcerers in the form of animals and even scenes hinting at the intercourse of an ungulate with a woman, but to mix all of the above so thickly ... It is assumed (see, for example, http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/ francech auvet.htm) that the image of the female body was the earliest, and the heads of a lion and a bull were completed later. Interestingly, there is no overlay of later drawings on the previous ones. Obviously, the preservation of the integrity of the composition was part of the artist's plans.
and look again at AndRock paintings of ancient people
The ancient civilizations were not too developed, regarding their knowledge in the field of chemistry and physics. Perhaps because of this, many mystical theories appeared, the deification of natural phenomena, great importance was attached to the death of a person, his departure to another world. The rock paintings of ancient people can tell us a lot about what happened in their lives. On the walls they depicted agricultural activities, military rituals, gods, priests. In a word, everything that their world consisted of and depended on.
In ancient Egypt, tombs and pyramids are filled with rock paintings. In the tombs of the pharaohs, for example, it was customary to depict their entire life path from birth to death. In full detail, the cave paintings describe burial celebrations, etc. 
The most primitive drawings show that a person from his very appearance was drawn to art, he wanted to remember some moments of life forever. In hunting, primitive people saw a special beauty, they sought to portray the grace and strength of animals.
Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome also left a lot of rock evidence to remind us of their existence. The thing is that they already had developed writing - their drawings are much more interesting, from the point of view of studying everyday life, than ancient graffiti.
The Greeks loved to write down wise sayings, or cases that seemed to them instructive, funny. The Romans noted in the cave paintings the valor of soldiers, the beauty of women, despite the fact that the Roman civilization was practically a copy of the Greek, Roman graffiti does not differ in the sharpness of thought or the dexterity of its transmission.
With the development of society, wall art also developed, passing from civilization to civilization, and giving it a unique shade. Each society, civilization leaves its mark in history, similar to the one that leaves an inscription on a clean wall.
Anyone endowed with a great gift - feel the beauty surrounding world, feel harmony lines, admire the variety of shades of colors.
Painting- this is the artist's attitude captured on canvas. If your perception of the surrounding world is reflected in the artist's painting, then you feel an affinity with the works of this master.
Pictures attract attention, fascinate, excite the imagination and dreams, evoke memories of pleasant moments, favorite places and landscapes.
When did they appear first images man-made?
Appeal primitive people to a new type of activity for them - art - one of the greatest events in human history. Primitive art reflected the first ideas of man about the world around him, thanks to him knowledge and skills were preserved and transferred, people communicated with each other. In the spiritual culture of the primitive world, art began to play the same universal role that a pointed stone played in labor activity.
What prompted a person to think of depicting certain objects? How do you know if body painting was the first step towards creating images, or if a person guessed the familiar silhouette of an animal in a random outline of a stone and, having cut it, gave it a greater resemblance? Or maybe the shadow of an animal or a person served as the basis for the drawing, and the imprint of a hand or a step precedes the sculpture? There is no definite answer to these questions. Ancient people could come up with the idea of depicting objects not in one, but in many ways.
For example, to the number the most ancient images on the walls of caves of the Paleolithic era are also human handprints, and a disorderly weave of wavy lines, pressed into the damp clay with the fingers of the same hand.
The works of art of the early Stone Age, or Paleolithic, are characterized by simplicity of forms and colors. Rock paintings are, as a rule, the contours of the figures of animals., made with bright paint - red or yellow, and occasionally - filled with round spots or completely painted over. Such ""paintings"" were clearly visible in the twilight of the caves, illuminated only by torches or the fire of a smoky fire.
At the initial stage of development primitive fine arts didn't know laws of space and perspective, as well as composition, those. intentional distribution on the plane of individual figures, between which there is necessarily a semantic connection.
In living and expressive images rises before us life history of primitive man era of the Stone Age, told by him in the rock paintings.
Dance. Painting by Lleid. Spain. With a variety of movements and gestures, a person conveyed his impressions of the world around him, reflecting in them his own feelings, mood and state of mind. Frantic jumps, imitation of the habits of an animal, stamping feet, expressive hand gesturescreated the prerequisites for the emergence of dance. There were also martial dances associated with magical rituals, with the belief in victory over the enemy.
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Composition in the cave of Lascaux. France. On the walls of the caves you can see mammoths, wild horses, rhinos, bison. Drawing for primitive man was the same "witchcraft" as a spell and ritual dance. “Conjuring” the spirit of the drawn animal by singing and dancing, and then “killing” it, the person seemed to master the power of the animal and “defeat” it before the hunt.
<<Сражающиеся лучники>> Spain
And these are petroglyphs. Hawaii
Paintings on the Tassili-Adjer mountain plateau. Algeria.
Primitive people practiced sympathetic magic - in the form of dancing, singing, or pictures of animals on the walls of caves - to attract herds of animals and ensure the continuation of the family and the safety of livestock. The hunters acted out successful hunting scenes to draw energy into the real world. They turned to the Mistress of the Herds, and later to the Horned God, who was depicted with the horns of goats or deer to emphasize his leadership in the herds. The bones of animals were supposed to be buried in the ground so that animals, like people, would be reborn from the womb of Mother Earth.
This is a cave drawing in the Lascaux region of France from the Paleolithic era.
Large animals were the preferred food. And the Paleolithic people, skilled hunters, destroyed most of them. And not just large herbivores. During the Paleolithic, cave bears completely disappeared as a species.
There is another type of rock paintings, which is of a mystical, mysterious nature.
Rock paintings from Australia. Either people, or animals, or maybe not both...
Drawings from West Arnhem, Australia.
Huge figures and a number of little men. And in the lower left corner, something is generally incomprehensible.
And here is a masterpiece from Laskaux, France.
North Africa, Sahara. Tassili. 6 thousand years BC Flying saucers and someone in a space suit. Or maybe it's not a spacesuit.
Rock painting from Australia...
Val Camonica, Italy.
and the next photo is from Azerbaijan, Gobustan region
Gobustan is included in the UNESCO heritage list
Who were those "artists" who managed to convey to remote eras the message of their time? What prompted them to do this? What were the hidden springs and the driving motives that guided them?..Thousands of questions and very few answers...Many of our contemporaries are very fond of being offered to look at history through a magnifying glass.
But is it really all that small?
After all, there were images of the gods
In the north of Upper Egypt is the ancient temple city of Abydos. Its origin dates back to prehistoric times. It is known that already in the era of the Old Kingdom (about 2500 BC), the universal deity Osiris enjoyed wide veneration in Abydos. Osiris, on the other hand, was considered a divine teacher who gave the people of the Stone Age diverse knowledge and crafts, and, quite possibly, knowledge about the secrets of the sky. By the way, it was in Abydos that the oldest calendar was found, dating back to the 4th millennium BC. e.
Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome also left a lot of rock evidence to remind us of their existence. They already had developed writing - their drawings are much more interesting, from the point of view of studying everyday life, than ancient graffiti.
Why is humanity trying to find out what happened millions of years ago, what knowledge ancient civilizations had? We seek the source because we think that by uncovering it, we will know why we exist. Humanity wants to find where is the starting point from which it all began, because it thinks that there, apparently, there is an answer, “what is all this for”, and what will happen in the end ...
After all, the world is so vast, and the human brain is narrow and limited. The most difficult crossword puzzle of history must be solved gradually, cell by cell...
Paintings and engravings on the rocks began to be painted tens of thousands of years before the birth of such civilizations as Greece and Mesopotamia. While most of these writings remain a mystery, they scold modern scholars to understand the daily lives of prehistoric people, to understand their religious beliefs and culture. It is a real miracle that these ancient drawings have survived for such a long time in the face of natural erosion, wars and destructive human activities.
1. El Castillo
Spain
Some of the oldest known rock paintings in the world, depicting horses, bison and warriors, are located in the El Castillo Cave, in Cantabria in northern Spain. Inside the cave there is a hole so narrow that you need to crawl through it. In the cave itself, you can find many drawings that are at least 40,800 years old.
They were made shortly after humans began migrating from Africa to Europe, where they met the Neanderthals. In fact, the age of the rock paintings suggests the possibility that they were made by Neanderthals living in the region at the time, although the evidence for this is not at all conclusive.
2.Sulawesi
Indonesia
For a long time, El Castillo cave was believed to contain the oldest known rock art. But in 2014, archaeologists made a stunning discovery. In seven caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, handprints and primitive drawings of local pigs were found on the walls.
These images were already known to the locals, but no one even guessed how old they were. Scientists have estimated the age of the rock paintings at 40,000 years. Such a discovery called into question the long-standing belief that human art first appeared in Europe.
3. Arnhem Land Plateau
Australia
Recent studies have shown that some places in Australia may well compete in age with the world's oldest art. A 28,000-year-old rock painting has been found at the Navarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in the north of the country. However, scientists believe that some of the drawings may be much older, as one of them depicts a giant bird that became extinct about 40,000 years ago.
Therefore, either the rock art is older than expected, or the bird lived longer than modern science suggests. At Nawarla Gabarnmang, you can also find drawings of fish, crocodiles, wallabies, lizards, turtles and other animals made tens of thousands of years ago.
4. Apollo 11
Namibia
This cave got such an unusual name because it was discovered by a German archaeologist in 1969, when the first spacecraft (Apollo 11) landed on the moon. Drawings made with charcoal, ocher and white paint have been found on the stone slabs of a cave in southwestern Namibia.
The creatures, which resemble cats, zebras, ostriches and giraffes, are between 26,000 and 28,000 years old and are the oldest fine art found in Africa.
5. Pech-Merle cave
France
Scholars believed that the paintings of two spotted horses on the walls of the Peche Merle cave in south-central France, which were made 25,000 years ago, were the product of an ancient artist's imagination. But recent DNA studies have shown that a similar spotted horse did exist in the region at that time. Also in the cave you can find 5000-year-old images of bison, mammoths, horses and other animals, painted with black manganese oxide and red ocher.
6. Tadrart-Acacus
Libya
Deep in the Sahara desert in southwest Libya, in the Tadrart Acacus mountain range, thousands of paintings and rock paintings have been found that show that once there was water and lush vegetation in these arid lands. Also on the territory of the present Sahara lived giraffes, rhinos, and crocodiles. The oldest drawing here was made 12,000 years ago. But, after Tadrart-Acacus began to be swallowed up by the desert, people finally left this place around 100 AD.
7. Bhimbetka
India
In the state of Madhya Pradesh, there are about 600 caves and rock dwellings in which rock paintings have been found, made between 1,000 and 12,000 years ago.
These prehistoric images are painted with red and white paint. In the paintings you can find hunting scenes for buffaloes, tigers, giraffes, elks, lions, leopards, elephants and rhinos. Other drawings show fruit and honey gathering and animal domestication. You can also find images of animals that have long since become extinct in India.
8. Laas Gaal
Somalia
The complex of eight caves in Somaliland contains some of the oldest and best preserved rock paintings in Africa. They are estimated to be between 5,000 and 11,000 years old, and these drawings of cows, humans, dogs, and giraffes are done in red, orange, and cream. Almost nothing is known about the people who lived here at that time, but many locals still consider the caves to be sacred.
9. Cueva de las Manos
Argentina
This unusual cave in Patagonia is literally overflowing with 9,000-year-old red and black handprints on the walls. Since there are mainly images of the left hands of teenage boys, scientists have suggested that drawing the image of one's hand was part of the rite of initiation for young men. In addition, hunting scenes of guanacos and flightless rhea birds can also be found in the cave.
10 Swimmers Cave
Egypt
In the Libyan desert in 1933, they found a cave with cave paintings from the Neolithic era. The images of floating people (from which the cave got its name), as well as the handprints that adorn the walls, were made between 6000 and 8000 years ago.
For many years, modern civilization had no idea about any objects of ancient painting, but in 1879, the Spanish amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, along with his 9-year-old daughter, accidentally stumbled upon the Altamira cave, the vaults of which were decorated with many drawings of ancient people - an unparalleled find shocked the researcher and encouraged him to study it closely.
1. Rock of the white shaman
This 4,000-year-old ancient rock art is located in the lower reaches of the Pecoe River in Texas. The giant image (3.5 m) shows the central figure surrounded by other people performing some rituals. It is assumed that the figure of a shaman is depicted in the center, and the picture itself depicts the cult of some forgotten ancient religion.
2. Kakadu Park
Kakadu National Park is one of the most beautiful places for tourists in Australia. It is especially valued for its rich cultural heritage - the park has an impressive collection of local Aboriginal art. Some of the rock paintings at Kakadu (which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site) are nearly 20,000 years old.
3. Chauvet Cave
Another UNESCO World Heritage Site is located in the south of France. More than 1000 different images can be found in Chauvet Cave, most of them animal and anthropomorphic figures. These are some of the oldest images known to man: their age dates back to 30,000 - 32,000 years. About 20,000 years ago, the cave was filled with stones and it has been preserved in excellent condition to this day.
4. Cueva de El Castillo
In Spain, the "Cave Cave" or Cueva de El Castillo was recently discovered, on the walls of which they found the oldest rock paintings in Europe, their age is 4,000 years older than all the rock paintings that were previously found in the Old World. Most images show handprints and simple geometric shapes, although there are also images of strange animals. One of the drawings, a simple red disk, was made 40,800 years ago. It is assumed that these paintings were made by Neanderthals.
5. Laas Gaal
Some of the most ancient and well-preserved rock paintings on the African continent can be found in Somalia, in the Laas Gaal (Camel Well) cave complex. Despite the fact that they are "only" 5,000 to 12,000 years old, these rock paintings are perfectly preserved. They depict mainly animals and people in ceremonial robes and various decorations. Unfortunately, this remarkable cultural site is not eligible for World Heritage status as it is located in an area where there is constant war.
6. Bhimbetka rock dwellings
The rock dwellings at Bhimbetka represent some of the earliest traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent. In natural rock shelters, there are paintings on the walls that are about 30,000 years old. These paintings represent the period of development of civilization from the Mesolithic to the end of prehistoric times. The drawings depict animals and people in daily activities such as hunting, religious ceremonies and, interestingly, dancing.
7. Magura
In Bolgari, the rock paintings found in the Magura cave are not very old - they are between 4,000 and 8,000 years old. They are interesting with the material that was used for drawing images - guano (litter) of a bat. In addition, the cave itself was formed millions of years ago and other archaeological artifacts have been found in it, such as the bones of extinct animals (for example, a cave bear).
8. Cueva de las Manos
The "Cave of Hands" in Argentina is famous for its extensive collection of prints and images of human hands. This rock painting dates back to 9,000 - 13,000 years. The cave itself (more precisely, the cave system) was used by ancient people as early as 1,500 years ago. Also in Cueva de las Manos you can find various geometric figures and images of hunting.
9. Altamira Cave
The paintings found in the cave of Altamira in Spain are considered a masterpiece of ancient culture. The stone painting of the Upper Paleolithic (14,000 - 20,000 years old) is in exceptional condition. As in the Chauvet cave, a collapse sealed the entrance to this cave about 13,000 years ago, so the images remained in their original form. In fact, these drawings are so well preserved that when they were first discovered in the 19th century, scientists thought they were fake. It took a long time until technology made it possible to confirm the authenticity of the rock art. Since then, the cave has proved so popular with tourists that it had to be closed in the late 1970s as large amounts of carbon dioxide from the breath of visitors began to destroy the painting.
10. Lascaux Cave
This is by far the most famous and most significant collection of rock art in the world. Some of the most beautiful 17,000 year old paintings in the world can be found in this cave system in France. They are very complex, very carefully made and at the same time perfectly preserved. Unfortunately, the cave was closed over 50 years ago due to the fact that under the influence of carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors, the unique images began to collapse. In 1983, a reproduction of a part of the cave called Lasko 2 was discovered.
