EARLY MAN

OLD STONE AGE

PLIOCENE

PLEISTOCENE
 Paleolithic art (Old Stone Age) (Paleo =old + lithic =stone)
(35,000-10,000 B.C.)

1-4. Hall of Bulls, Lescaux, France, 15, 000 –13,000 B.C.

•There is much that is still unknown about

the purposes of these paintings but most
scholars believe they were used as part of
ceremonies and rituals before hunting
and/or in initiation rites for young men.
•It seems clear from their locations deep in
the caves--often in areas difficult to access--
that they were not intended as art for art's
sake.
http://departments.ozarks.edu/hfa/slgorman/HIstudyaids.htm#chap1paleo
 Many of them make artistic use of color and texture,
using the natural contours of the rocks to suggest the
shapes and curves of the animal's body and create
surprisingly “naturalistic” drawings

Central focus was on the hunt, with the clan

1-1 Bison ceiling, moving from place to place (nomadic) with
Altimira, Spain changing climate, seasons, and availability of
animals and food sources.

There is a close relationship between animal and

man in these early cultures and killing an animal
sees often to have been a ritual act. It is a
relationship of reverence that is far different from
our relationship with animals today. Killing, then,
becomes not simply slaughter but a recognition of
your dependency on the voluntary giving of this
food to you by the animal who has given its life. The
hunt is a ritual.
1-4. Hall of Bulls, Lescaux, France,
15, 000 –13,000 B.C.
http://departments.ozarks.edu/hfa/slgorman/HIstudyaids.htm#chap1prehist
 3-4 inches =
meant to be
portable

The “so-called” Venus of Willendorf, was

found in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef
Szombathy near the town of Willendorf The Lady of Brassempouy
Austria. Carved in ivory. Size: 1 1/2 inches
Brassempouy, France,
22,000-20,000 B.C.
1-8 Venus of Willendorf,
c. 28,000-23,000 B.C.

Sculpture found is in relief and in-the-round.

Possibility the animals functioned as totems, while the female figures (no male
figures have been found) were fertility symbols.
They are called "venus" figures, but their symbolism was different from the Greek
goddess of love. They are considered to be an expression of sexual power and
childbirth (mother-earth symbol).
 “Venus” – the ideal woman

Venus de Milo, 130-

120 BC, marble, 6 ½ ft, The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, 1485,
Ancient Greece oil on canvas
Paleolithic Architecture

•Traditionally architecture has been a term applied to the enclosure of spaces with
at least some aesthetic intent.
•During the upper Paleolithic period huts and shelters were created. Because, the
building of even the simplest of structures requires some imagination and planning,
these structures are considered architecture.

There are even examples of some shelters that were

far more complex than a simple hut. Some were
constructed with branches and hides, some had floor
that were colored with natural colorants and there
are some well preserved examples of dwellings in
Russia and Ukraine regions that were constructed
using woolly mammoth bones as a base and there
were believed animal hides protecting the outer
layer.
 Skara Brae House

Here are the remains

of a Paleolithic
“house” called the
Skara Brae House.
These homes were
built to last. People
did not always live in
them all year round.
And they were
abandon when
people moved on to
other locations
following their food
sources.
Each house shares the same basic design - a large square room, with a
central fireplace, a bed on either side and a shelved dresser on the
wall opposite the doorway.
The first building at Barnhouse took place around 3300BC. The settlement
remained in use for around 700 years, before falling out of use around
2600BC.
The settlement takes its name from the nearby farm Barnhouse, on whose
land it was found. The actual name of the area in which the village stands is
Antaness.
At the centre of the settlement was an open area in which the villages made
their pottery and worked flint, bone and animal hides.
Standing in the south-western quarter of
the village, the size and architecture of
House Two was completely different to the
other contemporary houses excavated in
the settlement.
the building was partitioned with stone
slabs to form two chambers with six
rectangular recesses built into the interior
wall.
The interior of the Barnhouse dwellings Plan View of House Two
were more of less identical to the houses of showing the six side recesses
Skara Brae, with the central hearth, and two chambers.
recessed beds and stone dressers.
Ritual complex
Lying directly opposite House Two, are the remains of the
largest, covered structure from Neolithic Orkney (island)
discovered to date.
This building, built around 2600BC, after the village had been
abandoned, was a massive hall-like structure, seven metres
square, with incredibly thick outer walls. The structure was
built on a platform of yellow clay.
Structure Eight's clay platform was surrounded by an
enclosing circular wall, creating an internal courtyard over 20
metres across.
All you see and many other
items we might find are
artifacts. Artifacts are the
story of our life we leave
behind when we are long
dead and gone.
Neolithic Art (New Stone Age)
8000 - 3000 BC

Otherwise known as New Stone Age, the Neolithic period was a time when people
were living in real village-like settings, with farms including animals (now
domesticated), crops (grains and eventually rice) and even items that we consider art.
(These people are still, essentially hunters and gatherers).

Things like pottery and woven items were typical creations of the people of this time
period. Functional art you might say.

The melting of glaciers of the Ice Age is beginning to have profound changes
ALTHOUGH these changes occur VERY slowly. This change did not occur overnight and
at the same time for different groups of people, but gradually over thousands of
years.
Architecture

Neolithic people began to build structures to serve as dwellings and storage

spaces, they also used this area as an area to keep their animals.

Neolithic people, like their Paleolithic predecessors, continued to construct

buildings out of wood and other plant materials.

People clustered their dwellings in villages and eventually larger towns, and
outside their settlements, they built tombs and ritual centers.

Around 4,000 BC, Neolithic settlers began to strategically locate settlements at

sites that were easy to defend- near rivers, on plateaus, or even in swamps. The
Fertile Crescent becomes the center of some of the oldest cities.
• The oldest known settled communities have been
discovered in the fertile crescent in the Tigris/Euphrates
river valley

• In addition to agriculture these sedentary settlements

also originated weaving, metal working, pottery, and
counting and recording with tokens.

• New sites are discovered each year but the oldest and
most studied three are Jericho in the West Bank, Ain
Ghazal in Jordan, and Catal Hoyuk in Anatolia.
 Jericho began as a small town and then
Jericho went through a period of rapid expansion
around 8000BCE.
Great Stone Tower
The village grew to a town that covered
10 acres.

By 7500 BCE the town was believed to

have a population of over 2000 people
and was surrounded by a ditch and a five
foot high wall creating a total wall height
of approximately 13 feet.

Attached to this wall is a round stone

tower with an inner staircase leading to
the summit.

Later becomes one of the first areas

of plant domestication.
 Jericho

~8000 BCE
 • Ain Ghazal is located near Amman, Jordan
in what was ancient Palestine.
• The most striking finds in Ain Ghazal are
two caches of plaster statuettes and
busts. These figures can be dated to the
mid 7th millennium.
• The figures are built of plaster which has
been molded over a frame of reeds and
grasses.
• The figures have also been finished with
bitumen, a primitive form of tar, and
cowry shells to create realistic eyes.
Artists further finished the statues by
adding painted hair, and in some cases,
body paint or tattooing.
• These figures differ from the Palaeolithic
Human figures, from Ain Ghazal, Jordan, examples of sculpture in the
ca. 6750-6250 BCE. Plaster, painted and sophistication of their creation and in
inlaid with cowry shell their size, the largest figures being 3 feet
and bitumen, 3' 5 3/8 high
in height
 Catal Hoyuk
A Town Without Streets
• Catal Hoyuk was flourishing city between 7000 and 5000 BCE. Twelve
levels of building have been excavated by archaeologists at the site.
• Catal Hoyuk's prosperity appears to have come from a thriving trade
in obsidian, a volcanic glasslike stone used in the manufacture of
tools and weapons.
• This town seems to be one of the first attempts at urban living. The
city plans seem to be laid out in a regular pattern with one notable
exception. There are no streets. All the homes in Catal Hoyuk are
adjoining and have no doors. Access to the homes is from a door that
also serves as a chimney on the roof.
• This layout actually provided greater stability for the structures and
also created an easily defensible position
A section of an earlier dig
 Catal Huyuk
6500-5500 BCE
Archaeologists at work
• Finally, the homes in Catal Hoyuk were found to contain painted and
decorated rooms. While many archaeologists have named these
decorated spaces shrines, their actual function is by no means
certain.

• These rooms display wall paintings, plaster reliefs, animal heads and
bucrania, bull skulls.

• Bull Horns, believed to be a symbol of male potency are prominently

displayed in these rooms, often next to plaster breasts, symbols of
female fertility

• The rooms also contain small terra cotta figurines, the largest being
about 12 inches in length
 A mural of two animals

A fertility goddess

A pottery bowl with tripod

stand
A skeleton found in a house.
 Western Europe’s
Megaliths and Henges
• In Western Europe there are no town sites that parallel the activity
seen in the Near East. However as early as 4000 BCE these cultures
developed a type of massive architecture using huge rough hewn
stones, some weighing 50 tons and standing 17 feet high.
• The sheer size of the stones have caused archaeologists to name then
megaliths and the cultures who erected them as megalithic.
• While megaliths are common throughout modern Europe, the
arrangement of the stones into a circle surrounded by a ditch seems to
be exclusive to the British Iles
• The most famous of these British henges is of course Stonehenge on
Salisbury Plain.
Neolithic art (New Stone Age--(6,000-1,500 B.C.)

Human beings learned to manipulate nature, they invented agriculture,

which allowed production of a food surplus which allowed human to begin
to live in such fixed village settlements.
 Post and lintel construction

Passage graves have corridors built with

Series of “dolmens” made of large stone
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/m/megaliths.html
slabs. These constructions were covered
with earth to create a mound