Prehistoric Rock Art
Definition, Types, Characteristics, History
of Petroglyphs & Pictographs.
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Prehistoric Rock Art |
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Rock Art: Prehistoric
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Rock art is a rather vague term which denotes prehistoric man-made markings on natural stone. Similar terms include: "rock carvings", "rock engravings", "rock inscriptions", "rock drawings" and "rock paintings". This type of Stone Age art is traditionally divided into two main categories: (1) Petroglyphs: meaning, rock carvings or engravings; this category also includes works of prehistoric sculpture that are part of the rocks themselves (parietal), such as relief sculpture. (2) Pictographs: meaning, paintings or drawings. While these petroglyphs and pictographs have been found on the walls of caves, or on exposed outdoor sections of rock, in practice, the earliest art of Europe was created in subterranean caves, while in (say) Northern Africa it is found mostly on the surface of the ground. A third, smaller category of rock art is associated with Megaliths or Petroforms, involving the arrangement of stones to create a type of monument (eg. Stonehenge stone circle). |
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Petroglyphs are generally made by removing the surface of the rock, by carving, scratching, drilling, or sculpting. The markings can be dyed or painted, or enhanced through polishing. Petroglyphs have been discovered all over the populated world, notably in parts of Africa, Scandinavia, Siberia, southwestern North America, Northern and Western Australia, and the Iberian Peninsula. Some of these images have a special cultural and/or religious significance for the societies that created them. The most important, but mysterious, type of petroglyph is the cupule - a non-functional cup-shaped hole created by percussion in the horizontal or vertical surface of a rock. By far the oldest art, cupules have been discovered on every continent except Antarctica, and continued to be created throughout all three eras of the Stone Age. Cupules have also been referred to as "pits", "hollows", "cups", "cup marks" - even "pot-holes". Relief sculpture also appeared at a relatively early stage, as exemplified by the famous Venus of Laussel (c.23,000 BCE) a bas-relief of a naked woman with the typical exaggerated features of a Venus statuette. Pictography is the creation of monochrome or polychrome images through the application of pigments, like carbon, manganese and various oxides. As pictographs are far less weather resistant than engravings, most surviving pictography is in the form of underground cave painting, or outdoor markings under overhanging rock. Prehistoric artists began by painting with their fingers. Later, they used lumpy pigment crayons, or brushes constructed from animal hair or vegetable fibre. The most advanced pictographic techniques included spray painting, using reeds or specially hollowed bones. The colour pigments found in cave paintings were generally obtained from mineral, animal or vegetable sources (eg. clay ochres, charcoal, manganese dioxide, calcium phosphate from crushed animal bone, carrot juice and berries, animal blood and urine). See also: Prehistoric colour palette. Stone Age artists produced many different kinds of images. The most popular subjects were hunting scenes, which typically included pictures of bison, horses, reindeer, cattle and aurochs. Other creatures portrayed, included: lions, mammoths, wolves, foxes, hares, hyenas, fish, reptiles, and birds. By comparison, images of humans appear less frequently. Prehistoric painters also produced a significant amount of what appears to be abstract art, incorporating dots, lines, and other geometric motifs. As well as this, cave paintings throughout the world include numerous symbols, ideograms, anthropomorphs and zoomorphs. Regarding these pictographical symbols, it is worth remembering that pictographs were the basis of cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing, as well as the writing systems used in Ancient China, Sumeria, and Egypt. Indeed, they are still used in tribal art and in some non-literate cultures in Africa, South and Central America, and Oceania. Arguably, the most important pictographs are the Magdalenian-period Lascaux Cave Paintings (c.17,000 BCE) in the Dordogne region of France, and the Altamira Cave Paintings (c.15,000 BCE) in Spain - the "Sistine Chapel" of Stone Age painting. Megalithic rock art is best exemplified by the complex spiral engravings at the entrance of the Newgrange Neolithic Passage Tomb, in Ireland. However, although Newgrange is the most famous site within the Bru na Boinne complex in County Meath, the mound at the Knowth megalithic tomb (Newgrange's sister site) has a huge number of rock engravings around its circumference. Indeed, Knowth is reputedly home to about one third of all megalithic art in Western Europe. Of course, the most obvious characteristic of rock art (whether petroglyph or pictograph) is its "artistic" quality, but this is sometimes the most difficult attribute to establish. Take cupules, for instance. These non-utilitarian cup-like hollows are the most ubiquitous and varied type of prehistoric human markings, yet archeologists and anthropologists remain baffled as to their meaning or significance. Are cupules art? Nobody yet knows, although it seems reasonable to assume they have cultural significance of some kind, which should be sufficient. After all, Rock art traditionally includes a wide variety of man-made markings, such as those created to mark/map territory (geocontourglyphs), pictorialize the stars, record events, or illustrate myths and other rituals. Dating this ancient art can be a very difficult process, often involving radiometric and thermoluminescence methods. Establishing the chronology of extremely old works from the Lower Paleolithic Era (2,500,000 - 200,000 BCE) is even more difficult, not least because it is often almost impossible to establish that certain marks are "man-made". With that in mind, experts believe that the earliest recorded rock art is the Bhimbetka petroglyphs - a series of 10 cupules and an engraving, which were uncovered during the 1990s in a quartzite rock shelter at Bhimbetka in central India. These markings date from at least 290,000 BCE but are likely to be much older (c.700,000 BCE or earlier). For more about the chronology and history of Stone Age engravings and paintings, see: Prehistoric Art Timeline. Rock art was created throughout all three periods of the Stone Age, as follows:
Lower Paleolithic Rock Art • Auditorium Cave Petroglyphs,
Bhimbetka (290,000-700,000 BCE) • Daraki-Chattan Cave Petroglyphs
(290,000-700,000 BCE) Middle Paleolithic Rock Art • Blombos
Cave Abstract Engravings on Ochre (c.70,000 BCE) • La
Ferrassie Cave Cupules (c.70,000-40,000 BCE) Upper Paleolithic Rock Art • Chauvet
Cave Paintings (Monochrome) (c.30,000 - 23,000 BCE) • Ubirr Aboriginal Rock Art
(Dynamic Figure style) (c.30,000 - 20,000 BCE) • Apollo 11 Animal Figure Cave
Paintings (c.25,500 – 23,500 BCE) • Cosquer
Cave Paintings (Stencils and Ideomorphs) (c.25,000 BCE) • Dappled
Horses of Pech-Merle (Polychrome) (c.25,000 BCE) • Venus of Laussel (c.23,000
BCE) • Salmon of Abri du Poisson Cave
(c.23,000 BCE) • Bradshaw Aboriginal Sash Painting
(c.17,000 BCE) • Lascaux
Cave Paintings (Esp. Hall of the Bulls) (c.17,000 BCE) • Font de Gaume Cave Paintings
(c.17,000 BCE) • Cave of La Pasiega Murals
(c.16,000 BCE) • Altamira
Cave Paintings (c.15,000 BCE) • Tuc d'Audoubert Bison (c.13,500
BCE) • Addaura Cave Engravings (c.11,000
BCE) Mesolithic Rock Art • Cuevas de las Manos (Cave
of the Hands) (c.9,500 BCE) • Cave of Bees (Figurative
Paintings) (c.9,000 BCE) • Bhimbetka Rock Paintings and
Stencilled Images (c.9,000-7,000 BCE) • Pachmari Hills Rock Paintings
(c.9,000–3,000 BCE) • Wonderwerk Cave Engravings
(c.8,200 BCE) • Tassili-n-Ajjer Paintings and
Engravings (c.8,000 BCE) • Coldstream Burial Stone with
Coloured Engravings (c.6,000 BCE) • Dabous Giraffe Engravings
(Taureg Culture) (c.4,000 BCE) Neolithic Rock Art Newgrange Neolithic Passage Tomb
with Engraved Spirals (c.3,300-2,800 BCE) "Beautiful Ladies" Niola Doa
Rock Engravings (c.3,000 BCE) Gavrinis Stone No 10 with Engravings
(c.3,000 BCE) Egyptian
Pyramids (26801786 BCE) Brandberg Rock Paintings (San Culture)
(c.2,000 BCE) Kolo Figurative Paintings (Ancient
Sandawe Culture) (c.2,000 BCE) |
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European Rock Art Europe is particularly famous for its pictographic cave murals in southern France and Spain. They include: the Horse Panel and the Panel of Lions and Rhinoceroses at Chauvet Cave; the hand stencils, charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings in the underwater Cosquer Cave; the charcoal and ochre pictures of Dappled Horses at Pech-Merle Cave; the incredible Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux Cave; the animal paintings at Font de Gaume Cave and Cueva de La Pasiega; the extraordinary large scale wall paintings in the polychrome chamber at Altamira. The Franco-Cantabrian group of cave sites can be divided into three phases. In the first or Lower Aurignacian phase, there are engravings drawn with the finger on soft clay walls. They are either simple spirals and frets, or crude representations of animals. There are paintings of animals, the crude contours done in black, yellow or red. And there are stencilled silhouettes of human hands, produced by laying the hand on the wall and blowing the colour over it or tracing the outline. In the second or Upper Aurignacian phase we find engravings and paintings of animals represented with remarkable adherence to nature. The colours used are red and black, and the most essential details of the body are reproduced as well as the contours. In the third or Lower Magdalenian phase both engravings and paintings reach the highest stage of their development. Proportions and details are masterfully portrayed. In the engravings, spaces are often rendered by hatching. Paintings are black partially filled in with brown or red, and there is expert use of shading. Quite apart from their artistic interest, these representations give us an idea of the life of these paleolithic men. We see them in their principal occupation, hunting, and we can study their weapons, tools and ornaments. The stone age painters were complete masters in the art of rendering movement. A large number of their pictures are full of excitement and animation, as for instance the fighting scene from the Galeria del Roble, near Morella la Vella, Castellon in Spain.
African Rock Art Famous for being the birthplace of Homo Sapiens, Africa is home to more than 14,000 recorded but as yet unexplored sites of prehistoric antiquity in the sub-Saharan zone alone. In eastern Africa, most rock art has been found on the huge inland plateau extending from the Zambezi River valley to Lake Turkana. The bulk of these prehistoric artworks are paintings, mainly located in central Tanzania, produced - it is believed - by ancestors of the present day Sandawe tribe. See also: African Art. Australian Rock Art Major finds of Aboriginal rock art in Australia have occurred at Ubirr in Arnhem Land, northern Australia ("X-Ray pictures"); Kimberley in Western Australia (Bradshaws); Western New South Wales (cylindro-conical stone implements, called cyclons); Murujuga Peninsula in Western Australia (Rock Carvings); Sydney NSW (Rock Engravings). Although the earliest authenticated Australian rock art (Ubirr) is dated to about 30,000 BCE, other materials found at the site of this art have been estimated to be up to 50,000 years old. See also: Oceanic Art. Asian Rock Art The Auditorium and Daraki-Chattan Caves in Madhya Pradesh, Central India, contain the world's oldest known petroglyph engravings. Another important site of Stone Age rock art in India is the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters, a UN World Heritage Site which was known to Indian archeologists as early as 1888. See also: Painting & Sculpture from India. Rock Art in the Americas The most famous South American pictographs are the hand stencils in the Cuevas de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) near Rio de las Pinturas in Argentina. That said, there are numerous ancient art sites throughout the Americas. They include: Monte Verde in Chile; Fell's Cave in Patagonia; Blackwater Draw in eastern New Mexico, among many others. Legacy The legacy of this so-called "primitive art" is nothing less than the entire history of art, because everything - including Greek sculpture, Chinese pottery, Roman architecture, the Renaissance, even Damien Hirst's pickled tiger shark - derives from the first inexplicable human impulse to create. |
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• For information about painting and sculpture, see: Art Encyclopedia.
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