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PREHISTORIC ART
in IRELAND
For details of arts & culture
during the Pleistocene and
Holocene epochs, see:
Irish Stone
Age Art
Mainly megalithic architecture
Irish Bronze
Age Art
Celtic metalwork, tomb-building
Irish Iron Age
Art
La Tene Celtic culture, sculpture
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Date
Consistent with its archeological siting,
the Venus of Tan-Tan has been dated to the period 200,000-500,000 BCE,
making it a contemporary of the Golan Venus of Berekhat Ram. This means
that it was made not by Homo sapiens neanderthalensis but by more
primitive Homo erectus. However, one should note that the Acheulian
peoples of north-western Africa who inhabited part of the main migratory
route from Asia to western Europe via Gibraltar (the northern central-European
route being severely affected by glacial conditions) would have included
enterprising and technically advanced races from south-east Asia, thus
giving extra credence to the notion of Acheulian fine art.
Note: the Venus of Tan-Tan is not one of
the much later Venus Figurines, created
during the Aurignacian and Gravettian periods of the Upper Paleolithic
era. These miniature carvings include the Austrian Venus
of Willendorf, the French Venus
of Brassempouy and the Russian Venus
of Kostenky, among many others.
Description
Made from moderately metamorphosed quartzite,
the Venus of Tan-Tan is roughly 6 centimetres in length, roughly 2.6 centimetres
in width, and 1.2 centimetres thick. It weighs about 10 grams. On its
surface there are some 20 minute specks of a brilliant waxy red material,
identified as iron and manganese, although whether it is a form of manually
applied ochre paint is not clear. Like the Venus of Berekhat Ram, its
humanoid shape is suggested by specific grooves incised in the figurine.
Some of these definitional markings are attributable to nature, others
are the result of it being struck by tool or stone.
Controversy
Possibly, were it not for the supportive
existence of its Golan sister, the Venus of Tan-Tan would be classified
as a purely natural phenomenon. However, as stated above, the two figurines
are mutually supportive of their status as genuine works of early Stone
Age art.
Moreover, recent archeological investigations
in India have discovered examples of rock art (the petrogyphs
of Bhimbetka) from an even earlier Stone Age culture, which lends
additional credence to the idea that human fine art originated in the
Lower or early Middle Paleolithic, rather than the Upper Paleolithic as
once thought.
One issue which remains unresolved however,
is the "gap" which now exists between the Acheulian period which
spawned the Tan-Tan and Berekhat Ram venuses (200,000 BCE) and the Upper
Paleolithic period (c.30,000 BCE) which spawned most of the known prehistoric
fine art. What happened during the interval between these periods? The
only fine art known to have been created during these intervening years
is the abstract engraving discovered at the Blombos
Cave in South Africa. Why haven't more artworks been found?
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