Primitive art. Primitive Art: How Man Became Man - Images Koa Valley Archaeological Park

Primitive art, the art of the era of the primitive communal system. Primitive art originated thousands of years ago

The primitive era is the longest in the history of mankind. Its countdown begins from the time of the appearance of man (about 2.5 million years ago) Stone Age Paleolithic - 12 thousand years BC. Mesolithic thousand years BC Neolithic millennium BC e. Copper Age Bronze Age Iron Age

For example, the art of dance grew out of hunting and military exercises, from hunting and military exercises, from peculiar dramatizations that figuratively conveyed the labor occupations of the primitive community, the life of animals. from original dramatizations that figuratively conveyed the labor occupations of the primitive community, the life of animals.

Primitive art reflected the first ideas of man about the world around him. 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. Thanks to him, knowledge and skills were preserved and transferred, people communicated with each other.

Bear. Fragment of primitive sculpture Two versions of the origin of ancient art: 1) cave painting 2) schematic signs and geometric figures In the Montespan cave in France, archaeologists found a statue of a clay bear with traces of spear blows. Probably, primitive people associated animals with their images: they believed that by "killing" them, they would ensure success in the upcoming hunt. In such finds, there is a connection between the most ancient religious beliefs and artistic activity.

All of them have some common features: enlarged hips, abdomen and breasts, enlarged hips, abdomen and breasts, lack of feet, face, lack of feet, face. Their task was not to reproduce a specific nature, but to create a certain generalized image of a woman-mother, a symbol of fertility and the keeper of the hearth.

Dwelling of primitive man Upstairs, in the center, where they crossed, they were connected with veins. Above, in the center, where they crossed, they were tied with veins. Then they threw on the skins of animals, pressed them from above with tusks and deer antlers. Then they threw on the skins of animals, pressed them from above with tusks and deer antlers. The door was made from skins. The door was made from skins.

In the Bronze Age, structures made of huge stones, the so-called megaliths, reached their highest development (from the Greek "megos" - large and "lithos" - stone). In the Bronze Age, structures made of huge stones, the so-called megaliths (from the Greek " megos" - large and "lithos" - stone).
Primitive art is presented in the following main forms: graphics (drawings and silhouettes); graphics (drawings and silhouettes); painting (images in color, made with mineral paints); painting (images in color, made with mineral paints); sculpture (figures carved from stone or molded from clay); sculpture (figures carved from stone or molded from clay); decorative arts (stone and bone carving); decorative arts (stone and bone carving); Architecture Architecture Music Music Literature Literature Choreography Choreography

Homework: Learn the topic "Primitive Art" from the notebook. Learn the topic "Primitive Art" in a notebook. Imagine that you are primitive people. Write a mini-story "One day in the life of a primitive man." Imagine that you are primitive people. Write a mini-story "One day in the life of a primitive man."

Primitive art is the art of the era of primitive society. Having arisen in the late Paleolithic around 33 thousand years BC. e., it reflected the views, conditions and lifestyle of primitive hunters (primitive dwellings, cave images of animals, female figurines). Experts believe that the genres of primitive art arose approximately in the following sequence: stone sculpture; rock art; clay dishes. Neolithic and Eneolithic farmers and pastoralists had communal settlements, megaliths, and piled buildings; images began to convey abstract concepts, the art of ornamentation developed.

Anthropologists associate the true emergence of art with the appearance of homo sapiens, which is otherwise called Cro-Magnon man. The Cro-Magnon people (as these people were called after the place of the first discovery of their remains - the Cro-Magnon grotto in the south of France), who appeared from 40 to 35 thousand years ago, were tall people (1.70-1.80 m), slender, strong physique. They had an elongated narrow skull and a distinct, slightly pointed chin, which gave the lower part of the face a triangular shape. In almost everything they resembled modern man and became famous as excellent hunters. They had a well-developed speech, so that they could coordinate their actions. They skillfully made all kinds of tools for different occasions: sharp spearheads, stone knives, bone harpoons with teeth, excellent axes, axes, etc.

From generation to generation, the technique of making tools and some of its secrets were passed down (for example, the fact that a stone heated on fire is easier to process after cooling). Excavations at the sites of Upper Paleolithic people testify to the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. From clay they sculpted figurines of wild animals and pierced them with darts, imagining that they were killing real predators. They also left hundreds of carved or painted images of animals on the walls and arches of the caves. Archaeologists have proven that art monuments appeared immeasurably later than tools - almost a million years.

In ancient times, for art, people used improvised materials - stone, wood, bone. Much later, namely in the era of agriculture, he discovered the first artificial material - refractory clay - and began to actively use it to make dishes and sculptures. Wandering hunters and gatherers used wicker baskets - they are more convenient to carry. Pottery is a sign of permanent agricultural settlements.

The first works of primitive fine art belong to the Aurignacian culture (Late Paleolithic), named after the Aurignac cave (France). Since that time, female figurines made of stone and bone have become widespread. If the heyday of cave painting came about 10-15 thousand years ago, then the art of miniature sculpture reached a high level much earlier - about 25 thousand years ago. This era includes the so-called "Venuses" - figurines of women 10-15 cm high, usually emphasized massive forms. Similar "Venuses" have been found in France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia and many other parts of the world. Perhaps they symbolized fertility or were associated with the cult of a woman-mother: the Cro-Magnons lived according to the laws of matriarchy, and it was through the female line that belonging to a clan that revered its ancestor was determined. Scientists consider female sculptures to be the first anthropomorphic, that is, humanoid images.

Both in painting and in sculpture, primitive man often depicted animals. The tendency of primitive man to depict animals is called the zoological or animal style in art, and for their diminutiveness, small figurines and images of animals were called small-form plastics. Animal style is a conventional name for stylized images of animals (or their parts) common in the art of antiquity. The animal style arose in the Bronze Age, was developed in the Iron Age and in the art of the early classical states; its traditions were preserved in medieval art, in folk art. Initially associated with totemism, the images of the sacred beast eventually turned into a conditional motif of the ornament.

Primitive painting was a two-dimensional representation of an object, while sculpture was a three-dimensional or three-dimensional one. Thus, the primitive creators mastered all the dimensions that exist in modern art, but did not own its main achievement - the technique of transferring volume on a plane (by the way, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, medieval Europeans, Chinese, Arabs and many other peoples did not own it, since the opening of the reverse perspective occurred only in the Renaissance).

In some caves, bas-reliefs carved into the rock, as well as free-standing sculptures of animals, were found. Small figurines are known that were carved from soft stone, bone, mammoth tusks. The main character of Paleolithic art is the bison. In addition to them, many images of wild tours, mammoths and rhinos were found.

Rock drawings and paintings are diverse in the manner of execution. The mutual proportions of the depicted animals (mountain goat, lion, mammoths and bison) were usually not observed - a huge tour could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Non-compliance with proportions did not allow the primitive artist to subordinate the composition to the laws of perspective (the latter, by the way, was discovered very late - in the 16th century). Movement in cave painting is transmitted through the position of the legs (crossing legs, for example, depicted an animal on the run), tilt of the body or turn of the head. There are almost no moving figures.

Archaeologists have not found landscape drawings in the Old Stone Age. Why? Perhaps this once again proves the primacy of the religious and secondary aesthetic functions of culture. Animals were feared and worshiped, trees and plants were only admired.

Both zoological and anthropomorphic images suggested their ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function. Thus, religion (the veneration of those depicted by primitive people) and art (the aesthetic form of what was depicted) arose almost simultaneously. Although, for some reasons, it can be assumed that the first form of reflection of reality originated earlier than the second.

Since the images of animals had a magical purpose, the process of their creation was a kind of ritual, therefore, such drawings are mostly hidden deep in the depths of the cave, in underground passages several hundred meters long, and the height of the vault often does not exceed half a meter. In such places, the Cro-Magnon artist had to work lying on his back in the light of bowls with burning animal fat. However, more often rock paintings are located in accessible places, at a height of 1.5-2 meters. They are found both on the ceilings of caves and on vertical walls.

The first finds were made in the 19th century in the caves of the Pyrenees. There are more than 7 thousand karst caves in this area. Hundreds of them contain rock carvings created with paint or carved with stone. Some caves are unique underground galleries (the Altamira Cave in Spain is called the "Sistine Chapel" of primitive art), the artistic merit of which attracts many scientists and tourists today. Rock paintings of the ancient Stone Age are called wall paintings or cave paintings.

The Art Gallery of Altamira stretches over 280 meters in length and consists of many spacious rooms. The stone tools and antlers found there, as well as figurative images on bone fragments, were created in the period from 13,000 to 10,000 years. BC e. According to archaeologists, the arch of the cave collapsed at the beginning of the new stone age. In the most unique part of the cave - the "Hall of Animals" - images of bison, bulls, deer, wild horses and wild boars were found. Some reach a height of 2.2 meters, to see them in more detail, you have to lie down on the floor. Most of the figures are drawn in brown. Artists skillfully used natural relief ledges on the rocky surface, which enhanced the plastic effect of the images. Along with the figures of animals drawn and engraved in the rock, there are also drawings here that vaguely resemble the human body in shape.

In 1895, drawings of a primitive man were found in the cave of La Moute in France. In 1901, here, in the Le Combatelle cave in the Weser Valley, about 300 images of a mammoth, bison, deer, horse, and bear were discovered. Not far from Le Combatelle in the Font de Gomes cave, archaeologists discovered a whole “art gallery” - 40 wild horses, 23 mammoths, 17 deer.

When creating rock art, primitive man used natural dyes and metal oxides, which he either used in pure form or mixed with water or animal fat. He applied these paints to the stone with his hand or with brushes made of tubular bones with tufts of hairs of wild animals at the end, and sometimes he blown colored powder through the tubular bone onto the damp wall of the cave. Paint not only outlined the contour, but painted over the entire image. To make rock carvings using the deep cut method, the artist had to use coarse cutting tools. Massive stone chisels were found at the site of Le Roque de Ser. The drawings of the Middle and Late Paleolithic are characterized by a more subtle elaboration of the contour, which is conveyed by several shallow lines. Painted drawings, engravings on bones, tusks, horns or stone tiles were made using the same technique.

In the Camonica Valley in the Alps, covering 81 kilometers, a collection of prehistoric rock art has been preserved, the most representative and most important of all that have so far been discovered in Europe. The first "engravings" appeared here, according to experts, 8000 years ago. Artists carved them with sharp and hard stones. So far, about 170,000 rock paintings have been registered, but many of them are still only awaiting scientific examination.

Thus, primitive art is presented in the following main forms: graphics (drawings and silhouettes); painting (images in color, made with mineral paints); sculptures (figures carved from stone or molded from clay); decorative arts (stone and bone carving); reliefs and bas-reliefs.

Lesson topic:"Plots and Images of Primitive Images".

Lesson type: combined.

Activities: graphics, conversation

Target: the formation of students' general idea of ​​the main plots and images of primitive images.

Tasks:

• - to update knowledge about the plot-thematic diversity of art of primitive times;
• - show the main plots of primitive images in different types of fine arts;
• - to reveal the features of the embodiment of the artistic image in the works of fine art of primitive times;
• - to form the ability to highlight the main themes of art in the works of primitive culture;
• - improve the ability to differentiate works of different types of art (by themes and types of art);
• - to develop a culture of perception of works of art of primitive times

Visual range: presentation.

Lesson equipment:

For the teacher: blackboard, chalk, projector, laptop;

For the student: pencils, paper, notebook.

Lesson Plan

• Organizational part (2 minutes);
• Reporting new material (10 minutes);
• Consolidation of new material (2 minutes);
• Physical education (1 minute);
• Independent creative activity of students (25 minutes)
• Analysis of the results (4 minutes);
• Homework (1 minute).

During the classes

Organizational part

Greetings. Recording the topic of the lesson

Posting new material

Teacher: One of the first captured images of the real world was an animal. People carefully watched the animals and tried to portray them as naturally and believable as possible. This is confirmed by graphic and pictorial representations of primitive times, covering the walls and vaults of numerous caves of modern France, Spain, and Russia.

Image of animals on the walls of the Chauvet and Lascaux caves (France), Paleolithic;

Teacher: Most of the images are images of mammoths, rhinos, wild horses, deer, bulls, bears, lions. Some of the animals depicted no longer exist, such as mammoths. And only the drawings created by primitive man allow us today to imagine their appearance, body movements and habits.

"Deer crossing the river", engraved on the horn (Gmouth Lorte, France), Neolithic;

In France, in the grotto of Lorte, a fragment of a horn depicting deer crossing a river was found. Primitive man already knew how to depict animals in complex angles, for example, with a turn of the head. The detailed image of fish in the water is also impressive.

Teacher: What do you think the artist paid attention to in the first place?

Teacher: Later, man began to apply images of animals to tools of labor and hunting, to various plates of stone and bone. And in the places of primitive sites, small figurines of animals, birds, and fish were found. The silhouettes of animals are especially expressive. The people who created them noticed the smallest details: the features of fish scales, the texture of fur, manes, or the structure of animal horns.

Teacher: In the records about the rock art of the Chauvet cave, traces of the first cartoon experiments of our distant ancestors were found. (Video clip)

Sculpture "Bear" (Montespan Cave, France), Paleolithic;

Student: In one of the caves of France - Montespan - the torso of a bear made of clay was found. It was crowned with a natural bear skull. Possibly, the skin of a bear was also thrown up. We guess that such a sculpture was used during rituals. With the development of primitive society, the plots became more complicated, and a person appeared more and more often in the depicted scenes.

Teacher: The image of animals was given an important place in the work of many masters of later times. Remember and name the works of different types of art familiar to you, in which the images of animals are embodied.

Teacher: The first images of man appeared in sculpture. They were made of animal bones and horns, elephant and mammoth tusks, clay, wood and stone.

Examples of Paleolithic Venuses, Paleolithic; Venus from Kostenki (Russia), Paleolithic;

Women's figurines were widely used. The most notable of them are female figurines, known throughout the world under the name "Paleolithic Venuses" or "primitive Madonnas". These small figurines do not exceed 25 centimeters in height. Most scientists believe that these were ceremonial, ritual objects, they were made, and then they were either broken or “buried” in specially dug pits.

For the master, the face of a person, which is of paramount importance for the sculptor of our time, was of no interest. The face was replaced by a bulge as smooth as a hen's egg. But the artist's attention was almost entirely absorbed by two parts of the body. The first of them is a huge convex belly and pelvis - a vessel where a new creature is born and matures. And the second part - women's breasts, oozing milk, food for new generations of people.

It is even more important that in ethnography the ceremony in honor of the mother goddess is intertwined with a purely hunting ritual of killing animals. Primitive hunters believed in a kind of division of labor between men who killed animals and women who attracted animals with their witchcraft under the blows of the spears of the hunters.

Teacher: « Venus" from Khotylevo. OK. 23 thousand liters n. Mammoth tusk. 5 cm

At the Upper Paleolithic site "Khotylyovo-2" in the Bryansk region, a female figurine from a mammoth tusk was found. The figurine itself depicts a rather obese woman, but at the same time the figurine is very elegant, due to its miniature size (about 5 cm in length) and elongated proportions of the legs. Its virtues lie in artistic perfection.

G. Moore . Mother and Child, 1930s;

Since ancient times, there has been a correlation of the opposition "left - right" with the concept of "female - male". Apparently, due to the fact that the left hand was a symbol of the Great Goddess, a ritual of kissing the hand of the priestess-queen of the tribe arose, which later degenerated into the custom of kissing the hand of a lady.

Teacher:Big Shigir idol (Sverdlovsk region, Russia), Mesolithic;

In the art of the Bronze Age, idols began to be made from wood or stone. These were specific statues of rather large sizes. They were worshiped as deities. The appearance of the statues was similar to the human, more often male. One of the earliest found sculptures made of wood is the Big Shigir idol. Its height reaches 5 meters. Based on the remaining fragments, one can imagine an image created 11,000 years ago.

The head of the idol is quite realistic and retains the main features inherent in a person. The wooden base-body is covered with carved ornaments on both sides. Several faces are visible among the patterns. Scientists are inclined to the version that these faces reflect the revered cults of ancient people: water and air, animals and plants.

In the art of the Iron Age, the image of a person became more complicated. The artists tried not only to reproduce the human figure, but to reveal the inner state of the characters, to convey the emotions and thoughts of their characters through posture and gestures.

Teacher: Idols from the Cyclades, fragments of paintings (Tassilin-Adjer Gorge, Algeria), 6- 2 thousand BC e.

On the islands of the Aegean, the inhabitants of the Cyclades created marble figurines of people. Their purpose is still a mystery. Perhaps the figurines were part of the rituals. Among the Cycladic idols, the figure of a harpist stands out especially. The musician is depicted sitting on a chair with a harp in his hands. He completely immersed himself in the sound of the melody. The musician's body is frozen, and his gaze is turned upwards.

Among the picturesque compositions of the Iron Age, the murals found in the gorges of the rocks of Algiers, on the Tassilin-Adjer plateau, are widely known. This is a real "picture gallery" that tells in detail about the daily life of primitive people and their activities. Here are images of hunters who, with the help of bows, arrows, axes and darts, overcome wild animals. And the scenes of livestock pasture indicate that a person at that time had already tamed the animal. Images of mothers playing with their children look believable and touching.

Teacher: Magic elements

Combinations of simple dots, wavy lines, circles, triangles (regular and inverted), spirals, a checkerboard pattern, parallel stripes, zigzags and much more - the primitive man had a good imagination. These signs had a magical meaning, which intensified after the advent of ceramics. Ceramics is a separate type of primitive art due primarily to the fact that it was covered with a variety of ornaments. It is here that these ornaments, according to experts, for the first time clearly create an image of the division of the world into three parts - the lower, underground; middle, terrestrial, water; upper, heavenly, airy, supernatural. In addition, with the help of these symbols, phenomena of the real world were designated - the movement of the sun and moon, stars, the flow of rivers, even those other plants important to humans.

Fixing new material

Perception and discussion of artistic artifacts of primitive times.

Details Category: Fine arts and architecture of ancient peoples Posted on 12/16/2015 18:48 Views: 3524

Primitive art developed in primitive society. Primitive society is the period in the history of mankind before the invention of writing.

Primitive society since the 19th century. also called prehistoric. But, since writing appeared among different peoples at different times, the term “prehistoric” is either not applied to many cultures, or its meaning and temporal boundaries do not coincide with humanity as a whole.
Primitive society is divided into the following periods:
Paleolithic(Old Stone Age) - 2.4 million-10,000 BC. e. The Paleolithic is divided into early, middle and late.
Mesolithic(Middle Stone Age) - 10,000-5000 BC. e.
Neolithic(New Stone Age) - 5000-2000 BC. e.
Bronze Age- 3500-800 BC e.
iron age- from about 800 BC. e.

Fine art of the Paleolithic

During this period, the visual arts were represented by geoglyphs (images on the surface of the earth), dendroglyphs (images on the bark of trees) and images on animal skins.

Geoglyphs

Geoglyph - a geometric or figured pattern applied to the ground, usually over 4 meters long. Many geoglyphs are so large that they can only be seen from the air. The most famous geoglyphs are located in South America - on the Nazca plateau, in southern Peru. On the plateau, stretching for more than 50 km from north to south and 5-7 km from west to east, there are about 30 drawings (a bird, a monkey, a spider, flowers, etc.); also about 13 thousand lines and stripes and about 700 geometric figures (primarily triangles and trapezoids, as well as about a hundred spirals).

A monkey
The drawings were discovered in 1939, when the American archaeologist Paul Kosok flew over the plateau in an airplane. A great contribution to the study of mysterious lines belongs to the German doctor of archeology Maria Reich, who began work on their study in 1941. But she was able to photograph the drawings from the air only in 1947.

Spider
The Nazca lines have not yet been unraveled, many questions remain: who created them, when, why and how. Many geoglyphs cannot be seen from the ground, so it is assumed that with the help of such patterns, the ancient inhabitants of the valley communicated with the deity. In addition to the ritual, the astronomical significance of these lines is not excluded.

Analogues of Nazca

Palpa plateau on the south coast of Peru

The Palpa complex is more diverse both in terms of the complexity of images and their number, and in terms of the variety of monuments. Palpa is covered with low hills with rugged slopes that turn into mountain ranges. The hills with drawings have almost perfectly even tops, as if they were specially leveled before the images were applied to them. On the Palpa plateau there are unique drawings, which have no analogues in Nazca. These are geometric figures that clearly carry information encoded in mathematical form.

Giant from the Atacama Desert

Giant from the Atacama Desert - a large anthropomorphic geoglyph, the largest prehistoric anthropomorphic drawing in the world, 86 m long. The age of the drawing is estimated at 9000 years.
This image is located 1370 km from the geoglyphs of the Nazca Desert, on the lonely mountain Cerro Unica in the Atacama Desert (Chile). The image is difficult to identify. This geoglyph can only be fully seen from an airplane. The creators of this image are unknown.

Uffington white horse

A highly stylized chalk figure 110 meters long, created by filling deep trenches with broken chalk on the slope of the 261-meter limestone White Horse Hill near the town of Uffington in the English county of Oxfordshire. It is under state protection as the only English geoglyph of prehistoric origin. The creation of the figure is attributed to the early Bronze Age (approximately the 10th century BC).
Large drawings also exist in Russia: "Moose" in the Urals, as well as giant images in the Altai.

rock painting

Many rock carvings from the Paleolithic era have survived to our times, mainly in caves. Most of them are found in Europe as well as in other parts of the world. The oldest known rock art is, apparently, the scene of the battle of rhinos in the Chauvet cave, its age is about 32 thousand years.

Image on the wall of the Chauvet cave
The rock carvings are dominated by images of animals, hunting scenes, figures of people and scenes of ritual or everyday activities (dances).
All primitive painting was supposedly created in accordance with cults. Many examples of cave paintings are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

primitive sculpture

Paleolithic Venus

This name is a generalization for many prehistoric figurines of women dating from the Upper Paleolithic. Figurines are found mainly in Europe, but they are also found far to the east (Malta site in the Irkutsk region).

Venus of Willendorf
These figurines are carved from bones, tusks and soft rocks. There are also figurines sculpted from clay and subjected to firing - one of the oldest examples of ceramics known to science. By the beginning of the XXI century. more than a hundred "Venuses" are known, most of which are relatively small in size: from 4 to 25 cm in height.

Megalithic architecture

Megaliths (Greek μέγας - large, λίθος - stone) are prehistoric structures made of large blocks.
Megaliths are common throughout the world, most often in coastal areas. In Europe, they mainly date from the Bronze Age (3-2 thousand BC). There are Neolithic megaliths in England. On the Mediterranean coast of Spain, in Portugal, part of France, on the west coast of England, in Ireland, Denmark, on the south coast of Sweden and in Israel, there are also megaliths. It was widely believed that all megaliths belonged to the same global megalithic culture, but modern research refutes this assumption.
The purpose of the megaliths is not entirely clear. According to some scientists, they served for burials. Other scholars believe that this is an example of communal structures, which required the unification of large masses of people. Some megalithic structures were used to determine the time of astronomical events: the solstices and equinoxes. A megalithic structure was found in the Nubian desert, which served for astronomical purposes. This building is 1000 years older than Stonehenge, which is also considered a kind of prehistoric observatory.

Stonehenge is a megalithic structure in Wiltshire, England. It is a complex of ring and horseshoe-shaped earthen (chalk) and stone structures. It is located about 130 km from London. This is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.
There is still no consensus on the appointment of Stonehenge. At various times, it was considered either a sanctuary of the Druids, or an ancient observatory, or a territory for burial.

Composite dolmen from the Zhane river valley (15 km from Gelendzhik)
Many dolmens are known in the Krasnodar Territory. Dolmens - megalithic tombs of the first half of the III-second half of the II millennium BC. e., related to the dolmen culture of the Middle Bronze Age. Distributed from the Taman Peninsula and further in the mountainous regions of the Krasnodar Territory and Adygea. In the southern part they reach the city of Ochamchira in Abkhazia, and in the north - to the valley of the Laba River. Dolmens were used in the Late Bronze Age and later. In total, about 3000 dolmens are known. Of these, no more than 6% have been studied.
It is sad that these archaeological sites are being destroyed and not preserved. In addition, people far from science create a near-dolmen boom around such objects. Burial grounds become a place of constant pilgrimage and even a place of residence for an exalted and inadequate public. The media fill the conjectures of various "researchers".

Primitive society(also prehistoric society) - a period in the history of mankind before the invention of writing, after which there is the possibility of historical research based on the study of written sources. The term prehistoric came into use in the 19th century. In a broad sense, the word "prehistoric" is applicable to any period before the invention of writing, starting from the moment the Universe arose (about 14 billion years ago), but in a narrow sense - only to the prehistoric past of man. Usually in the context they give indications of exactly which “prehistoric” period is being discussed, for example, “prehistoric apes of the Miocene” (23-5.5 million years ago) or “Homo sapiens of the Middle Paleolithic” (300-30 thousand years ago). Since, by definition, there are no written sources left by his contemporaries about this period, information about it is obtained based on the data of such sciences as archeology, ethnology, paleontology, biology, geology, anthropology, archaeoastronomy, palynology.

Since writing appeared among different peoples at different times, the term prehistoric is either not applied to many cultures, or its meaning and temporal boundaries do not coincide with humanity as a whole. In particular, the periodization of pre-Columbian America does not coincide in stages with Eurasia and Africa (see Mesoamerican chronology, chronology of North America, pre-Columbian chronology of Peru). As sources of prehistoric times of cultures, until recently devoid of writing, there may be oral traditions passed down from generation to generation.

Since data on prehistoric times rarely concern individuals and do not even always say anything about ethnic groups, the main social unit of the prehistoric era of mankind is archaeological culture. All terms and periodization of this era, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age, are retrospective and largely arbitrary, and their precise definition is subject to debate.

primitive art- the art of the era of primitive society. Having arisen in the late Paleolithic around 33 thousand years BC. e., it reflected the views, conditions and lifestyle of primitive hunters (primitive dwellings, cave images of animals, female figurines). Experts believe that the genres of primitive art arose approximately in the following sequence: stone sculpture; rock art; clay dishes. Neolithic and Eneolithic farmers and pastoralists had communal settlements, megaliths, and piled buildings; images began to convey abstract concepts, the art of ornamentation developed.

Anthropologists associate the true emergence of art with the appearance of homo sapiens, which is otherwise called Cro-Magnon man. The Cro-Magnons (as these people were named after the place of the first discovery of their remains - the Cro-Magnon grotto in the south of France), who appeared from 40 to 35 thousand years ago, were tall people (1.70-1.80 m), slender, strong physique. They had an elongated narrow skull and a distinct, slightly pointed chin, which gave the lower part of the face a triangular shape. In almost everything they resembled modern man and became famous as excellent hunters. They had a well-developed speech, so that they could coordinate their actions. They skillfully made all kinds of tools for different occasions: sharp spearheads, stone knives, bone harpoons with teeth, excellent axes, axes, etc.

From generation to generation, the technique of making tools and some of its secrets were passed down (for example, the fact that a stone heated on fire is easier to process after cooling). Excavations at the sites of Upper Paleolithic people testify to the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. From clay they sculpted figurines of wild animals and pierced them with darts, imagining that they were killing real predators. They also left hundreds of carved or painted images of animals on the walls and arches of the caves. Archaeologists have proven that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools - almost a million years.

In ancient times, people used improvised materials for art - stone, wood, bone. Much later, namely in the era of agriculture, he discovered the first artificial material - refractory clay - and began to actively use it to make dishes and sculptures. Wandering hunters and gatherers used wicker baskets - they are more convenient to carry. Pottery is a sign of permanent agricultural settlements.

The first works of primitive fine art belong to the Aurignacian culture (Late Paleolithic), named after the Aurignac cave (France). Since that time, female figurines made of stone and bone have become widespread. If the heyday of cave painting came about 10-15 thousand years ago, then the art of miniature sculpture reached a high level much earlier - about 25 thousand years ago. This era includes the so-called "Venuses" - figurines of women 10-15 cm high, usually emphasized massive forms. Similar "Venuses" have been found in France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia and many other parts of the world. Perhaps they symbolized fertility or were associated with the cult of a woman-mother: the Cro-Magnons lived according to the laws of matriarchy, and it was through the female line that belonging to a clan that revered its ancestor was determined. Scientists consider female sculptures to be the first anthropomorphic, that is, humanoid images.

Both in painting and in sculpture, primitive man often depicted animals. The tendency of primitive man to depict animals is called the zoological or animal style in art, and for their diminutiveness, small figurines and images of animals were called small-form plastics. Animal style is a conventional name for stylized images of animals (or their parts) common in the art of antiquity. The animal style arose in the Bronze Age, was developed in the Iron Age and in the art of the early classical states; its traditions were preserved in medieval art, in folk art. Initially associated with totemism, the images of the sacred beast eventually turned into a conditional motif of the ornament.

Primitive painting was a two-dimensional representation of an object, while sculpture was a three-dimensional or three-dimensional one. Thus, the primitive creators mastered all the dimensions that exist in modern art, but did not own its main achievement - the technique of transferring volume on a plane (by the way, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, medieval Europeans, Chinese, Arabs and many other peoples did not own it, since the opening of the reverse perspective occurred only in the Renaissance).

In some caves, bas-reliefs carved into the rock, as well as free-standing sculptures of animals, were found. Small figurines are known that were carved from soft stone, bone, mammoth tusks. The main character of Paleolithic art is the bison. In addition to them, many images of wild tours, mammoths and rhinos were found.

Rock drawings and paintings are diverse in the manner of execution. The mutual proportions of the depicted animals (mountain goat, lion, mammoths and bison) were usually not respected - a huge tour could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Non-compliance with proportions did not allow the primitive artist to subordinate the composition to the laws of perspective (the latter, by the way, was discovered very late - in the 16th century). Movement in cave painting is transmitted through the position of the legs (crossing legs, for example, depicted an animal on the run), tilt of the body or turn of the head. There are almost no moving figures.

Archaeologists have not found landscape drawings in the Old Stone Age. Why? Perhaps this once again proves the primacy of the religious and secondary aesthetic functions of culture. Animals were feared and worshiped, trees and plants were only admired.

Both zoological and anthropomorphic images suggested their ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function. Thus, religion (the veneration of those depicted by primitive people) and art (the aesthetic form of what was depicted) arose almost simultaneously. Although, for some reasons, it can be assumed that the first form of reflection of reality originated earlier than the second.

Since the images of animals had a magical purpose, the process of their creation was a kind of ritual, therefore, such drawings are mostly hidden deep in the depths of the cave, in underground passages several hundred meters long, and the height of the vault often does not exceed half a meter. In such places, the Cro-Magnon artist had to work lying on his back in the light of bowls with burning animal fat. However, more often rock paintings are located in accessible places, at a height of 1.5-2 meters. They are found both on the ceilings of caves and on vertical walls.

The first finds were made in the 19th century in the caves of the Pyrenees. There are more than 7 thousand karst caves in this area. Hundreds of them contain rock carvings created with paint or carved with stone. Some caves are unique underground galleries (the Altamira Cave in Spain is called the "Sistine Chapel" of primitive art), the artistic merit of which attracts many scientists and tourists today. Rock paintings of the ancient Stone Age are called wall paintings or cave paintings.

The Art Gallery of Altamira stretches over 280 meters in length and consists of many spacious rooms. The stone tools and antlers found there, as well as figurative images on bone fragments, were created in the period from 13,000 to 10,000 years. BC e. According to archaeologists, the arch of the cave collapsed at the beginning of the new stone age. In the most unique part of the cave - the "Hall of Animals" - images of bison, bulls, deer, wild horses and wild boars were found. Some reach a height of 2.2 meters, to see them in more detail, you have to lie down on the floor. Most of the figures are drawn in brown. Artists skillfully used natural relief ledges on the rocky surface, which enhanced the plastic effect of the images. Along with the figures of animals drawn and engraved in the rock, there are also drawings here that vaguely resemble the human body in shape.

periodization

Now science is changing its opinion about the age of the earth and the time frame is changing, but we will study by the generally accepted names of the periods.

1. Stone Age

• Ancient Stone Age - Paleolithic. ... to 10 thousand BC
• Middle Stone Age - Mesolithic. 10 - 6 thousand BC
• New Stone Age - Neolithic. From 6 - to 2 thousand BC

Age of Bronze. 2 thousand BC

Age of Iron. 1 thousand BC

Paleolithic

Tools of labor were made of stone; hence the name of the era - the stone age.

1. Ancient or Lower Paleolithic. up to 150 thousand BC
2. Middle Paleolithic. 150 - 35 thousand BC
3. Upper or Late Paleolithic. 35 - 10 thousand BC

• Aurignac-Solutrean period. 35 - 20 thousand BC
• Madeleine period. 20 - 10 thousand BC This period received its name from the name of the La Madeleine cave, where murals related to this time were found.

The earliest works of primitive art date back to the Late Paleolithic. 35 - 10 thousand BC

Scientists are inclined to believe that naturalistic art and the representation of schematic signs and geometric figures arose simultaneously.

The first drawings from the Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age, 35–10 thousand BC) were discovered at the end of the 19th century. Spanish amateur archaeologist Count Marcelino de Sautuola, three kilometers from his family estate, in the cave of Altamira.

It happened like this: “an archaeologist decided to explore a cave in Spain and took his little daughter with him. Suddenly she shouted: “Bulls, bulls!” The father laughed, but when he raised his head, he saw on the ceiling of the cave huge, painted figures of bison. Some of the bison were depicted standing still, others rushing with inclined horns at the enemy. At first, scientists did not believe that primitive people could create such works of art. Only 20 years later, numerous works of primitive art were discovered in other places and the authenticity of the cave painting was recognized.

Paleolithic painting

Cave of Altamira. Spain.

Late Paleolithic (Madeleine era 20 - 10 thousand years BC).
On the vault of the cave chamber of Altamira, a whole herd of large bison, closely spaced to each other, is depicted.

Wonderful polychrome images contain black and all shades of ocher, rich colors, superimposed somewhere densely and monotonously, and somewhere with halftones and transitions from one color to another. A thick layer of paint up to several cm. In total, 23 figures are depicted on the vault, if we do not take into account those of which only outlines have been preserved.

Image in the cave of Altamira

They illuminated the caves with lamps and reproduced from memory. Not primitivism, but the highest degree of stylization. When the cave was discovered, it was believed that this was an imitation of a hunt - the magical meaning of the image. But today there are versions that the goal was art. The beast was necessary for man, but he was terrible and elusive.

Nice brown shades. The tense stop of the beast. They used the natural relief of the stone, depicted on the bulge of the wall.

Font-de-Gaume cave. France

Late Paleolithic.

Characterized by silhouette images, deliberate distortion, exaggeration of proportions. On the walls and vaults of the small halls of the Font-de-Gaumes cave, at least about 80 drawings are applied, mainly bison, two indisputable figures of mammoths and even a wolf.

Grazing deer. Font de Gome. France. Late Paleolithic.
The image of the horns in perspective. Deer at this time (the end of the Madeleine era) replaced other animals.

Fragment. Buffalo. Font de Gome. France. Late Paleolithic.
The hump and crest on the head are emphasized. Overlapping one image with another is a polypsest. Detailed work. Decorative solution for the tail.

Lascaux cave

It so happened that it was the children, and quite by accident, who found the most interesting cave paintings in Europe:
“In September 1940, near the town of Montignac, in the South-West of France, four high school students went on an archaeological expedition they had planned. In place of a long-rooted tree, there was a gaping hole in the ground that aroused their curiosity. There were rumors that this was the entrance to a dungeon leading to a nearby medieval castle.
There was also a smaller hole inside. One of the guys threw a stone at it and, from the noise of the fall, concluded that the depth was decent. He widened the hole, crawled inside, nearly fell over, lit a flashlight, gasped, and called out to the others. From the walls of the cave in which they found themselves, some huge beasts were looking at them, breathing with such confident force, at times it seemed ready to turn into a rage, that they became terrified. And at the same time, the power of these animal images was so majestic and convincing that it seemed to them as if they had fallen into some kind of magical kingdom.

Late Paleolithic (Madeleine era, 18 - 15 thousand years BC).
Called the primitive Sistine Chapel. Consists of several large rooms: rotunda; main gallery; pass; apse.

Colorful images on the calcareous white surface of the cave. Strongly exaggerated proportions: large necks and bellies. Contour and silhouette drawings. Clear images without layering. A large number of male and female signs (rectangle and many dots).

Kapova cave

KAPOVA CAVE - to the South. m Ural, on the river. White. Formed in limestones and dolomites. Corridors and grottoes are located on two floors. The total length is over 2 km. On the walls are Late Paleolithic paintings of mammoths and rhinos.

The numbers on the diagram indicate the places where the images were found: 1 - a wolf, 2 - a cave bear, 3 - a lion, 4 - a horse.

Paleolithic sculpture

Art of small forms or mobile art (small plastic)

An integral part of the art of the Paleolithic era are objects that are commonly called "small plastic". These are three types of objects:

1. Figurines and other three-dimensional items carved from soft stone or other materials (horn, mammoth tusk).
2. Flattened objects with engravings and paintings.
3. Reliefs in caves, grottoes and under natural canopies.

The relief was knocked out with a deep contour or the background around the image was shy.

Deer crossing the river.
Fragment. Bone carving. Lorte. Hautes-Pyrenees department, France. Upper Paleolithic, Magdalenian period.

One of the first finds, called small plastics, was a bone plate from the Shaffo grotto with images of two fallow deer or deer: A deer swimming across a river. Lorte. France

Everyone knows the wonderful French writer Prosper Mérimée, author of the fascinating novel The Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX, Carmen and other romantic novels, but few people know that he served as an inspector for the protection of historical monuments. It was he who handed over this disc in 1833 to the Cluny Historical Museum, which was just being organized in the center of Paris. Now it is kept in the Museum of National Antiquities (Saint-Germain en Le).

Later, an Upper Paleolithic cultural layer was discovered in the Shaffo Grotto. But then, just as it was with the painting of the cave of Altamira, and with other pictorial monuments of the Paleolithic era, no one could believe that this art is older than the ancient Egyptian. Therefore, such engravings were considered examples of Celtic art (V-IV centuries BC). Only at the end of the 19th century, again, like cave painting, they were recognized as the oldest after they were found in the Paleolithic cultural layer.

Very interesting figurines of women. Most of these figurines are small in size: from 4 to 17 cm. They were made of stone or mammoth tusks. Their most notable distinguishing feature is their exaggerated "corpulence", they depict women with overweight figures.

Venus with goblet. France
"Venus with a goblet". Bas-relief. France. Upper (Late) Paleolithic.
Goddess of the Ice Age. The canon of the image is that the figure is inscribed in a rhombus, and the stomach and chest are in a circle.

Almost everyone who has studied Paleolithic female figurines, with some differences in detail, explains them as cult objects, amulets, idols, etc., reflecting the idea of ​​motherhood and fertility.

In Siberia, in the Baikal region, a whole series of original figurines of a completely different stylistic appearance was found. Along with the same as in Europe, overweight figures of naked women, there are figurines of slender, elongated proportions and, unlike European ones, they are depicted dressed in deaf, most likely fur clothes, similar to "overalls".

These are finds at the Buret sites on the Angara River and Malta.

Mesolithic

(Middle Stone Age) 10 - 6 thousand BC

After the melting of the glaciers, the usual fauna disappeared. Nature becomes more pliable for man. People become nomads. With a change in lifestyle, a person's view of the world becomes broader. He is not interested in a single animal or an accidental discovery of cereals, but in the vigorous activity of people, thanks to which they find whole herds of animals, and fields or forests rich in fruits. Thus, in the Mesolithic, the art of multi-figured composition was born, in which it was no longer the beast, but the man who played the leading role.

Change in the field of art:

• the main characters of the image are not a separate animal, but people in some action.
• The task is not in a believable, accurate depiction of individual figures, but in the transfer of action, movement.
• Many-figured hunts are often depicted, scenes of honey gathering, cult dances appear.
• The nature of the image is changing - instead of realistic and polychrome, it becomes schematic and silhouette.
• Local colors are used - red or black.

A honey harvester from a hive, surrounded by a swarm of bees. Spain. Mesolithic.

Almost everywhere where planar or three-dimensional images of the Upper Paleolithic era were found, there seems to be a pause in the artistic activity of people of the subsequent Mesolithic era. Perhaps this period is still poorly understood, perhaps the images made not in caves, but in the open air, were washed away by rain and snow over time. Perhaps, among the petroglyphs, which are very difficult to accurately date, there are those related to this time, but we still do not know how to recognize them. It is indicative that objects of small plastics are extremely rare during excavations of Mesolithic settlements.

Of the Mesolithic monuments, only a few can be named: Stone Grave in Ukraine, Kobystan in Azerbaijan, Zaraut-Sai in Uzbekistan, Mines in Tajikistan and Bhimpetka in India.

In addition to rock art, petroglyphs appeared in the Mesolithic era. Petroglyphs are carved, carved or scratched rock art. When carving a picture, ancient artists knocked down the upper, darker part of the rock with a sharp tool, and therefore the images stand out noticeably against the background of the rock.

In the south of Ukraine, in the steppe, there is a rocky hill of sandstone rocks. As a result of strong weathering, several grottoes and sheds were formed on its slopes. Numerous carved and scratched images have long been known in these grottoes and on other planes of the hill. In most cases, they are difficult to read. Sometimes images of animals are guessed - bulls, goats. Scientists attribute these images of bulls to the Mesolithic era.

Stone grave. South of Ukraine. General view and petroglyphs. Mesolithic.

To the south of Baku, between the southeastern slope of the Greater Caucasus Range and the coast of the Caspian Sea, there is a small Gobustan plain (a country of ravines) with highlands in the form of table mountains composed of limestone and other sedimentary rocks. On the rocks of these mountains there are many petroglyphs of different times. Most of them were discovered in 1939. Large (more than 1 m) images of female and male figures, made with deep carved lines, received the greatest interest and fame.
Many images of animals: bulls, predators and even reptiles and insects.

Kobystan (Gobustan). Azerbaijan (territory of the former USSR). Mesolithic.

Grotto Zaraut-Kamar

In the mountains of Uzbekistan, at an altitude of about 2000 m above sea level, there is a monument widely known not only among archaeologists - the Zaraut-Kamar grotto. Painted images were discovered in 1939 by local hunter I.F.Lamaev.

The painting in the grotto is made with ocher of different shades (from red-brown to lilac) and consists of four groups of images, in which anthropomorphic figures and bulls participate.
Here is a group in which most researchers see bull hunting. Among the anthropomorphic figures surrounding the bull, i.e. There are two types of “hunters”: figures in robes expanding downwards, without bows, and “tailed” figures with raised and stretched bows. This scene can be interpreted as a real hunt of disguised hunters, and as a kind of myth.

The painting in the grotto of Shakhta is probably the oldest in Central Asia.
“What does the word Mines mean,” writes V.A. Ranov, “I don’t know. Perhaps it comes from the Pamir word "mines", which means rock."

In the northern part of Central India, huge rocks with many caves, grottoes and sheds stretch along the river valleys. In these natural shelters, a lot of rock carvings have been preserved. Among them, the location of Bhimbetka (Bhimpetka) stands out. Apparently, these picturesque images belong to the Mesolithic. True, one should not forget about the uneven development of cultures of different regions. The Mesolithic of India may turn out to be 2-3 millennia older than in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The scene of the hunt. Spain.
Some scenes of driven hunts with archers in the paintings of the Spanish and African cycles are, as it were, the embodiment of the movement itself, brought to the limit, concentrated in a stormy whirlwind.

Neolithic

(New Stone Age) from 6 to 2 thousand BC

Neolithic - New Stone Age, the last stage of the Stone Age.

The entry into the Neolithic is timed to coincide with the transition of culture from an appropriating (hunters and gatherers) to a producing (agriculture and/or cattle breeding) type of economy. This transition is called the Neolithic Revolution. The end of the Neolithic dates back to the time of the appearance of metal tools and weapons, that is, the beginning of the copper, bronze or iron age.

Different cultures entered this period of development at different times. In the Middle East, the Neolithic began about 9.5 thousand years ago. BC e. In Denmark, the Neolithic dates from the 18th century. BC, and among the indigenous population of New Zealand - the Maori - the Neolithic existed as early as the 18th century. AD: before the arrival of Europeans, the Maori used polished stone axes. Some peoples of America and Oceania still have not fully passed from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

The Neolithic, like other periods of the primitive era, is not a specific chronological period in the history of mankind as a whole, but characterizes only the cultural characteristics of certain peoples.

Achievements and activities

1. New features of the social life of people:
— Transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.
- At the end of the era in some places (Anterior Asia, Egypt, India) a new formation of class society took shape, that is, social stratification began, the transition from a tribal-communal system to a class society.
At this time, cities begin to be built. One of the most ancient cities is Jericho.
- Some cities were well fortified, which indicates the existence of organized wars at that time.
Armies and professional warriors began to appear.
- It can be quite said that the beginning of the formation of ancient civilizations is connected with the Neolithic era.

2. The division of labor began, the formation of technologies:
- The main thing is simple gathering and hunting as the main sources of food are gradually being replaced by agriculture and cattle breeding.
The Neolithic is called the "Age of Polished Stone". In this era, stone tools were not just chipped, but already sawn, polished, drilled, sharpened.
- Among the most important tools in the Neolithic is an ax, previously unknown.
spinning and weaving are developed.

In the design of household utensils, images of animals begin to appear.

An ax in the shape of an elk head. Polished stone. Neolithic. Historical Museum. Stockholm.

Wooden ladle from the Gorbunovsky peat bog near Nizhny Tagil. Neolithic. GIM.

For the Neolithic forest zone, fishing becomes one of the leading types of economy. Active fishing contributed to the creation of certain stocks, which, combined with the hunting of animals, made it possible to live in one place all year round. The transition to a settled way of life led to the appearance of ceramics. The appearance of ceramics is one of the main signs of the Neolithic era.

The village of Chatal-Guyuk (Eastern Turkey) is one of the places where the most ancient samples of ceramics were found.

Ceramics of Chatal-Guyuk. Neolithic.

Female ceramic figurines

Monuments of Neolithic painting and petroglyphs are extremely numerous and scattered over vast territories.
Their accumulations are found almost everywhere in Africa, eastern Spain, on the territory of the former USSR - in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, on Lake Onega, near the White Sea and in Siberia.
Neolithic rock art is similar to Mesolithic, but the subject matter becomes more varied.

For about three hundred years, the attention of scientists was riveted to the rock, known as the "Tomsk Pisanitsa". "Pisanitsy" refers to images painted with mineral paint or carved on the smooth surface of a wall in Siberia. Back in 1675, one of the brave Russian travelers, whose name, unfortunately, remained unknown, wrote:

“The prison (Verkhnetomsky prison) did not reach the edges of the Tom, a stone is large and high, and animals, and cattle, and birds, and all sorts of similarities are written on it ...”

Real scientific interest in this monument arose already in the 18th century, when, by decree of Peter I, an expedition was sent to Siberia to study its history and geography. The result of the expedition was the first images of the Tomsk petroglyphs published in Europe by the Swedish captain Stralenberg, who participated in the trip. These images were not an exact copy of the Tomsk inscription, but conveyed only the most general outlines of the rocks and the placement of drawings on it, but their value lies in the fact that they can be seen drawings that have not survived to this day.

Images of the Tomsk petroglyphs, made by the Swedish boy K. Shulman, who traveled with Stralenberg across Siberia.

For hunters, deer and elk were the main source of livelihood. Gradually, these animals began to acquire mythical features - the elk was the "master of the taiga" along with the bear.
The image of the elk plays the main role in the Tomsk petroglyphs: the figures are repeated many times.
The proportions and shapes of the animal's body are absolutely correctly conveyed: its long massive body, a hump on its back, a heavy large head, a characteristic protrusion on the forehead, a swollen upper lip, bulging nostrils, thin legs with cloven hooves.
In some drawings, transverse stripes are shown on the neck and body of moose.

Moose. Tomsk writing. Siberia. Neolithic.

... On the border between the Sahara and Fezzan, on the territory of Algeria, in a mountainous area called Tassili-Ajer, bare rocks rise in rows. Now this region is dried up by the desert wind, scorched by the sun and almost nothing grows in it. However, earlier in the Sahara meadows were green ...

Rock painting of the Bushmen. Neolithic.

- The sharpness and accuracy of the drawing, grace and elegance.
- The harmonious combination of shapes and tones, the beauty of people and animals depicted with a good knowledge of anatomy.
- The swiftness of gestures, movements.

The small plastic of the Neolithic acquires, as well as painting, new subjects.

"Man Playing the Lute". Marble (from Keros, Cyclades, Greece). Neolithic. National Archaeological Museum. Athens.

The schematism inherent in Neolithic painting, which replaced Paleolithic realism, also penetrated small plastic arts.

Schematic representation of a woman. Cave relief. Neolithic. Croisart. Department of the Marne. France.

Relief with a symbolic image from Castelluccio (Sicily). Limestone. OK. 1800-1400 BC National Archaeological Museum. Syracuse.

Rock art of the Mesolithic and Neolithic It is not always possible to draw a precise line between them. But this art is very different from the typically Paleolithic:

- Realism, accurately fixing the image of the beast as a target, as a cherished goal, is replaced by a broader view of the world, the image of multi-figured compositions.
- There is a desire for harmonic generalization, stylization and, most importantly, for the transfer of movement, for dynamism.
- In the Paleolithic there was a monumentality and inviolability of the image. Here - liveliness, free fantasy.
- In the images of a person, a desire for grace appears (for example, if we compare the Paleolithic "Venuses" and the Mesolithic image of a woman collecting honey, or Neolithic Bushman dancers).

Small plastic:

- There are new stories.
- Greater mastery of execution and mastery of craft, material.

Achievements

Paleolithic
– Lower Paleolithic
> > fire taming, stone tools
– Middle Paleolithic
> > out of Africa
– Upper Paleolithic
> > sling

Mesolithic
– microliths, bow, canoe

Neolithic
– Early Neolithic
> > agriculture, animal husbandry
– Late Neolithic
> > ceramics