UPPER PALEOLITHIC CAVE PAINTINGS (Article by Kevin Callahan)
Room 20 Ford Hall
University of Minnesota
Cro-Magnon (Homo sapiens sapiens)
The Venus of Brassempouy was quite realistic. This figurine has a "geometric" hairstyle with bangs, not dissimilar to ones in use today
The Venus of Willendorf in Austria is 4.3 inches (11 cm) tall.
These figurines were widespread in Europe about 20,000 years ago.
Note the elaborate hairdo.
Baton de Commandment. This may have been used as a spearthrower, shaft straightener, or something else.
There are several realistic images of horses carved into it.
When used as a spearthrower, a piece of leather may have
been wrapped around the body of the spear. You can throw a spear twice the
distance with this baton.
Kevin Callahan demonstrates an atlatl.
(Stand clear.He has accidently thrown one through his garage door!)
There is an atlatl
deer hunting season in Minnesota and a good atlatl thrower can usually hit 4 inch
targets at 90 feet. The national distance champion lives in Bloomington, Minnesota. The motto of the World Atlatl Association is "I will hunt Mammoth alone, no longer."
atlatls and projectile points.
A mammoth tooth from the Czech Republic, next to a Clovis Point.
A carved Upper Paleolithic atlatl with a horse figure.
This carved atlatl had three horses heads at three stages of liefe and death.
Core preparation
Stone tool production of blades.
Two Acheulian Hand axes (left) next to two chopper tools (right)
Stone tools from different periods.
A boars head carving from the Upper Paleolithic (lower right).
A carving of a horses head (upper right).
Carving of an ibex with long curving horns.
A carving that has many animals carved into it.
While handling this piece it takes awhile looking at it to see all the figures.
A bas relief from Roc de Sers, France (Solutrean period) showing a horse and bull with its head recarved into that of a boar.
Closeup of the bas relief
A bas relief of two ibexes (long curving antlers in a head to head posture) from France.
Closeup. Ibexes were a major food source during the Upper Paleolithic.
Jamon Halvaksz demonstrating the atlatl.
Two homemade bullroarers
Jamon Halvaksz demonstrating the bullroarer
A reproduction of one of the bulls from Lascaux
A reproduction of one of the horses from Lascaux
A reproduction of a cup and ring such as are found
all over the world. Cupmarks can be found from Europe to Australia to North Dakota.
Cupmarks have, for example, been found in Neandertal burials at La Ferrassie, France,
a Neolithic child grave at Balbirnie, Scotland, and at Jinmium Australia (60,000 years BP). Cupmarks are still made in Hawaii. For additional information visit Kevin Callahan's
articles posted at his website and the UMRARA website.
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Week 10: The Archaeological Record:
"Art" and Symbolism
This lab is designed to introduce you to the Upper Paleolithic artifacts that we
call "art" and to some of the information that can be learned by archaeologists
from the study of rock art sites and from artifacts.
This lab covers cave paintings, bas-reliefs (a type of sculpture in which
figures project from the background), and portable art. Objects made of softer
materials such as wood, leather, and basketry probably contained as much
symbolic decoration as the objects you will see in this lab; however, the
objects we examine today were left on cave walls, or made on stone or hard bone
or antler, and they survived for us to see. BEFORE COMING TO LAB, review
Chapter 13 in the textbook, especially pages 350-360, and do the first part of
the Activity: Creating Symbols in Part I below.
The activities for this lab exercise consist of three main parts: a preliminary
discussion and activity (for which you have done some work BEFORE class), the
examination of materials at the stations, and finally a general discussion.
THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC
Where: Upper Paleolithic "art"--objects that we would call art today--can be
divided into two large categories: portable and non-portable. Non-portable art
is found painted or engraved in caves, in rock shelters, or in the open air in
many places throughout the world. Cave paintings of the Upper Paleolithic are
found in very few places, including Australia and southern Africa, but most has
been found in France and Spain. Portable art, on the other hand, is found
throughout the Old World.
When: Some art historians begin the history of art with the cave art at
Lascaux, France, but art had been produced by humans for as long a period of
time before Lascaux as after.
Environment and world view: The subject the artist depicted, the material the
art object was made of, and the location in which the art was found can tell us
about the climate and life in the Ice Ages. Some of the paintings or engravings
on portable objects are highly realistic. The European climate, in particular,
varied sharply during the Upper Paleolithic, with Ice Ages followed by rapid
warming. Some of the animals depicted in European cave art lived in warm
climates, some in colder ones.
Symbolism: Many of the animals have some aspect emphasized. Some animals
frequently appear, others almost never. Human figures are very rare in cave
art, but human figures are common in portable art. And some of the art is
geometrical and very "abstract" to our modern eyes. When you consider whether
art is "abstract", remember that there can be "abstract" symbols with very
specific meanings. On the next page are illustrated some message sticks or
koong'ga used by Australian aborigines. About these message sticks, Adam
Kingdon says, "Sometimes described as a 'passport' (because it could serve as a
guarantee of good faith in potentially hostile territory), this small decorated
shingle was carried by an agent, usually a brother or close friend, on behalf of
some well-known man. . . . The sender relied wholly on his agent to relay his
message verbally, while the stick was his individual [badge]. The marks cut
into the stick varied from rudimentary to elaborate. Any 'meaning' a mark might
have had was totally arbitrary in the sense that the maker could simply name
identical marks as hill, river, or camp. . . . The marks were described in
Australian pidgin as being 'flash' to make the stick 'pretty fellow'." (Kingdon
1993: 178-179)
A woomera or spearthrower marked
with a map of sixteen waterholes along
a 240 km track of the Totemic rainbow
snake
Koong'ga or message sticks: (a) A message
from Oorindimindi to 'Billy' asking for spears;
(b) Summons to a meeting. Lower section =
the head campsite of the Boinji sender. From
bottom up W = sandhills; N = a sandy creek
and more sandhills. Horizontals - Marion downs.
Verticals - open plains. Crosshatching =
Tediboo or five-mil yard. W = river. X =
meeting place at Warenda. (c) Two sides of a
summons to a dance or corrobboree. The two
lines on the reverse were translated as "quick,
hurry up". (d) Xs at top and bottom = beard,
the diamond a vulva. (e) The sender calls for
his spears, boomerangs and shields to be sent to
Mitakoodi river where an initiation ceremony is
to be held. The addressee is invited to join in.
(f) A message from 'Sandy' at Carandotta to
'Kangaroo', requesting pituri meal. Spears and
boomerangs available in exchange. (g) From
Mitakoodi, Cloncurry. (h) From Barclay Downs
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Part I. ACTIVITY: Creating Symbols
BEFORE YOU COME TO LAB,
1. Try to draw a visual representation of the concept of "food". What is the
best, clearest, and simplest symbol for this important idea?
IN LAB, 5 Minutes
1. Compare your drawing(s) with those of others in your group. Do you agree
they all clearly represent "food" as a category of objects? Can you, as a
group, come up with a symbol or symbols that you think work better?
2. You have just created a symbol or set of symbols with a specific, concrete
(touchable) meaning. Can you create a symbol for a more abstract idea, such as
"life"?
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Part II: ACTIVITY: Looking at Symbols from the Past 20 Minutes
A. Non-portable art
Size: The size and scale of cave paintings is not always apparent. Single
animals could be 7 or 8 feet long, and friezes or patterns could extend for 20
or 30 feet on walls or ceiling.
Location: Most of the Upper Paleolithic cave paintings we know of were painted
deep inside caves. Although some paintings may have been made in shallow
overhangs or rock shelters, most of these have been destroyed by weather or rock
falls.
Lighting: Modern investigators look at full-color photographs taken with even,
artificial light. In the Upper Paleolithic, these paintings were made and
viewed with flickering light from lamps and torches. Many paintings use bulges
in the cave walls to give a three-dimensional effect to the animals as a visitor
walks through the cave. Evidences of scaffolding have been found in the caves.
Footprints of artists and visitors (along with coprolites and other evidence of
their presence) have also been found in some caves.
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STATION 1. You should be able to locate the main caves in time and space. Use
the Chronology of Upper Paleolithic Art timeline and the map of cave sites at
this station. Identify the country and date for each of the sites listed below.
Cave Name Country Date(s)
1. Chauvet
2 Cosquer
3. Gargas
4. Lascaux
5. Altamira
STATION 2. Cave paintings. Consider the two drawings that are reproduced on the
back wall of the lab. (These are full-size reproductions of actual cave
paintings from Lascaux, France.)
1. What are these paintings of?
2. Are these paintings of real animals in a real world, or of spirits, or of a
world imagined? How might you tell? Are the paintings symbols of something
else?
3. Do you see the underlying animals (under the main, largest animal) in the
painting on the right? Some researchers believe that represented animals were
"killed" symbolically a number of times and so multiple representations of
animals might have represented rebirth or regeneration.
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STATION 3. Bas reliefs. About 20,000 years ago, bas reliefs were carved in the
midst of, or next to, living areas in caves. Full-size models of two of these
reliefs are available in the lab. For each of the models, answer the following
questions.
1. What is the subject of this piece of art?
2. Is it 'realistic'--that is, meant to "look like" or represent nature or real
life--or 'abstract'--having only form or shape, with no attempt at
representation? Might it symbolize an idea? Can you tell?
3. Are the animals in the bas relief predators or prey animals?
B. Portable art.
Portable art is more commonly found than large cave paintings or bas reliefs.
It may involve naturalistic carvings of animals on objects related to hunting;
small sculptures of humans, almost always women; or designs that appear abstract
and meaningless to us. Many were carved on batons de commandment (which are now
thought to be spearthrowers, allowing a spear to be thrown about 1 1/2 times as
far as by sheer arm-power) or atlatls (very efficient spearthrowers, which allow
a spear to be thrown 2 times as far as by arm alone, and more accurately). We
have plaster copies of many of these carved and decorated portable objects from
the Upper Paleolithic for you to see in lab. Bullroarers were objects that made
a distinctive sound when swung through the air at the end of a tether; we do not
have casts or copies of an early bullroarer, but we do have reproductions made
by one of the graduate students here.
Your TA or instructor will show how the baton de commandment, atlatl, and
bullroarer were used.
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STATION 4. Venuses and human figurines.
Although both animal and human figures have been found, archaeologists for a
long time focused closely on the so-called 'Venus' or human female figures. The
term 'Venus' was coined by prehistorians who were reminded of the Venus de Milo,
with her missing arms. These sculptures were found across Europe from France to
Siberia, and most date from around 27,000 to 20,000 years ago. Most often they
have been referred to as "pregnant", "obese", or "fertility figures". A
sampling of interpretations and comments about the Venuses is offered.
Interpretations made by male researchers:
- They were made for "pleasure to Paleolithic man during his meals" (AbbŽ
Breuil, 1954; cited in Ucko and Rosenfeld 1973: 119).
- They were not images of pregnant women, linked to fertility, but instead
images of old women, linked to a gender-wide role in witchcraft and magic.
(Gobert 1965)
- These are "the first figurines representing prehistoric man--or at least his
wife." (Leroi-Gourhan 1967: 90)
- They may have been teaching devices for girls' puberty rites. (Marshack 1972:
283)
- "It certainly is an old problem: how could man protect his property, mark a
place as 'his home', 'his living site', so that others would recognize and
respect it, especially in a period where there were no houses, just abris [rock
shelters] and caves?" (Von Koenigswald 1972: 134)
- "How did the artist's vision, which reflected the ideal of his time, see her?
For as with man, we can never know what she really looked like. . . . so we have
to make do with the version her companion, man, had of her." (Berenguer 1973:
48)
- "The female ideal was conceived as a machine for giving birth and feeding
efficiently. . . . We may deduce man's obsessive need for women who would bear
him lots of children to offset the high mortality rate caused by harsh living
conditions." (Berenguer 1973: 51-52)
- "Pleistocene pinup or centerfold girls" (Chard 1975: 182)
- "It seems unlikely that Upper Paleolithic women actually looked like that, but
perhaps it was an ideal type or expressed a wish for fertility." (Barnouw 1978:
178)
- "For [Paleolithic man] as for us. . . the mother who gives and transmits life
is also the woman who gives and shares pleasure: could the paleolithic have been
insensitive to this novel duality?" (Delporte 1979: 308)
Interpretations made by female researchers:
- "He [the artist] desired only to show the female erotically and as the source
of all abundance--in her he portrayed not woman but fertility." (Hawkes 1964:
27)
- "An alternative hypothesis is that Venuses represent the entire age spectrum
of adult females, and therefore it is womanhood in general, not fertility
exclusively, which is being symbolically recognized or honored." (Rice 1981:
403)
- "Would women have created symbols of their pragmaticism or of their
mysteriousness? Would men have honored women for their secular contributions to
society, or feared women for their powers? Knowledge of the gender of the
sculptors would appear to lead to more questions than answers." (Rice 1981: 412)
- "Few of the statuettes represent gross obesity, and some are quite slender."
(Nelson 1990: 16)
- "In spite of being naked, however, it would seem that the fat figurines have
little sex appeal to modern male scholars. This has called for various
explanations, ranging from assertions that they are stylized, to a suggestion
that you cannot tell what might have turned on those prehistoric men (you can
almost see the shrug and the wink), to a rejection of the erotic argument on the
grounds that the figurines are simply too grotesque!. . . Passivity of women is
assumed." (Nelson 1990: 17)
Directions for Station 4:
1. Choose two of the artifacts. When and where were they made? (Use the
photocopied information at the station to help discover this.) What materials
were used? What words would you use to describe them?
2. Do any of the interpretations or comments reproduced above seem more "right"
or correct to you than any others? Which ones? Do any seem less "right"?
Which ones?
3. Can you think of other reasons these human figures might have been made than
those listed above? What are some other reasons human figures are sculpted or
depicted in our own culture (in plastic, metal, wood, plaster, or other
materials)? (A mental walk through downtown, encompassing stores, public
spaces, and government buildings, might help you think of a few.)
Part III. GENERAL DISCUSSION 15 Minutes
1. What are some examples of "abstract" symbols (not directly representational
art) that are used by people to define who they are or to mark their place in
the world?
2. In southern Africa, if a group of people are asked to represent themselves,
the non-shamen draw stick figures. The shamen draw pictures of animals, which
is what they perceive themselves transforming into during altered states of
consciousness. (A shaman is a person who has a special ability to connect with
the "other world" and to contact spirits; they may be associated with contacting
the dead, and are often charged with aspects of healing people's bodies and
spirits. An altered state of consciousness is an unusual state of mind, which
can be induced by many things, including fatigue, hallucinogens, sleep
deprivation, etc.)
What implications might this ethnographic information have for interpreting the
meaning of the animal paintings? Does it affect the interpretation of the half
animal/half human figures that appear in some Upper Paleolithic caves?
3. Many cultures believe that spirits reside in the rock and that shamen can
enter rock and also transform into animals. What implications might that have
for interpreting the meaning of cave art?
4. Do you think the artists who painted the cave pictures were specialists in
painting? Was it a group effort, like the murals painted on some neighborhood
buildings? Was it a combination of these creative efforts (for example,
sketched by the expert and filled in by the group)? Or could it have been made
some other way?
5. What is the spread of time between the earliest and latest "Upper
Paleolithic art"? Do you think a painting made 27,000 years ago in France means
the same thing to the people who made it as one made 15,000 years later and
hundreds of miles away?
6. Were the artists familiar with the species painted or carved? Are these
"good" renditions? Were they skilled artists? Do you think these animals were
rendered accurately, by people familiar with them and who had a tradition of
accurate depiction and use of images? Have these species died out or changed in
appearance since the Upper Paleolithic?
7. What was the relationship of the people to the animals they depicted? Are
the paintings and bas reliefs related to ceremonial (religious), aesthetic ("it
looks good"), or utilitarian (i.e., hunting/food) behavior? Or some
combination?
8. Reconsider the opinions about the Venuses given above. Does it make a
difference who is interpreting the object? Does what is happening in society
affect the interpreter's reading of the objects?
References
Barnouw, V. 1978. Physical Anthropology and Archaeology. 3rd ed. Homewood, IL:
The Dorsey Press.
Berenguer, M. 1973. Prehistoric Man and His Art. M. Heron, trans. London:
Souvenir Press.
Chard, C. Man in Prehistory. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Delporte, H. 1979. L'Image de la Femme dans l'Art PrŽhistorique. Paris:
Picard.
Gobert, E.G. 1965. "Sur les Venus Aurignaciennes." In La PrŽhistoire:
Problemes et Tendances, pp. 209-214 (English summary). Paris: CNRS.
Hawkes, J. 1964. "The Achievements of Paleolithic Man." In Man Before
History, ed. C. Gabel, pp. 21-35. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Kingdon, J. 1993. Self-Made Man: Human Evolution from Eden to Extinction? New
York: John Wiley & Sons.
Konigswald, G.H.R. von. 1972. "Early Homo sapiens as an Artist: The Meaning of
Paleolithic Art." In The Origin of Homo sapiens, Ecology and Conservation, ed.
F. Bordes, Vol. 3,pp. 133-139. Paris: Proceedings of the Paris Symposium 1969.
Leroi-Gourhan, Andre. 1967. Treasures of Prehistoric Art. N. Guterman, trans.
New York: Henry N. Abrams.
Marshack, A. 1972. The Roots of Civilization. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Nelson, Sarah. 1990. "Diversity of Upper Paleolithic 'Venus' Figurines and
Archaeological Mythology." In Powers of Observation: Alternate Views in
Archaeology, eds. Sarah M. Nelson and Alice B. Kehoe, pp. 11-22. Washington,
D.C.: American Anthropological Association.
Rice, P.C. 1981. "Prehistoric Venuses: Symbols of Motherhood or Womanhood?"
Journal of Anthropological Research 37(4): 402-416.
Ucko, P.J. and A. Rosenfeld. 1973. Palaeolithic Cave Art. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Engravings on the wall of a cave at La Marche, France, from about 12,000 ya.
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Links to other sites on the Web
Upper Paleolithic Cave Art (megasource)
Kevin Callahan's website
Upper Midwest Rock Art Research Association
Upper Paleolithic Cave Paintings (Article by Kevin Callahan)
© 1997 john2381@tc.umn.edu
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