• Famous Cave Paintings

Bhimbetka rock shelters is a World Heritage site located in Madhya Pradesh. Bhimbetka caves with prehistoric cave paintings are an archaeological treasure attracting millions of visitors from all over the world to visit this destination. Feb 11, 2015  Bhima’s Seat Bhimbetka Oldest Cave Shelter. Some of the Stone Age rock paintings found among the Bhimbetka rock shelters are approximately 30,000 years old. [3] The caves also deliver early evidence of dance. They were declared a World Heritage Site in 2003. Convert to PDF. Create PDF and send to my email.

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world,^[1] as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life.^[2] It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River, in the Gorges de l'Ardèche.

Discovered on December 18, 1994, it is considered one of the most significant prehistoric art sites and the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO granted it World Heritage status on June 22, 2014.^[3] The cave was first explored by a group of three speleologists: Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet for whom it was named six months after an aperture now known as 'Le Trou de Baba' was discovered by Michel Rosa (Baba).^[4] At a later date the group returned to the cave. Another member of this group, Michel Chabaud, along with two others, travelled further into the cave and discovered the Gallery of the Lions, the End Chamber. Chauvet has his own detailed account of the discovery.^[5] In addition to the paintings and other human evidence, they also discovered fossilized remains, prints, and markings from a variety of animals, some of which are now extinct.

Further study by French archaeologistJean Clottes has revealed much about the site. The dates have been a matter of dispute but a study published in 2012 supports placing the art in the Aurignacian period, approximately 32,000–30,000 years BP. A study published in 2016 using additional 88 radiocarbon dates showed two periods of habitation, one 37,000 to 33,500 years ago and the second from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago with most of the black drawings dating to the earlier period.

• 6References

Features[edit]

The cave is situated above the previous course of the Ardèche River before the Pont d'Arc opened up. The gorges of the Ardèche region are the site of numerous caves, many of them having some geological or archaeological importance.

Based on radiocarbon dating, the cave appears to have been used by humans during two distinct periods: the Aurignacian and the Gravettian.^[6] Most of the artwork dates to the earlier, Aurignacian, era (32,000 to 30,000 years ago). The later Gravettian occupation, which occurred 27,000 to 25,000 years ago, left little but a child's footprints, the charred remains of ancient hearths^{[citation needed]}, and carbon smoke stains from torches that lit the caves. The footprints may be the oldest human footprints that can be dated accurately. After the child's visit to the cave, evidence suggests that due to a landslide which covered its historical entrance, the cave remained untouched until it was discovered in 1994.^[7]

The soft, clay-like floor of the cave retains the paw prints of cave bears along with large, rounded depressions that are believed to be the 'nests' where the bears slept. Fossilized bones are abundant and include the skulls of cave bears and the horned skull of an ibex.^[8] A set of foot prints of a young child and a wolf or dog walking side by side was found in this cave. This information suggests the origin of the domestic dog could date to before the last Ice Age.^[9]

Paintings[edit]

Hundreds of animal paintings have been catalogued, depicting at least 13 different species, including some rarely or never found in other ice age paintings. Rather than depicting only the familiar herbivores that predominate in Paleolithic cave art, i.e. horses, aurochs, mammoths, etc., the walls of the Chauvet Cave feature many predatory animals, e.g., cave lions, panthers, bears, and cave hyenas. There are also paintings of rhinoceroses.^[10]

Typical of most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures, although there is one partial 'Venus' figure composed of what appears to be a vulva attached to an incomplete pair of legs. Above the Venus, and in contact with it, is a bison head, which has led some to describe the composite drawing as a Minotaur.^[11] There are a few panels of red ochre hand prints and hand stencils made by blowing pigment over hands pressed against the cave surface. Abstract markings—lines and dots—are found throughout the cave. There are also two unidentifiable images that have a vaguely butterfly or avian shape to them. This combination of subjects has led some students of prehistoric art and cultures to believe that there was a ritual, shamanic, or magical aspect to these paintings.^[12]

One drawing, later overlaid with a sketch of a deer, is reminiscent of a volcano spewing lava, similar to the regional volcanoes that were active at the time. If confirmed, this would represent the earliest known drawing of a volcanic eruption.^[13]

The artists who produced these paintings used techniques rarely found in other cave art. Many of the paintings appear to have been made only after the walls were scraped clear of debris and concretions, leaving a smoother and noticeably lighter area upon which the artists worked. Similarly, a three-dimensional quality and the suggestion of movement are achieved by incising or etching around the outlines of certain figures. The art is also exceptional for its time for including 'scenes', e.g., animals interacting with each other; a pair of woolly rhinoceroses, for example, are seen butting horns in an apparent contest for territory or mating rights.

Dating[edit]

The cave contains some of the oldest known cave paintings, based on radiocarbon dating of 'black from drawings, from torch marks and from the floors', according to Jean Clottes. Clottes concludes that the 'dates fall into two groups, one centered around 27,000–26,000 BP and the other around 32,000–30,000 BP.'^[2] As of 1999, the dates of 31 samples from the cave had been reported. The earliest, sample Gifa 99776 from 'zone 10', dates to 32,900 ± 490 BP.^[14]

Some archaeologists have questioned these dates. Christian Züchner, relying on stylistic comparisons with similar paintings at other well-dated sites, expressed the opinion that the red paintings are from the Gravettian period (c. 28,000–23,000 BP) and the black paintings are from the Early Magdalenian period (early part of c. 18,000–10,000 BP).^[15] Pettitt and Bahn also contended that the dating is inconsistent with the traditional stylistic sequence and that there is uncertainty about the source of the charcoal used in the drawings and the extent of surface contamination on the exposed rock surfaces.^[16][17][18] Stylistic studies showed that some Gravettian engravings are superimposed on black paintings proving the paintings' older origins.^[19]

By 2011, more than 80 radiocarbon dates had been taken, with samples from torch marks and from the paintings themselves, as well as from animal bones and charcoal found on the cave floor. The radiocarbon dates from these samples suggest that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet: 35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago.^[20] This would place the occupation and painting of the cave within the Aurignacian period.

A research article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May 2012 by scientists from the University of Savoy, Aix-Marseille University and the Centre National de Prehistoire confirmed that the paintings were created by people in the Aurignacian era, between 30,000 and 32,000 years ago. The researchers’ findings are based on the analysis using geomorphological and ³⁶
Cl dating of the rock slide surfaces around what is believed to be the cave’s only entrance. Their analysis showed that the entrance was sealed by a collapsing cliff some 29,000 years ago. Their findings put the date of human presence in the cave and the paintings in line with that deduced from radiocarbon dating, i.e., between 32,000–30,000 years BP.^[21][22]

A 2016 study in the same journal examining 259 radiocarbon dates, some unpublished before, concluded that there were two phases of human occupation, one running from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago and the second from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago. All but two of the dates for the black drawings were from the earlier phase. The authors believe that the first phase ended with a rockfall that sealed the cave, with two more rockfalls at the end of the second occupation phase after which no humans or large animals entered the cave until it was rediscovered.^[23] In an email to the Los Angeles Times two of the authors explained,

A human group (band or tribe) visited the Chauvet cave during the first period around 36,000 years ago for cultural purposes. They produced black drawings of huge mammals. Then, several thousands of years after, another group from another place with another culture visited the cave.^[24]

Preservation[edit]

The cave has been sealed off to the public since 1994. Access is severely restricted owing to the experience with decorated caves such as Altamira and Lascaux found in the 19th and 20th century, where the admission of visitors on a large scale led to the growth of mold on the walls that damaged the art in places. In 2000 the archaeologist and expert on cave paintings Dominique Baffier was appointed to oversee conservation and management of the cave. She was followed in 2014 by Marie Bardisa.

Caverne du Pont-d'Arc, a facsimile of Chauvet Cave on the model of the so-called 'Faux Lascaux', was opened to the general public on 25 April 2015.^[25] It is the largest cave replica ever built worldwide, ten times bigger than the Lascaux facsimile. The art is reproduced full-size in a condensed replica of the underground environment, in a circular building above ground, a few kilometres from the actual cave.^[26] Visitors’ senses are stimulated by the same sensations of silence, darkness, temperature, humidity and acoustics, carefully reproduced.^[27] A virtual visit of the cave, made from 3D imagery, is also available to the public.

See also[edit]

• Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a 2010 documentary film about Chauvet Cave by Werner Herzog
• Coliboaia Cave in Romania, where 35–32,000-year-old figures were drawn using a similar technique^[28]

References[edit]

1. ^UNESCO. [1], June 2014.
2. ^ ^abClottes (2003b), p. 214.
3. ^France 24. 'UNESCO grants heritage status to prehistoric French cave', June 2014.
4. ^Hammer, Joshua (April 2015). 'Finally, the Beauty of France's Chauvet Cave Makes its Grand Public Debut'. Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
5. ^Chauvet, Jean-Marie; Deschamps, Eliette Brunel; Hillaire, Christian; Clottes, Jean; Bahn, Paul (1996). Dawn of art : the Chauvet Cave : the oldest known paintings in the world. New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN0-8109-3232-6.
6. ^See the section on Dating.
7. ^Curtis, Gregory (2006). The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists. New York: Knopf, pp. 215–16.
8. ^'Smithsonian Magazine, December 2010'. Smithsonianmag.com. 2017-06-21. Retrieved 2018-01-31.
9. ^Hobgood-Oster, Laura (2014). A Dog's History of the World. Baylor University Press. pp. 6–7.
10. ^Adams, Laurie (2011). Art Across Time (4th ed.). Mc-Graw Hill. p. 34.
11. ^Thurman, Judith (23 June 2008). 'First Impressions: What does the world's oldest art say about us?'. The New Yorker Magazine.
12. ^See, for example, Lewis-Williams (2002).
13. ^''Cave of forgotten dreams' may hold earliest painting of volcanic eruption'. Nature News. 15 January 2016.
14. ^Clottes (2003b), p. 33. See also Chauvet (1996), p. 131, for a chronology of dates from various caves. Bahn's foreword and Clottes' epilogue to Chauvet (1996) discuss dating.
15. ^Züchner, Christian (September 1998). 'Grotte Chauvet Archaeologically Dated'. Communication at the International Rock Art Congress IRAC ´98. Retrieved 2014-12-05. Clottes (2003b), pp. 213–14, has a response by Clottes.
16. ^Pettitt, Paul; Paul Bahn (March 2003). 'Current problems in dating Palaeolithic cave art: Candamo and Chauvet'. Antiquity. 77 (295): 134–41. doi:10.1017/s0003598x00061421.
17. ^Pettitt, P. (2008). 'Art and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe: Comments on the archaeological arguments for an early Upper Paleolithic antiquity of the Grotte Chauvet art'. Journal of Human Evolution, 2008 Aug 2. (abstract)
18. ^Bahn, P., P. Pettitt and C. Züchner, 'The Chauvet Conundrum: Are claims for the 'birthplace of art' premature?' in An Enquiring Mind: Studies in Honor of Alexander Marshack (ed. P. Bahn), Oxford 2009, pp. 253–78.
19. ^Guy, Emmanuel (2004). The Grotte Chauvet: a completely homogeneous art?Archived 2014-07-30 at the Wayback Machine, paleoesthetique.com, February 2004.
20. ^'A Chauvet Primer'. Archaeology. 64 (2): 39. March–April 2011.
21. ^Agence France-Presse (May 7, 2012). 'France cave art gives glimpse into human life 40,000 years ago'. National Post. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
22. ^Sadier, Benjamin; Delannoy, Jean-Jacques; Benedetti, Lucilla; Bourles, Didier; Jaillet, Stephane; Geneste, Jean-Michel; Lebatard, Anne-Elisabeth; Arnold, Maurice (2012). 'Further constraints on the Chauvet cave artwork elaboration'. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (21): 8002. doi:10.1073/pnas.1118593109. PMC3361430. PMID22566649. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
23. ^Anita Quiles, Hélène Valladas, Hervé Bocherens, Emmanuelle Delqué-Kolic, Evelyne Kaltnecker, Johannes van der Plicht, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Valérie Feruglio, Carole Fritz, Julien Monney, Michel Philippe, Gilles Tosello, Jean Clottes, and Jean-Michel Geneste'A high-precision chronological model for the decorated Upper Paleolithic cave of Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, Ardèche, France' PNAS 2016 113 (17) 4670–75; doi:10.1073/pnas.1523158113[2]
24. ^Netburn, Deborah (December 2016). 'Chauvet cave: The most accurate timeline yet of who used the cave and when'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
25. ^'Replik der Grotte Chauvet mit Höhlenmalereien'. faz.net. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
26. ^'Chauvet-Pont d'Arc cave, grand opening!'. TRACCE Online Rock Art Bulletin. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
27. ^'Conservation of prehistoric caves and stability of their inner climate: lessons from Chauvet and other French caves'. Bourges F., Genthon P., Genty D., Lorblanchet M., Mauduit E., D’Hulst D. Science of the Total Environment. Vol. 493, 15 Sept. 2014, pp. 79–91 doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.05.137.
28. ^'Drawing Paleolithic Romania'.

Bibliography[edit]

• Chauvet, Jean-Marie; Eliette Brunel Deschamps; Christian Hillaire (1996). Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave. Paul G. Bahn (Foreword), Jean Clottes (Epilogue). New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN0-8109-3232-6. English translation by Paul G. Bahn from the French edition La Grotte Chauvet
• Clottes, Jean (2003a). Return To Chauvet Cave, Excavating the Birthplace of Art: The First Full Report. Thames & Hudson. p. 232. ISBN0-500-51119-5.
• Clottes, Jean (2003b). Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times. Paul G. Bahn (translator). University of Utah Press. ISBN0-87480-758-1. Translation of La Grotte Chauvet, l'art des origins, Éditions du Seuil, 2001.
• Lewis-Williams, David (2002). The Mind in the Cave. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN978-0-500-28465-0.
• Clottes, Jean (August 2001). 'France's Magical Ice Age Art'. National Geographic. 200 (2). (article includes many photographs)

External links[edit]

• The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc French Ministry of Culture information site; includes an interactive map with photos.
• http://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/en/explore-cave Virtual Tour of the cave
• Ancient Grand Masters: Chauvet Cave, France A brief article by Jean Clottes of the French Ministry of Culture, responsible for overseeing the authentication of the contents and art of the cave
• Humphrey, Nicholas (1999). 'Cave Art, Autism, and the Evolution of the Human Mind'(PDF). Journal of Consciousness Studies. 6 (6–7): 116–23. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2013-07-29. With responses by Paul Bahn, Steven Mithen, et al.
• Chauvet Cave (ca. 30,000 b.c.) on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Timeline of Art History
• Doubt Cast on Age of Oldest Human Art abstract of April 18, 2003 New Scientist article by Jenny Hogan
• Chauvet Cave The cave paintings and rock art of Chauvet, with contributions by Jean Clottes
• Chauvet cave An enthusiast site with photographs and articles.
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams a film by Werner Herzog using 3D technology
• Marshall, Michael. 'Bear DNA is clue to age of Chauvet cave art'. New Scientist.
• Thurman, Judith (23 June 2008). 'Letter from Southern France: First Impressions : The New Yorker'. newyorker.com. Retrieved 6 November 2013.

Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, but cave paintings can also be of recent production: In the Gabarnmung cave of northern Australia, the oldest paintings certainly predate 28,000 years ago, while the most recent ones were made less than a century ago.^[1]

The oldest known cave paintings are over 40,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic), found in both the Franco-Cantabrian region in western Europe, and in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia). The oldest type of cave paintings are hand stencils and simple geometric shapes; the oldest undisputed examples of figurative cave paintings are somewhat younger, close to 35,000 years old.^[2]A 2018 study claimed an age of 64,000 years for the oldest examples of (non-figurative) cave art in Iberia, which would imply production by Neanderthals rather than modern humans.^[3] In November 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.^[4][5]

• 2Subjects, themes, and patterns
• 3Paleolithic cave art by region
• 4Holocene cave art

Dating[edit]

Nearly 340 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. Initially, the age of the paintings had been a contentious issue, since methods like radiocarbon dating can produce misleading results if contaminated by samples of older or newer material,^[6] and caves and rocky overhangs (where parietal art is found) are typically littered with debris from many time periods. But subsequent technology has made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself, torch marks on the walls,^[7] or the formation of carbonate deposits on top of the paintings.^[8] The subject matter can also indicate chronology: for instance, the reindeer depicted in the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas places the drawings in the last Ice Age.

The oldest known cave painting is a red hand stencil in Maltravieso cave, Cáceres, Spain. It has been dated using the uranium-thorium method^[8] to older than 64,000 yearsand was made by a Neanderthal.^[3]

The oldest date given to an animal cave painting is now a bull dated circa as over 40 000 years, at Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave, East Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia.^[9] Before this discovery, the oldest known cave painting was a depiction of a pig with a minimum age of 35,400 years, at Timpuseng cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia.^[2]

The earliest known European figurative cave paintings are those of Chauvet Cave in France. These paintings date to earlier than 30,000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic) according to radiocarbon dating.^[10] Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era and question this age.^[11] However, more than 80 radiocarbon dates had been obtained by 2011, with samples taken from torch marks and from the paintings themselves, as well as from animal bones and charcoal found on the cave floor. The radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet: 35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago. One of the surprises was that many of the paintings were modified repeatedly over thousands of years, possibly explaining the confusion about finer paintings that seemed to date earlier than cruder ones.^[12]

In 2009, cavers discovered drawings in Coliboaia Cave in Romania, stylistically comparable to those at Chauvet.^[13] An initial dating puts the age of an image in the same range as Chauvet: about 32,000 years old.^[14]

In Australia, cave paintings have been found on the Arnhem Land plateau showing megafauna which are thought to have been extinct for over 40,000 years, making this site another candidate for oldest known painting; however, the proposed age is dependent on the estimate of the extinction of the species seemingly depicted.^[15] Another Australian site, Nawarla Gabarnmang, has charcoal drawings that have been radiocarbon-dated to 28,000 years, making it the oldest site in Australia and among the oldest in the world for which reliable date evidence has been obtained.^[16]

Other examples may date as late as the Early Bronze Age, but the well-known Magdalenian style seen at Lascaux in France (c.15,000 BCE) and Altamira in Spain died out about 10,000BCE, coinciding with the advent of the Neolithic period. Some caves probably continued to be painted over a period of several thousands of years.^[17]

The next phase of surviving European prehistoric painting, the rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin, was very different, concentrating on large assemblies of smaller and much less detailed figures, with at least as many humans as animals. This was created roughly between 10,000 and 5,500 years ago, and painted in rock shelters under cliffs or shallow caves, in contrast to the recesses of deep caves used in the earlier (and much colder) period. Although individual figures are less naturalistic, they are grouped in coherent grouped compositions to a much greater degree.

Subjects, themes, and patterns[edit]

Famous Cave Paintings

The most common subjects in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns, called finger flutings. The species found most often were suitable for hunting by humans, but were not necessarily the actual typical prey found in associated deposits of bones; for example, the painters of Lascaux have mainly left reindeer bones, but this species does not appear at all in the cave paintings, where equine species are the most common. Drawings of humans were rare and are usually schematic as opposed to the more detailed and naturalistic images of animal subjects. One explanation for this may be that realistically painting the human form was 'forbidden by a powerful religious taboo.'^[18] Kieran D. O'Hara, geologist, suggests in his book Cave Art and Climate Change that climate controlled the themes depicted.^[19]Pigments used include red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first, and in some caves all or many of the images are only engraved in this fashion, taking them somewhat out of a strict definition of 'cave painting'.

Similarly, large animals are also the most common subjects in the many small carved and engraved bone or ivory (less often stone) pieces dating from the same periods. But these include the group of Venus figurines, which have no real equivalent in cave paintings.^{[citation needed]}

Hand stencils, made by placing a hand on the wall and blowing pigment at it (probably through a pipe of some kind), form a characteristic image of a roughly round area of solid pigment with the uncoloured shape of the hand in the centre, which may then be decorated with lines or dashes. These are often found in the same caves as other paintings, or may be the only form of painting in a location. Some walls contain many hand stencils. Similar hands are also painted in the usual fashion. A number of hands show a finger wholly or partly missing, for which a number of explanations have been given. Hand images are found in similar forms in Europe, Eastern Asia and South America.^[20]

Theories and interpretations[edit]

Henri Breuil interpreted the paintings as hunting magic to increase the abundance of prey.

Another theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings were made by paleolithic shamans.^[21] The shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state, then paint images of his or her visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing out power from the cave walls themselves.

R. Dale Guthrie, who has studied both highly artistic and lower quality art and figurines, identifies a wide range of skill and age among the artists. He hypothesizes that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the representation of women in the Venus figurines) are the work of adolescent males, who constituted a large part of the human population at the time.^{[22][verification needed]} However, in analyzing hand prints and stencils in French and Spanish caves, Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University has proposed that a proportion of them, including those around the spotted horses in Pech Merle, were of female hands.^[23]

Paleolithic cave art by region[edit]

Europe[edit]

Well-known cave paintings include those of: Flac - time life - am gold - 34 cd.

• Cave of El Castillo, Spain (~40.000 y.o.)
• Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, France (~35,000 y.o.)
• Cave of La Pasiega, Cuevas de El Castillo, Cantabria, Spain (~30,000 y.o.?)
• Caves of Arcy-sur-Cure, France (~28,200 y.o.)
• Cosquer Cave, with an entrance below sea level near Marseille, France (~27,000 y.o.)
• Caves of Gargas, France (~27,000 y.o.)
• Grotte de Cussac, France (~25,000 y.o.)
• Pech Merle, near Cabrerets, France (25,000 y.o.)
• Lascaux, France (~17,000 y.o.)
• Cave of Niaux, France (~17,000 y.o.)
• Font-de-Gaume, in the Dordogne Valley, France (~17,000 y.o.)
• Cave of Altamira, near Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain (~15,500 y.o.)
• La Marche, in Lussac-les-Châteaux, France (~15,000 y.o.)
• Les Combarelles, in Les Eyzies de Tayac, Dordogne, France (~13,600 y.o.)
• Magura Cave, Bulgaria (~10,000 y.o.)

Other sites include Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire, England (~14,500 ys old cave etchings and bas-reliefs discovered in 2003), Peștera Coliboaia in Romania (~29,000 y.o. art?),^[24] and Kapova Cave in Russia (~16,000 y.o. art).

Rock painting was also performed on cliff faces; but fewer of those have survived because of erosion. One example is the rock paintings of Astuvansalmi (3000–2500 BC) in the Saimaa area of Finland.

When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola first encountered the Magdalenian paintings of the Altamira cave, Cantabria, Spain in 1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and numerous additional discoveries have since demonstrated their authenticity, while at the same time stimulating interest in the artistry and symbolism^[25] of Upper Palaeolithic peoples.

East and Southeast Asia[edit]

Originating in the Paleolithic period, the rock art found in Khoit Tsenkher Cave, Mongolia, includes symbols and animal forms painted from the walls up to the ceiling.^[27] Stags, buffalo, oxen, ibex, lions, Argali sheep, antelopes, camels, elephants, ostriches, and other animal pictorials are present, often forming a palimpsest of overlapping images. The paintings appear brown or red in color, and are stylistically similar to other Paleolithic rock art from around the world but are unlike any other examples in Mongolia.

In Indonesia the caves in the district of Maros in Sulawesi are famous for their hand prints. About 1,500 negative handprints have also been found in 30 painted caves in the Sangkulirang area of Kalimantan; preliminary dating analysis as of 2005 put their age in the range of 10,000 years old.^[28] A 2014 study based on uranium–thorium dating dated a Maros hand stencil to a minimum age of 39,900 years. A painting of a babirusa was dated to at least 35.4 ka, placing it among the oldest known figurative depictions worldwide.^[2]

The Padah-Lin Caves of Burma contain 11,000-year-old paintings and many rock tools.

In November 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.^[4][5]

India[edit]

The Bhimbetka rock shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India. The earliest paintings on the cave walls are believed to date to about 30,000 years ago. Similar paintings are found in other parts of India as well. In Tamil Nadu, ancient Paleolithic Cave paintings are found in Kombaikadu, Kilvalai, Settavarai and Nehanurpatti. In Odisha they are found in Yogimatha and Gudahandi. In Karnataka, these paintings are found in Hiregudda near Badami. The most recent painting, consisting of geometric figures, date to the medieval period. Executed mainly in red and white with the occasional use of green and yellow, the paintings depict the lives and times of the people who lived in the caves, including scenes of childbirth, communal dancing and drinking, religious rites and burials, as well as indigenous animals.^[29]

Feb 21, 2018 - Instal windows 7 On ASUS E202S with flashdisk. Install Windows 7 on SSD step by step. Cara instal ulang windows 7 ultimate dengan. Cara menginstall ulang laptop asus windows 7. Install Windows 7 32bit Asus X453MUntuk Install Asus X453M sebelumnya kita mengatur settingan biosnya,secara default settingan bios.

Southern Africa[edit]

Cave paintings found at the Apollo 11 Cave in Namibia are estimated to date from approximately 25,500–27,500 years ago.^[30]

In 2011, archaeologists found a small rock fragment at Blombos Cave, about 300 km (190 mi) east of Cape Town on the southern cape coastline in South Africa, among spear points and other excavated material. After extensive testing for seven years, it was revealed that the lines drawn on the rock were handmade and from an ochre crayon dating back 73,000 years. This makes it the oldest known rock drawing.^[31][32]

Australia[edit]

Significant early cave paintings, executed in ochre, have been found in Kakadu, Australia. Ochre is not an organic material, so carbon dating of these pictures is often impossible. Sometimes the approximate date, or at least, an epoch, can be surmised from the painting content, contextual artifacts, or organic material intentionally or inadvertently mixed with the inorganic ochre paint, including torch soot.^[7]

A red ochre painting, discovered at the centre of the Arnhem Land Plateau, depicts two emu-like birds with their necks outstretched. They have been identified by a palaeontologist as depicting the megafauna species Genyornis, giant birds thought to have become extinct more than 40,000 years ago; however, this evidence is inconclusive for dating. It may merely suggest that Genyornis became extinct at a later date than previously determined.^[15]

Hook Island in the Whitsunday Islands is also home to a number of cave paintings created by the seafaring Ngaro people.^[33]

Holocene cave art[edit]

The following sections present notable examples of prehistorc cave art dated to after the end of the Upper Paleolithic(to the Holocene, after c. 11,500 years ago).

Asia[edit]

In the Philippines at Tabon Caves the oldest artwork may be a relief of a shark above the cave entrance. It was partially disfigured by a later jar burial scene.^{[citation needed]}

The Edakkal Caves of Kerala, India, contain drawings that range over periods from the Neolithic] as early as 5,000 BCE to 1,000 BCE.^[34][35][36]

Horn of Africa[edit]

In 2002, a French archaeological team discovered the Laas Geel cave paintings on the outskirts of Hargeisa in the northwestern region of Somaliland. Dating back around 5,000 years, the paintings depict both wild animals and decorated cows. They also feature herders, who are believed to be the creators of the rock art.^[37] In 2008, Somali archaeologists announced the discovery of other cave paintings in Dhambalin region, which the researchers suggest includes one of the earliest known depictions of a hunter on horseback. The rock art is in the Ethiopian-Arabian style, dated to 1000 to 3000 BCE.^[38][39]

Additionally, between the towns of Las Khorey and El Ayo in Karinhegane is a site of numerous cave paintings of real and mythical animals. Each painting has an inscription below it, which collectively have been estimated to be around 2,500 years old.^[40][41] Karihegane's rock art is in the same distinctive Ethiopian-Arabian style as the Laas Geel and Dhambalin cave paintings.^[42][43] Around 25 miles from Las Khorey is found Gelweita, another key rock art site.^[41]

In Djibouti, rock art of what appear to be antelopes and a giraffe are also found at Dorra and Balho.^[44]

North Africa[edit]

Many cave paintings are found in the Tassili n'Ajjer mountains in southeast Algeria. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the rock art was first discovered in 1933 and has since yielded 15,000 engravings and drawings that keep a record of the various animal migrations, climatic shifts, and change in human inhabitation patterns in this part of the Sahara from 6000 BCE to the late classical period.^[45] Other cave paintings are also found at the Akakus, Mesak Settafet and Tadrart in Libya and other Sahara regions including: Ayr mountains, Niger and Tibesti, Chad.

The Cave of Swimmers and the Cave of Beasts in southwest Egypt, near the border with Libya, in the mountainous Gilf Kebir region of the Sahara Desert. The Cave of Swimmers was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian explorer László Almásy. The site contains rock painting images of people swimming, which are estimated to have been created 10,000 years ago during the time of the most recent Ice Age.

Southern Africa[edit]

At uKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park, South Africa, now thought to be some 3,000 years old, the paintings by the San people who settled in the area some 8,000 years ago depict animals and humans, and are thought to represent religious beliefs. Human figures are much more common in the rock art of Africa than in Europe.^[46]

North America[edit]

Distinctive monochrome and polychrome cave paintings and murals exist in the mid-peninsula regions of southern Baja California and northern Baja California Sur, consisting of Pre-Columbian paintings of humans, land animals, sea creatures, and abstract designs. These paintings are mostly confined to the sierras of this region, but can also be found in outlying mesas and rock shelters. According to recent radiocarbon studies of the area, of materials recovered from archaeological deposits in the rock shelters and on materials in the paintings themselves, suggest that the Great Murals may have a time range extending as far back as 7,500 years ago.^[47]

Native artists in the Chumash tribes created cave paintings that are located in present-day Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo Counties in Southern California. They include well executed examples at Burro Flats Painted Cave and Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park.

There are also Native Americanpictogram examples in caves of the Southwestern United States. Cave art that is 6,000 years old was found in the Cumberland Plateau region of Tennessee.^[48]

South America[edit]

Serra da Capivara National Park is a national park in the north east of Brazil with many prehistoric paintings; the park was created to protect the prehistoric artifacts and paintings found there. It became a World Heritage Site in 1991. Its best known archaeological site is Pedra Furada.

It is located in northeast state of Piauí, between latitudes 8° 26' 50' and 8° 54' 23' south and longitudes 42° 19' 47' and 42° 45' 51' west. It falls within the municipal areas of São Raimundo Nonato, São João do Piauí, Coronel José Dias and Canto do Buriti. It has an area of 1291.4 square kilometres (319,000 acres). The area has the largest concentration of prehistoric small farms on the American continents. Scientific studies confirm that the Capivara mountain range was densely populated in prehistoric periods.

Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for 'Cave of the Hands') is a cave located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km (101 mi) south of the town of Perito Moreno, within the borders of the Francisco P. Moreno National Park, which includes many sites of archaeological and paleontological importance.

The hand images are often negative (stencilled). Besides these there are also depictions of human beings, guanacos, rheas, felines and other animals, as well as geometric shapes, zigzag patterns, representations of the sun, and hunting scenes. Similar paintings, though in smaller numbers, can be found in nearby caves. There are also red dots on the ceilings, probably made by submerging their hunting bolas in ink, and then throwing them up. The colours of the paintings vary from red (made from hematite) to white, black or yellow. The negative hand impressions date to around 550 BCE, the positive impressions from 180 BCE, while the hunting drawings are calculated to more than 10,000 years old.^[49] Most of the hands are left hands, which suggests that painters held the spraying pipe with their right hand.^{[citation needed]}

Southeast Asia[edit]

There are rock paintings in caves in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma. In Thailand, caves and scarps along the Thai-Burmese border, in the Petchabun Range of Central Thailand, and overlooking the Mekong River in Nakorn Sawan Province, all contain galleries of rock paintings. In Malaysia the oldest paintings are at Gua Tambun in Perak, dated at 2000 years, and those in the Painted Cave at Niah Caves National Park are 1200 years old. The anthropologist Ivor Hugh Norman Evans visited Malaysia in the early 1920s and found that some of the tribes (especially Negritos) were still producing cave paintings and had added depictions of modern objects including what are believed to be cars.^[50] (See prehistoric Malaysia.)

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Robert Gunn, Bruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy and Margaret Katherine, 'The past 500 years of rock art at Nawarla Gabarnmang, central-western Arnhem Land' in: Bruno David, Paul S.C. Taçon,Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Jean-Michel Geneste (eds.), The Archaeology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia (2017), pp. 303–328.
2. ^ ^abcM. Aubert et al., 'Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia', Nature volume 514, pages 223–227 (09 October 2014).'using uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with 12 human hand stencils and two figurative animal depictions from seven cave sites in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, we show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, is now the oldest known hand stencil in the world. In addition, a painting of a babirusa (‘pig-deer’) made at least 35.4 kyr ago is among the earliest dated figurative depictions worldwide, if not the earliest one. Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ∼40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world.'
3. ^ ^abRepresented by three red non-figurative symbols found in the caves of Maltravieso, Ardales and La Pasiega, Spain, these predate the arrival of modern humans to Europe by at least 20,000 years and thus must have been made by Neanderthals. D. L. Hoffmann; C. D. Standish; M. García-Diez; P. B. Pettitt; J. A. Milton; J. Zilhão; J. J. Alcolea-González; P. Cantalejo-Duarte; H. Collado; R. de Balbín; M. Lorblanchet; J. Ramos-Muñoz; G.-Ch. Weniger; A. W. G. Pike (2018). 'U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art'. Science. 359 (6378): 912–915. doi:10.1126/science.aap7778. 'we present dating results for three sites in Spain that show that cave art emerged in Iberia substantially earlier than previously thought. Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates on carbonate crusts overlying paintings provide minimumages for a red linear motif in La Pasiega (Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso (Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales (Andalucía). Collectively, these results show that cave art in Iberia is older than 64.8 thousand years (ka). This cave art is the earliest dated so far and predates, by at least 20 ka, the arrival of modern humansin Europe, which implies Neandertal authorship.'
4. ^ ^abcZimmer, Carl (7 November 2018). 'In Cave in Borneo Jungle, Scientists Find Oldest Figurative Painting in the World - A cave drawing in Borneo is at least 40,000 years old, raising intriguing questions about creativity in ancient societies'. The New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
5. ^ ^abcAubert, M.; et al. (7 November 2018). 'Palaeolithic cave art in Borneo'. Nature. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
6. ^Welsh, Liz; Welsh, Peter (2000). Rock-art of the Southwest: a Visitor's Companion (1st ed.). Berkeley, California: Wilderness Press. p. 62. ISBN0-89997-258-6.
7. ^ ^abValladas, Helene (1 September 2003). 'Direct radiocarbon dating of prehistoric cave paintings by accelerator mass spectrometry'. Measurement Science and Technology. 14 (9): 1487–1492. doi:10.1088/0957-0233/14/9/301. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
8. ^ ^abHoffmann, D.L., Pike, A.W., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P.B. and Zilhão, J., 2016. Methods for U-series dating of CaCO3 crusts associated with Palaeolithic cave art and application to Iberian sites. Quaternary Geochronology, 36, pp.104-119.
9. ^Aubert, M. et al Palaeolithic cave art in Borneo // Nature (2018)
10. ^Clottes, Jean (October 2002). 'Chauvet Cave (ca. 30,000 B.C.)'. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
11. ^Pettitt, Paul (1 November 2008). 'Art and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe: Comments on the archaeological arguments for an early Upper Paleolithic antiquity of the Grotte Chauvet art'. Journal of Human Evolution. 55 (5): 908–917. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.04.003. PMID18678392.
12. ^Zorich, Zach (March–April 2011). 'A Chauvet Primer'. Archaeology. 64 (2): 39.
13. ^Ghemis, Calin; Clottes, J.; Gely, B.; Prudhomme, F. (2011). 'An Exceptional Archaeological Discovery – the 'Art Gallery' in Coliboaia Cave'. Acta Archaeologica Carpathia. XLVI. ISSN0001-5229. Retrieved 7 March 2013.
14. ^Zorich, Zach (January–February 2012). 'From the Trenches – Drawing Paleolithic Romania'. Archaeology. 65 (1). Retrieved 7 March 2013.
15. ^ ^abMasters, Emma (May 31, 2010). 'Megafauna cave painting could be 40,000 years old'. Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). Retrieved 30 December 2012.
16. ^McGuirk, Rod (June 18, 2012). 'Australian rock art among the world's oldest'. Christian Science Monitor. AP. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
17. ^Gray, Richard (5 October 2008). 'Prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete'. The Telegraph. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
18. ^Schiller, Ronald (1972). Reader's Digest: Marvels and Mysteries of The World Around Us. The Reader's Digest Association. pp. 51–55. LCCN72077610.
19. ^O'Hara, K. (2014). Cave Art and Climate Change, Archway Publishing.
20. ^Foundation, Bradshaw. 'Hand Paintings and Symbols in Rock Art'. bradshawfoundation.com.
21. ^Whitley, David S. (2009). Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief. Prometheus. p. 35. ISBN978-1-59102-636-5.
22. ^Guthrie, R. Dale (2005). 'Preface: Reassembling the Bones'. The Nature of Paleolithic Art. Chicago [u.a.]: Univ. of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-31126-5. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
23. ^Hammond, Norman (September 11, 2009). 'Cave painters' giveaway handprints at Pech-Merle'. The Times. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
24. ^Tugman, Lindsey (1 September 2011). 'Oldest cave drawings found in Romanian cave'. CBS News. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
25. ^https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJnEQCMA5Sg Why are these 32 symbols found in caves all over Europe Genevieve von Petzinger
26. ^M. Aubert et al., 'Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia', Nature volume 514, pages 223–227 (09 October 2014) 'using uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with 12 human hand stencils and two figurative animal depictions from seven cave sites in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, we show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, is now the oldest known hand stencil in the world.'
27. ^Khoit tsenkher cave rock painting – UNESCO World Heritage Centre
28. ^Chazine, J-M. (2005). 'Rock Art, Burials, and Habitations: Caves in East Kalimantan'(PDF). Asian Perspectives. 44 (1): 219–230. doi:10.1353/asi.2005.0006. Retrieved 12 May 2013.Fage, Luc-Henri (August 2005). 'Hands Across Time: Exploring the Rock Art of Borneo'. National Geographic. 208 (2): 44–45. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
29. ^'Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka'. World Heritage Site. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
30. ^'Apollo 11 (ca. 25,500–23,500 B.C.) and Wonderwerk (ca. 8000 B.C.) Cave Stones'. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. October 2000. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
31. ^St. Fleur, Nicholas (12 September 2018). 'Oldest Known Drawing by Human Hands Discovered in South African Cave'. The New York Times. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
32. ^Sample, Ian (2018-09-12). 'Earliest known drawing found on rock in South African cave'. the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-09-12.
33. ^'Whitsunday national park islands - Nature, Culture and History'. Queensland Government. The State of Queensland (Department of National Parks, Sport and Racing). Retrieved 16 October 2017.
34. ^''Edakkal cave findings related to Indus Valley civilization'. The New Indian Express. 2009-10-22. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
35. ^'Sarasvati River Indus Script Ancient Village Or'. Scribd.com. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
36. ^'Symbols akin to Indus valley culture discovered'. Hindustan Times. 2009-09-29. Archived from the original on 2011-01-28. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
37. ^Bakano, Otto (April 24, 2011). 'Grotto galleries show early Somali life'. AFP. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
38. ^Mire, Sada (2008). 'The Discovery of Dhambalin Rock Art Site, Somaliland'. African Archaeological Review. 25: 153–168. doi:10.1007/s10437-008-9032-2. Archived from the original on 27 June 2013. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
39. ^Alberge, Dalya (17 September 2010). 'UK archaeologist finds cave paintings at 100 new African sites'. The Guardian. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
40. ^Hodd, Michael (1994). East African Handbook. Trade & Travel Publications. p. 640. ISBN0-8442-8983-3.
41. ^ ^abAli, Ismail Mohamed (1970). Somalia Today: General Information. Ministry of Information and National Guidance, Somali Democratic Republic. p. 295.
42. ^Istituto universitario orientale (Naples, Italy) (1992). Annali: Supplemento, Issues 70-73. Istituto orientale di Napoli. p. 57.
43. ^'Rock Art Sites of Somaliland'. CyArk. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
44. ^Universität Frankfurt am Main (2003). Journal of African Archaeology, Volumes 1-2. Africa Manga Verlag. p. 230. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
45. ^'Tassili n'Ajjer'. UNESCO World Heritage Center. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
46. ^Jaroff, Leon (1997-06-02). 'Etched in Stone'. Time. Retrieved 2008-10-07. Wildlife and humans tend to get equal billing in African rock art. (In the caves of western Europe, by contrast, pictures of animals cover the walls and human figures are rare.) In southern Africa, home to the San, or Bushmen, many of the rock scenes depicting people interpret the rituals and hallucinations of the shamans who still dominate the San culture today. Among the most evocative images are those believed to represent shamans deep in trance: a reclining, antelope-headed man surrounded by imaginary beasts, for example, or an insect-like humanoid covered with wild decorations.
47. ^'Baja California Rock Art Dated to 7,500 Years Ago'. news.nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
48. ^Simekm Jan F.; Alan Cressler; Nicholas P. Herrmann; Sarah C. Sherwood (2013). 'Sacred landscapes of the south-eastern USA: prehistoric rock and cave art in Tennessee'. Antiquity. 87 (336): 430–446.
49. ^Le Comte, Christian (2003). Argentine Indians. Consorcio de Editores. ISBN987-9479-11-4.
50. ^Weber, George. 'The Semang'. The Negrito of Malaysia. Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2013.

Further reading[edit]

• Dubowski, Mark (2010). Discovery in the Cave (Children's early reader). New York, USA: Random House. ISBN0-375-85893-8
• Fage, Luc-Henri; Chazine, Jean-Michel (2010). Borneo – Memory of the Caves. Le Kalimanthrope. ISBN978-2-9536616-1-3.
• Heyd, Thomas; Clegg, John, eds. (2005). Aesthetics and Rock Art. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN0-7546-3924-X.
• Curtis, Gregory (2006). The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists. Knopf. ISBN1-4000-4348-4.
• Nechvatal, Joseph (2005). 'Immersive Excess in the Apse of Lascaux'. Technonoetic Arts. 3 (3): 181–192. doi:10.1386/tear.3.3.181/1.

External links[edit]

• Bradshaw Foundation The recording of cave paintings around the world
• EuroPreArt database of European Prehistoric Art
• Tour of Afghan cave paintings from BBC News.
• Le Kalimanthrope Rock art of Borneo (Kalimantan, Indonesia)
• Journey through Art History, an outline of prehistoric art with emphasis on cave paintings from around the world.
• Human Timeline (Interactive) – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (August 2016).