Rock paintings of animals of primitive people. What paints did ancient people use?
The oldest rock paintings primitive people were amazing images that were mainly drawn on stone walls. It is worth noting that in general, cave painting is unique. Today, perhaps, every person has identified from a video or photo that the rock paintings are deer, people with arrows, mammoths and much more. At that time, artists did not know such a thing as composition. Experts say that the animals that are depicted on rocks or other foundations are sacred animals, the ancestors of a clan, or one of the objects of veneration of a particular tribe.
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There is an opinion that rock painting primitive people are animals that were hunted by people of that time. IN in this case These drawings served as magical rituals, with the help of which hunters wanted to attract real animals during the hunt.
The main part of such paintings is located in the depths of caves - places that were considered a kind of sanctuary. If we talk about the Madeleine era, then this period became quite bright in the development of Paleolithic art. Most of these finds are located in the southwestern part of France, in the Pyrenees regions, as well as in the northwestern part of Spain.
Changes in the life of primitive people
After the disappearance of certain species of animals, as well as due to climate change, the nature of the activities of people of that time changed significantly. For example, people 
They stopped hunting and collecting food in the area less; they began to pay more attention to agriculture and cattle breeding. Changes also affected magical images, that is, the cave paintings of primitive people became different. People began to make rock paintings not in the depths of caves, but, on the contrary, closer to the exits and, in some cases, outside.
If we talk about the Paleolithic era, then it was almost impossible to find images of people here. Now the person is the main thing actor in the depicted space. The domestication of animals led to the fact that they began to be depicted next to people. For example, they were used to depict hunting scenes. In addition, people began to use a completely different technique of painting on rocks.
Basically, figures were depicted schematically using triangles and also straight lines. In addition, the images were monochrome. For example, artists of that time used black, red, orange, or white mineral paint. In addition to scenes of hunting, scenes of various ritual dances and battles began to appear on the rocks. And also scenes of grazing cattle. Murals of this type can be seen throughout Spain.
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The first examples of sculpture
If we talk about the first examples of Neolithic sculpture, they were associated with the funeral cult: skulls, both human and animal, and much more. Images of naked women with big breasts and hips. Rarely, pregnant women were also depicted.
First monumental sculptures appeared in southern Europe. Also at that time, ceramic products appeared. The first products were wicker bottles, as well as baskets, which were decorated with various ornaments.
It should be noted that historians, as well as archaeologists, are still actively searching for rock art, of which, according to experts, there are still many. The most common rock carvings are images of deer, tigers, mammoths, and horses. It is no secret that today the cave paintings of primitive people raise a large number of controversial issues among a large number of historians and archaeologists.
Video: Cave paintings of ancient people
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After visiting the Altamira cave in northern Spain, Pablo Picasso exclaimed: “After the work in Altamira, all art began to decline.” He wasn't joking. The art in this cave and in many other caves that are found in France, Spain and other countries is among the greatest artistic treasures that have ever been created.
Magura Cave
Magura Cave is one of the largest caves in Bulgaria. It is located in the northwestern part of the country. The cave walls are decorated with prehistoric cave paintings created approximately 8,000 to 4,000 years ago. More than 700 drawings were discovered. The pictures depict hunters, dancing people and many animals.
Cueva de las Manos
Cueva de las Manos is located in Southern Argentina. The name can be literally translated as “Cave of Hands”. Most of the images in the cave are left hands, but there are also hunting scenes and images of animals. The paintings are believed to have been created between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago.
Bhimbetka
Located in central India, Bhimbetka contains over 600 prehistoric rock art. The drawings depict people living in the cave at that time. The animals were also given a lot of space. Images of bison, tigers, lions and crocodiles were found. The oldest painting is believed to be 12,000 years old.
Serra da Capivara
Serra da Capivara is a national park in northeastern Brazil. This place is home to many stone shelters, which are decorated with rock paintings that represent ritual scenes, hunting, trees, animals. Some scientists believe that the oldest rock art in this park is from 25,000 years ago.
Laas Gaal
Laas Gaal is a complex of caves in northwestern Somalia that contain some of the earliest known art on the African continent. Prehistoric cave paintings are estimated by scientists to be between 11,000 and 5,000 years old. They show cows, ceremonially dressed people, domestic dogs and even giraffes.
Tadrart Akakus
Tadrart Akakus forms a mountain range in the Sahara Desert, in western Libya. The area is famous for its rock art dating back to 12,000 BC. up to 100 years. The paintings reflect the changing conditions of the Sahara Desert. 9,000 years ago, the surrounding area was full of greenery and lakes, forests and wild animals, as evidenced by rock paintings depicting giraffes, elephants and ostriches.
Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave, in the south of France, contains some of the earliest known prehistoric cave paintings in the world. The images preserved in this cave may be about 32,000 years old. The cave was discovered in 1994 by Jean Marie Chauvet and his team of speleologists. The paintings found in the cave represent images of animals: mountain goats, mammoths, horses, lions, bears, rhinoceroses, lions.
Rock art of Kakadu
Located on northern territory Australia, National Park Kakadu contains one of the largest concentrations of Aboriginal art. The oldest works are believed to be 20,000 years old.
Altamira Cave
Discovered in the late 19th century, Altamira Cave is located in northern Spain. Surprisingly, the paintings found on the rocks were like this High Quality that scientists have long doubted their authenticity and even accused the discoverer, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, of forging the painting. Many people do not believe in the intellectual potential of primitive people. Unfortunately, the discoverer did not live to see 1902. In this mountain the paintings were recognized as authentic. The images were made with charcoal and ocher.
Paintings of Lascaux
The Lascaux Caves, located in southwest France, are decorated with impressive and famous cave paintings. Some of the images are 17,000 years old. Most of the rock paintings are depicted far from the entrance. The most famous images This cave contains images of bulls, horses and deer. The largest rock painting in the world is a bull in the Lascaux cave, which is 5.2 meters long.
The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 in the south of France, in the Ardèche department, on the steep bank of the canyon of the river of the same name, a tributary of the Rhone, near the town of Pont d'Arc by three speleologists Jean-Marie Chauvet, Elette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire.
All of them already had extensive experience in exploring caves, including those containing traces of prehistoric man. The half-buried entrance to the then unnamed cave was already known to them, but the cave had not yet been explored. When Elette, squeezing through the narrow opening, saw a large cavity going into the distance, she realized that she needed to return to the car for the stairs. It was already evening, they even doubted whether they should postpone further examination, but nevertheless they returned behind the stairs and went down into the wide passage.
The researchers stumbled upon a cave gallery, where a flashlight beam snatched an ocher spot on the wall from the darkness. It turned out to be a “portrait” of a mammoth. No other cave in the south-east of France, rich in “paintings,” can compare with the newly discovered one, named after Chauvet, either in size, or in the preservation and skill of the drawings, and the age of some of them reaches 30-33 thousand years.
Speleologist Jean-Marie Chauvet, after whom the cave got its name.
The discovery of the Chauvet Cave on December 18, 1994 became a sensation, which not only pushed back the appearance of primitive drawings by 5 thousand years ago, but also overturned the concept of the evolution of Paleolithic art that had been established at that time, based, in particular, on the classification of the French scientist Henri Leroy-Gourhan . According to his theory (as well as the opinion of most other experts), the development of art went from primitive forms to more complex ones, and then the earliest drawings from Chauvet should generally belong to the pre-figurative stage (dots, spots, stripes, winding lines, other scribbles) . However, researchers of Chauvet's paintings found themselves face to face with the fact that the oldest images are almost the most perfect in their execution from the Paleolithic ones known to us (Paleolithic is at least: it is not known what Picasso, who admired the Altamiran bulls, would have said if he had had a chance to see the lions and Chauvet bears!). Apparently, art is not very friendly with evolutionary theory: avoiding any stadiality, it somehow inexplicably arises immediately, out of nothing, in highly artistic forms.
Here is what the largest expert in the field of Paleolithic art Z. A. Abramova writes about this: " Paleolithic art appears like a bright flash of flame in the depths of centuries. Having developed unusually quickly from the first timid steps to polychrome frescoes, this art just as abruptly disappeared. It does not find a direct continuation in subsequent eras... It remains a mystery how the Paleolithic masters achieved such high perfection and what were the paths along which genius creativity Picasso was imbued with echoes of the art of the Ice Age" (quoted from: Cher Ya. When and how did art arise?).
(source - Donsmaps.com)
The drawing of black rhinoceroses from Chauvet is considered to be the oldest in the world (32,410 ± 720 years ago; there is information on the Internet about a certain “new” dating, giving Chauvet’s painting from 33 to 38 thousand years old, but without credible references).
On this moment, This oldest example human creativity, the beginning of art, unencumbered by history. Typically, Paleolithic art is dominated by drawings of animals that people hunted - horses, cows, deer, and so on. The walls of Chauvet are covered with images of predators - cave lions, panthers, owls and hyenas. There are drawings depicting rhinoceros, tarpans and a number of other animals of the Ice Age.
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In addition, no other cave contains so many images of a woolly rhinoceros, an animal whose “dimensions” and strength are not inferior to a mammoth. In size and strength, the woolly rhinoceros was almost equal to the mammoth, its weight reached 3 tons, body length - 3.5 m, the size of the front horn - 130 cm. The rhinoceros became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, earlier than the mammoth and the cave bear. Unlike mammoths, rhinoceroses were not herd animals. Probably because this powerful animal, although it was a herbivore, had the same vicious disposition as their modern relatives. This is evidenced by scenes of fierce “rock” fights between rhinoceroses from Chauvet.
The cave is located in the south of France, on the steep bank of the canyon of the Ardège River, a tributary of the Rhone, in a very picturesque place, in the vicinity of the Pont d’Arc (“Arch Bridge”). This natural bridge is formed in the rock by a huge ravine up to 60 meters high.
The cave itself is "mothballed". Entrance to it is open exclusively to a limited circle of scientists. And even those are allowed to enter it only twice a year, in spring and autumn, and work there only for a couple of weeks, a few hours a day. Unlike Altamira and Lascaux, Chauvet has not yet been “cloned,” so ordinary people like you and me can only admire the reproductions, which we will certainly do, but a little later.
“In the fifteen years or more that have passed since the discovery, there have been many more people who have been to the summit of Everest than have seen these drawings,” writes Adam Smith in his review of documentary Werner Herzog on Chauvet. Haven't tested it, but sounds good.
So, the famous German film director somehow miraculously managed to get permission to film. The film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was shot in 3D and shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, which, presumably, attracted the attention of the general public to Chauvet. It’s not good for us to lag behind the public either.
Researchers agree that the caves containing drawings in such quantities were clearly not intended for habitation and did not represent prehistoric art galleries, but were sanctuaries, places for rituals, in particular, the initiation of young men entering into adult life(this is evidenced, for example, by preserved children’s footprints).
In the four “halls” of Chauvet, along with connecting passages with a total length of about 500 meters, more than three hundred perfectly preserved drawings depicting various animals, including large-scale multi-figure compositions, were discovered.
Elette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire - participants in the discovery of the Chauvet Cave.
The paintings also answered the question: did tigers or lions live in prehistoric Europe? It turned out to be the second. Ancient drawings of cave lions always show them without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not as impressive. Often these images show the characteristic tuft on the tail of lions. The coloring of the fur, apparently, was one color.
In Paleolithic art for the most part drawings of animals from the “menu” of primitive people appear - bulls, horses, deer (although this is not entirely accurate: it is known, for example, that for the inhabitants of Lascaux the main “food” animal was the reindeer, while on the walls of the cave it is found in single copies). In general, one way or another, commercial ungulates predominate. Chauvet is unique in this sense because of the abundance of images of predators - cave lions and bears, as well as rhinoceroses. It makes sense to dwell on the latter in more detail. Such a number of rhinoceroses as in Chauvet has never been found in any other cave.
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It is noteworthy that the first “artists” to leave their mark on the walls of some Paleolithic caves, including Chauvet, were... bears: in some places the engravings and paintings were applied directly on top of the traces of powerful claws, the so-called griffads.
In the late Pleistocene, at least two species of bears could coexist: brown bears survived safely to this day, and their relatives, cave bears (large and small) died out, unable to adapt to the damp gloom of caves. The big cave bear wasn't just big - it was huge. Its weight reached 800-900 kg, the diameter of the skulls found is about half a meter. A person most likely could not emerge victorious from a fight with such an animal in the depths of a cave, but some zoological experts are inclined to assume that, despite its terrifying size, this animal was slow, non-aggressive and did not pose a real danger.
An image of a cave bear made with red ocher in one of the first halls.
The oldest Russian paleozoologist, Professor N.K. Vereshchagin believes that “among Stone Age hunters, cave bears were a kind of meat cattle that did not require care for grazing and feeding.” The appearance of a cave bear is conveyed in Chauvet more clearly than anywhere else. It seems that it played a special role in the life of primitive communities: the beast was depicted on rocks and pebbles, its figurines were sculpted from clay, its teeth were used as pendants, the skin probably served as a bed, and the skull was preserved for ritual purposes. Thus, in Chauvet a similar skull was discovered resting on a rocky base, which most likely indicates the existence of a bear cult.
The woolly rhinoceros became extinct a little earlier than the mammoth (according to different sources from 15-20 to 10 thousand liters. AD), and, at least, in the drawings of the Magdalenian period (15-10 thousand years BC) it almost never appears. In Chauvet, we generally see a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without any traces of fur. This may be the Merka rhinoceros, which lived in southern Europe, but is much rarer than its woolly relative. The length of its front horn could be up to 1.30 m. In short, it was a monster.
There are practically no images of people. Only chimera-like figures are found - for example, a man with the head of a bison. No traces of human habitation were found in the Chauvet Cave, but in some places the footprints of the cave's primitive visitors were preserved on the floor. According to researchers, the cave was a place for magical rituals.
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Previously, researchers believed that in the formation primitive painting Several stages can be distinguished. At first the drawings were very primitive. The skill came later, with experience. More than one thousand years had to pass for the drawings on the walls of the caves to reach their perfection.
Chauvet's discovery shattered this theory. French archaeologist Jean Clotte, having carefully examined Chauvet, stated that our ancestors probably learned to draw even before moving to Europe. And they arrived here about 35,000 years ago. The most ancient images from the Chauvet cave are very perfect works of painting, in which you can see perspective, chiaroscuro, and different angles etc.
Interestingly, the artists of the Chauvet Cave used methods that were not applicable anywhere else. Before applying the design, the walls were scraped and leveled. Ancient artists first scratched the outlines of the animal and used paint to give them the necessary volume. “The people who painted this were great artists,” confirms French rock art specialist Jean Clotte.
A detailed study of the cave will take several decades. However, it is already clear that its total length is more than 500 m at one level, the ceiling height is from 15 to 30 m. There are four consecutive “halls” and numerous side branches. In the first two rooms, the images are made in red ocher. The third contains engravings and black figures. There are many bones of ancient animals in the cave, and in one of the halls there are traces of the cultural layer. About 300 images were found. The painting is perfectly preserved.
(source - Flickr.com)
There is an assumption that such images with multiple contours layered on top of each other are a kind of primitive animation. When a torch was quickly moved along the drawing in a cave immersed in darkness, the rhinoceros “came to life”, and one can imagine the effect this had on the cave “spectators” - “The Arrival of a Train” by the Lumiere brothers is resting.
There are other considerations in this regard. For example, that in this way a group of animals is depicted in perspective. Nevertheless, the same Herzog in his film adheres to “our” version, and he can be trusted in matters of “moving pictures”.
Chauvet Cave is currently closed to public access because any noticeable change in air humidity could damage the wall paintings. Only a few archaeologists can gain access, for only a few hours and subject to restrictions. The cave has been cut off from the outside world since the Ice Age due to the fall of a rock in front of its entrance.
The drawings of the Chauvet cave amaze with their knowledge of the laws of perspective (overlapping drawings of mammoths) and the ability to put shadows - until now it was believed that this technique was discovered several thousand years later. And an eternity before Seurat had the idea, primitive artists discovered pointillism: the image of one animal, it seems, a bison, consists entirely of red dots.
But the most surprising thing is that, as already mentioned, artists give preference to rhinoceroses, lions, cave bears and mammoths. Typically, the models for rock art were the animals that were hunted. “From the entire bestiary of that era, artists choose the most predatory, most dangerous animals,” says archaeologist Margaret Conkey of the University of Berkeley in California. By depicting animals that were clearly not on the menu of Paleolithic cuisine, but symbolized danger, strength, and power, artists, according to Klott, “understood their essence.”
Archaeologists paid attention to exactly how the images were included in the wall space. In one of the rooms, a cave bear is depicted in red ocher without the lower part of its body, so that it appears, says Klott, “as if it were coming out of the wall.” In the same room, archaeologists also discovered images of two stone goats. The horns of one of them are natural crevices in the wall, which the artist widened.
Image of a horse in a niche (source - Donsmaps.com)
Rock art clearly played significant role in spiritual life prehistoric people. This can be confirmed by two large triangles (symbols feminine and fertility?) and an image of a creature with human legs, but with the head and body of a bison. Probably, Stone Age people hoped in this way to appropriate at least partially the power of animals. The cave bear, apparently, occupied special position. 55 bear skulls, one of which lies on a fallen boulder, as if on an altar, suggest the cult of this beast. Which also explains the choice of Chauvet Cave by the artists - dozens of potholes in the floor indicate that this was the hibernation site of giant bears.
Ancient people came again and again to look at the rock paintings. The 10-meter-long “horse panel” shows traces of soot left by torches that were mounted in the wall after it was covered with painting. These marks, according to Conkey, are on top of a layer of mineralized sediments covering the images. If painting is the first step on the path to spirituality, then the ability to appreciate it is undoubtedly the second.
At least 6 books and dozens have been published about Chauvet Cave scientific articles, not counting sensational materials in the general press, have been published and translated into major European languages four large albums of beautiful color illustrations with accompanying text. The documentary film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D” will be released in Russian theaters on December 15. The director of the film is German Werner Herzog.
Picture "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" appreciated at the 61st Berlin Film Festival. More than a million people went to see the film. This is the highest-grossing documentary film in 2011.
According to new data, the age of the coal used to paint the pictures on the wall of the Chauvet cave is 36,000 years old, and not 31,000, as previously thought.
Refined radiocarbon dating methods show that the settlement modern man (Homo sapiens) Central and Western Europe began 3 thousand years earlier than thought, and happened faster. The time of cohabitation between sapiens and Neanderthals in most parts of Europe was reduced from about 10 to 6 thousand years or less. The final disappearance of European Neanderthals may also have occurred several millennia earlier.
The famous British archaeologist Paul Mellars published a review latest achievements in the development of the radiocarbon dating method, which led to significant changes in our ideas about the chronology of events that occurred more than 25 thousand years ago.
The accuracy of radiocarbon dating has increased dramatically in recent years due to two factors. Firstly, methods have emerged for high-quality purification of organic substances, primarily collagen isolated from ancient bones, from all foreign impurities. When it comes to very ancient samples, even an insignificant admixture of foreign carbon can lead to serious distortions. For example, if a 40,000-year-old sample contained only 1% modern carbon, this would reduce the “radiocarbon age” by as much as 7,000 years. As it turned out, in most ancient archaeological finds such impurities are present, so their age was systematically underestimated.
The second source of errors, which was finally eliminated, is due to the fact that the content of the radioactive isotope 14C in the atmosphere (and, consequently, in organic matter formed in different eras) is not constant. The bones of people and animals that lived during periods of high levels of 14C in the atmosphere initially contained more of this isotope than expected, and therefore their age was again underestimated. In recent years, a number of extremely precise measurements have been made that have made it possible to reconstruct the fluctuations of 14C in the atmosphere over the past 50 millennia. For this, unique marine deposits were used in some areas of the World Ocean, where sediment accumulated very quickly, Greenland ice, cave stalagmites, coral reefs, etc. In all these cases, it was possible for each layer to compare radiocarbon dates with others obtained on the basis ratio of oxygen isotopes 18O/16O or uranium and thorium.
As a result, correction scales and tables were developed that dramatically increased the accuracy of radiocarbon dating of samples older than 25 thousand years. What did the updated dates tell us?
It was previously believed that modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared in southeastern Europe approximately 45,000 years ago. From here they gradually settled in a western and northwestern direction. The peopling of Central and Western Europe continued, according to “uncorrected” radiocarbon dates, for approximately 7 thousand years (43-36 thousand years ago); the average rate of advancement is 300 meters per year. Refined dating shows that settlement occurred faster and began earlier (46-41 thousand years ago; advancement speed up to 400 meters per year). At about the same speed, agricultural culture later spread in Europe (10-6 thousand years ago), also coming from the Middle East. It is curious that both waves of settlement followed two parallel paths: the first along the Mediterranean coast from Israel to Spain, the second along the Danube Valley, from the Balkans to Southern Germany and further to Western France.
In addition, it turned out that the period of cohabitation modern people and Neanderthals in most areas of Europe was significantly shorter than thought (not 10,000 years, but only about 6,000), and in some areas, for example in western France, even less - only 1-2 thousand years. According to updated dating , some of the brightest examples cave painting turned out to be much older than thought; the beginning of the Aurignac era, marked by the appearance of various complex products made of bone and horn, also moved into the depths of time (41,000 thousand years ago according to new ideas).
Paul Mellars believes that previously published datings of the latest Neanderthal sites (in Spain and Croatia; both sites, according to “unspecified” radiocarbon dating, are 31-28 thousand years old) also need to be revised. In reality, these finds are most likely several thousand years older.
All this shows that the indigenous Neanderthal population of Europe fell to the onslaught of Middle Eastern newcomers much faster than thought. The superiority of the sapiens - technological or social - was too great, and neither physical strength Neanderthals, neither their endurance nor their adaptability to the cold climate could save the doomed race.
Chauvet's painting is amazing in many ways. Take, for example, camera angles. It was common for cave artists to depict animals in profile. Of course, here too this is typical for most of the drawings, but there are breakthroughs, as in the above fragment, where the buffalo’s face is shown in three-quarters. In the following picture you can also see a rare image from the front:
Maybe this is an illusion, but a distinct feeling of composition is created - the lions are sniffing in anticipation of prey, but have not yet seen the bison, and it has clearly tensed and frozen, feverishly wondering where to run. True, judging by the dull look, he doesn’t think well.
Remarkable running bison:
(source - Donsmaps.com)
Moreover, the “face” of each horse is purely individual:
(source - istmira.com)
The following panel with horses is probably the most famous and widely circulated of Chauvet’s images:
(source - popular-archaeology.com)
In the recently released science fiction film “Prometheus,” the cave, which promises the discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization that once visited our planet, is copied completely from Chauvet, including this wonderful group, which includes people who are completely inappropriate here.
Still from the film “Prometheus” (dir. R. Scott, 2012)
You and I know that there are no people on the walls of Chauvet. What is not there is not. There are bulls.
(source - Donsmaps.com)
During the Pliocene and especially in the Pleistocene, ancient hunters exerted significant pressure on nature. The idea that the extinction of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, and cave lion is associated with warming and the end of the Ice Age was first questioned by the Ukrainian paleontologist I.G. Pidoplichko, who expressed what seemed at the time a seditious hypothesis that man was to blame for the extinction of the mammoth. Later discoveries confirmed the validity of these assumptions. The development of radiocarbon analysis methods showed that the last mammoths ( Elephas primigenius) lived at the very end of the Ice Age, and in some places lived until the beginning of the Holocene. At the Predmost site of Paleolithic man (Czechoslovakia), the remains of a thousand mammoths were found. There are known massive finds of mammoth bones (more than 2 thousand individuals) at the Volchya Griva site near Novosibirsk, dating back 12 thousand years. The last mammoths in Siberia lived only 8-9 thousand years ago. The destruction of the mammoth as a species is undoubtedly the result of the activities of ancient hunters.
An important character in Chauvet's paintings was the big-horned deer.
The art of Upper Paleolithic animalists serves, along with paleontological and archaeozoological finds, as an important source of information about what animals our ancestors hunted. Until recently, the Late Paleolithic drawings from the caves of Lascaux in France (17 thousand years old) and Altamira in Spain (15 thousand years old) were considered the oldest and most complete, but later the Chauvet caves were discovered, which gives us a new range of images of the mammal fauna of that time. Along with relatively rare drawings mammoth (including an image of a baby mammoth, strikingly reminiscent of one discovered in permafrost Magadan region baby mammoth Dima) or alpine ibex ( Capra ibex) there are many images of two-horned rhinoceroses, cave bears ( Ursus spelaeus), cave lions ( Panthera spelaea), Tarpanov ( Equus gmelini).
The images of rhinoceroses in Chauvet Cave raise many questions. This is undoubtedly not a woolly rhinoceros - the drawings depict a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without traces of hair, with a pronounced skin fold, characteristic of the living species of the one-horned Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinocerus indicus). Perhaps this is Merck's rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis), who lived in southern Europe until the end of the Late Pleistocene? However, if from a woolly rhinoceros, former target hunt in the Paleolithic and disappeared by the beginning of the Neolithic, quite numerous remains of skin with hair, horny growths on the skull have been preserved (in Lvov there is even the only stuffed animal of this species in the world), then from Merck’s rhinoceros only bone remains have reached us, and keratin “horns” "have not survived. Thus, the discovery in Chauvet Cave poses the question: what type of rhinoceros was known to its inhabitants? Why are the rhinoceroses from Chauvet Cave depicted in herds? It is very likely that Paleolithic hunters were also to blame for the disappearance of the Merck rhinoceros.
Paleolithic art does not know the concepts of good and evil. Both the peacefully grazing rhinoceros and the lions ambushed are parts of a single nature, from which the artist himself does not separate himself. Of course, you can’t get into the head of a Cro-Magnon man and you can’t talk “for life” when you meet, but I am close and, at least, understandable to the idea that art at the dawn of humanity is not in any way opposed to nature, man is in harmony with the world around him. Every thing, every stone or tree, not to mention animals, is viewed by him as carrying meaning, as if the whole world were a huge living museum. At the same time, there is no reflection yet, and questions of existence are not raised. This is such a pre-cultural, heavenly state. We, of course, will not be able to feel it fully (as well as return to heaven), but suddenly we will be able to at least touch it, communicating through tens of thousands of years with the authors of these amazing creations
We don’t see them vacationing alone. Always hunting, and always with almost a whole pride.
Admiration is generally understandable primitive man surrounding him with huge, strong and fast animals, be it a big-horned deer, a bison or a bear. It’s even somehow absurd to put yourself next to them. He didn't bet. There is something to learn from us, who fill our virtual “caves” with immeasurable quantities of our own or family photographs. Yes, something, but narcissism was not characteristic of the first people. But the same bear was depicted with the greatest care and trepidation:
The gallery ends with the strangest drawing in Chauvet, definitely of cult purpose. It is located in the farthest corner of the grotto and is made on a rocky ledge, which has (for good reason, presumably) a phallic shape
In literature, this character is usually referred to as a “sorcerer” or taurocephalus. In addition to the bull's head, we see another one, a lion's, female legs and a deliberately enlarged size, let’s say, the womb, which forms the center of the entire composition. Compared to their colleagues in the Paleolithic workshop, the craftsmen who painted this sanctuary look like pretty avant-garde artists. We know individual images of the so-called. “Venus”, male sorcerers in the form of animals and even scenes hinting at the intercourse of an ungulate with a woman, but in order to mix all of the above so thickly... It is assumed (see, for example, http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/ francech auvet.htm) that image female body was the earliest, and the heads of the lion and bull were painted later. It is interesting that there is no overlap of later drawings with previous ones. Obviously, maintaining the integrity of the composition was part of the artist’s plans.
, and also look again at AndHuman civilization has come a long way and achieved impressive results. Modern Art- one of them. But everything has its beginning. How did painting arise and who were they - the first artists of the world?
The beginning of prehistoric art - types and forms
In the Paleolithic, primitive art first appeared. It had different forms. These were rituals, music, dances and songs, as well as drawing images on different surface- rock paintings of primitive people. The creation of the first man-made structures - megaliths, dolmens and menhirs, the purpose of which is still unknown, dates back to this period. The most famous of them is Stonehenge in Salisbury, consisting of cromlechs (vertical stones).
Household items, such as jewelry, children's toys, also belong to the art of primitive people.
Periodization
Scientists have no doubt about the time of origin primitive art. It began to form in the middle of the Paleolithic era, during the period of the late Neanderthals. The culture of that time is called Mousterian.
Neanderthals knew how to process stone, creating tools. On some objects, scientists found indentations and notches in the form of crosses, forming a primitive ornament. In that era they could not yet paint, but ocher was already in use. Pieces of it were found ground down, like a pencil that had been used.
Primitive rock art - definition
This is one of the types. It is an image painted on the surface of a cave wall by an ancient man. Most of such objects were found in Europe, but drawings of ancient people are also found in Asia. The main area of distribution of rock art is the territory modern Spain and France.
Doubts of scientists
For a long time modern science it was not known that the art of primitive man had reached such high level. Drawings were not found in caves until the 19th century. Therefore, when they were first discovered, they were mistaken for fraud.
The story of one discovery
The ancient cave painting was discovered by an amateur archaeologist, Spanish lawyer Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola.
This discovery is associated with dramatic events. In the Spanish province of Cantabria in 1868, a hunter discovered a cave. The entrance to it was littered with fragments of crumbled rock. In 1875 she was examined by de Sautuola. That time he found only tools. The find was the most ordinary. Four years later, the amateur archaeologist again visited the Altamira cave. He was accompanied on the trip by his 9-year-old daughter, who discovered the drawings. Together with his friend, archaeologist Juan Vilanova y Piera, de Sautuola began excavating the cave. Not long before, at an exhibition of Stone Age objects, he saw images of bison, surprisingly reminiscent of the cave painting of an ancient man that his daughter Maria saw. Sautuola suggested that the animal images found in the Altamira cave belong to the Paleolithic. Vilanov-i-Pierre supported him in this.
Scientists have published the shocking results of their excavations. And they were immediately accused scientific world in falsification. Leading experts in the field of archeology categorically rejected the possibility of finding paintings from Paleolithic times. Marcelino de Sautuola was accused that the drawings of ancient people, allegedly found by him, were drawn by a friend of the archaeologist, who was visiting him in those days.
Only 15 years later, after the death of the man who had revealed to the world beautiful examples of painting by ancient people, his opponents admitted that Marcelino de Sautuola was right. By that time, similar drawings in the caves of ancient people had been found in Fonts-de-Gaume, Trois-Freres, Combarel and Rouffignac in France, Tuc d'Auduber in the Pyrenees and other regions. All of them were attributed to the Paleolithic era. Thus, the honest name of the Spanish scientist, who made one of the notable discoveries in archeology, was restored.
The skill of ancient artists
The rock art, photos of which are presented below, consists of many images of different animals. Among them, bison figurines predominate. Those who first saw the drawings of ancient people found in are amazed at how professionally they were made. This magnificent skill of ancient artists made scientists at one time doubt their authenticity.
Ancient people did not immediately learn to create accurate images of animals. Drawings have been found in which the outlines are barely outlined, so it is almost impossible to find out who the artist wanted to depict. Gradually, the drawing skill became better and better, and it was already possible to quite accurately convey the appearance of the animal.
The first drawings of ancient people can also include handprints found in many caves.
A hand smeared with paint was applied to the wall, the resulting print was outlined in a different color and enclosed in a circle. According to researchers, this action had important ritual significance for ancient man.
Themes of painting by the first artists
The rock painting of an ancient man reflected the reality that surrounded him. It reflected what worried him most. In the Paleolithic, the main occupation and method of obtaining food was hunting. Therefore, animals are the main motif of the drawings of that period. As already mentioned, numerous images of bison, deer, horses, goats, and bears were discovered in Europe. They are conveyed not statically, but in motion. Animals run, jump, frolic and die, pierced by a hunter's spear.
Located in France, there is the largest ancient image of a bull. Its size is more than five meters. In other countries, ancient artists also painted those animals that lived next to them. In Somalia, images of giraffes were found, in India - tigers and crocodiles, in the caves of the Sahara there are drawings of ostriches and elephants. In addition to animals, the first artists painted scenes of hunting and people, but extremely rarely.
Purpose of rock paintings
For what ancient man depicted animals and people on the walls of caves and other objects, the exact details are unknown. Since by that time a religion had already begun to take shape, they most likely had deep ritual significance. The “Hunting” drawing of ancient people, according to some researchers, symbolized the successful outcome of the fight against the beast. Others believe that they were created by tribal shamans who went into a trance and tried to gain special power through the image. Ancient artists lived a very long time ago, and therefore the motives for creating their drawings are unknown to modern scientists.
Paints and tools
To create drawings, primitive artists used a special technique. First, they scratched an image of an animal on the surface of a rock or stone with a chisel, and then applied paint to it. It was made from natural materials- ocher different colors and black pigment, which was extracted from charcoal. Animal organic matter (blood, fat, brain matter) and water were used to fix the paint. Ancient artists had few colors at their disposal: yellow, red, black, brown.
The drawings of ancient people had several features. Sometimes they overlapped each other. Artists often depicted a large number of animals. In this case, the figures in the foreground were depicted carefully, and the rest - schematically. Primitive people did not create compositions; the vast majority of their drawings were a chaotic jumble of images. To date, only a few “paintings” have been found that have a single composition.
During the Paleolithic period, the first painting tools were already created. These were sticks and primitive brushes made from animal fur. Ancient artists also took care of lighting their “canvases.” Lamps were discovered that were made in the form of stone bowls. Fat was poured into them and a wick was placed.
Chauvet Cave
She was found in 1994 in France, and her collection of paintings is recognized as the oldest. Laboratory studies helped determine the age of the drawings - the very first of them were made 36 thousand years ago. Images of animals that lived during the Ice Age were found here. These are the woolly rhinoceros, bison, panther, tarpan (ancestor of the modern horse). The drawings are perfectly preserved due to the fact that thousands of years ago the entrance to the cave was blocked.
It is now closed to the public. The microclimate in which the images are located may disturb human presence. Only its researchers can spend several hours in it. It was decided to open a replica of the cave nearby for visiting spectators.
Lascaux Cave
This is another one famous place, where drawings of ancient people were found. The cave was discovered by four teenagers in 1940. Now her collection of paintings by ancient Paleolithic artists includes 1,900 images.
The place has become very popular with visitors. The huge influx of tourists led to damage to the drawings. This happened due to an excess of carbon dioxide exhaled by people. In 1963, it was decided to close the cave to visitors. But problems with the preservation of ancient images still exist today. The microclimate of Lascaux has been irreversibly disrupted, and the drawings are now under constant control.
Conclusion
The drawings of ancient people delight us with their realism and skillful execution. Artists of that time were able to convey not only the authentic appearance of the animal, but also its movement and habits. In addition to aesthetic and artistic value, the paintings of primitive artists are important material for studying the animal world of that period. Thanks to the drawings found in the Chauvet Grotto, scientists made an astonishing discovery: it turned out that lions and rhinoceroses, the original inhabitants of hot southern countries, lived in Europe during the Stone Age.
Traditionally, rock paintings are called petroglyphs, this is the name given to all images on stone from ancient times (Paleolithic) up to the Middle Ages, both primitive cave rock carvings and later ones, for example, on specially installed stones, megaliths or “wild” rocks.
Such monuments are not concentrated somewhere in one place, but are widely scattered across the face of our planet. They were found in Kazakhstan (Tamgaly), in Karelia, in Spain (Altamira cave), in France (Fond-de-Gaume, Montespan caves, etc.), in Siberia, on the Don (Kostenki), in Italy, England, Germany, in Algeria, where gigantic multicolor paintings of the Tassilin-Ajjer mountain plateau in the Sahara, among the desert sands, were recently discovered and created a sensation throughout the world.
Despite the fact that cave paintings have been studied for about 200 years, they still remain a mystery.
Rock paintings of the Hopi Indians in Arizona, USA, depicting certain kachina creatures. The Indians considered them their heavenly teachers.
According to the generally accepted theory of evolution, primitive man remained a primitive hunter-gatherer for many tens of thousands of years. And then he suddenly had a real insight, and he began to draw and carve on the walls of his caves, rocks and mountain crevices mysterious symbols and images.
Famous Onega petroglyphs.
Oswald O. Tobisch, a man of generous and varied talents, spent 30 years studying more than 6,000 cave paintings, trying to reconstruct some logical system that unites them. When you get acquainted with the conclusions of his research and numerous comparative tables, literally takes your breath away. Tobish traces the similarities of a variety of rock paintings, so that it seems as if in ancient times there was a single proto-culture and universal knowledge associated with it.
Spain. Rock art. 11th century BC
Of course, millions and millions of cave paintings did not appear at the same time; very often (but not always) they are separated by many millennia. In other cases, drawings were created on the same rocks over several millennia.
Africa. Rock painting. VIII - IV centuries BC
And yet, it is a striking fact that many rock paintings in the most different parts the lights appeared almost simultaneously. Everywhere, be it Toro Muerto (Peru), where tens of thousands of rock paintings were found, Val Carmonica (Italy), the vicinity of the Karakoram Highway (Pakistan), the Colorado Plateau (USA), the Paraibo region (Brazil) or southern Japan, almost identical symbols and figures. Of course, I cannot help but note that each individual place has its own, strictly localized types of images that cannot be found anywhere else, but this in no way clears up the mystery of the striking similarity of the remaining drawings.
Australia. XII - IV century BC
If you consider all these images with all their attributes and symbols, you get the amazing impression that the sound of the same trumpet suddenly rang out across all continents: “Remember: the gods are those who are surrounded by rays!” These “gods” are in most cases depicted as much larger than other little men. Their heads are almost always surrounded or crowned with a halo or halo, as if shining rays are emanating from them. Besides, ordinary people always depicted at a respectful distance from the “gods”; they kneel before them, prostrate themselves on the ground, or raise their hands to them.
Italy. Rock painting. XIII - VIII centuries BC
Oswald Tobisch, a specialist in rock paintings who has traveled all over the world, with his tireless efforts has come even closer to solving this ancient mystery: “Perhaps this striking similarity in the images of deities is explained by “internationalism”, incredible by our standards today, and the humanity of that era, quite perhaps still remained in the powerful force field of the “primordial revelation” of the one and all-powerful Creator?
Dogu's space suit. The world's oldest depiction of a spacesuit.
Death Valley, USA.
Peru. Rock painting. XII - IV century BC
Rock paintings of the Hopi Indians in Arizona, USA
Australia
Rock paintings near Lake Onega. Incomprehensible images that some philosophers interpret as flying machines.
Australia
Petroglyphs from the vicinity of the village of Karakol, Ongudai district
Hunting scenes, where anthropomorphic creatures (people or spirits?) with bows, spears and sticks hunt animals, and dogs (or wolves?) help them, appear 5-6 thousand years ago - that’s when this petroglyph was created.
on a rock in Japan 7 thousand years ago
Algerian Sahara, Tassili massif (tinted rock paintings). The era of round heads. Reach 8 meters. Stone Age drawings
Similar examples of the creativity of ancient peoples can be found all over the world. In Altai there are rock portraits of humanoid creatures in spacesuits, created 4 - 5 thousand years ago. In Central America - starting " spaceships" They are depicted on some Mayan tombs dating back about 1,300 years. In Japan, bronze figurines from the 4th century BC are found dressed in helmets and overalls. In the mountains of Tibet are “flying saucers” drawn 3000 years ago. Entire galleries of monsters with antennas on their heads, tentacles instead of arms and mysterious weapons are “exhibited” for us, our descendants, to see in caves, on plateaus and in the mountains in Peru, the Sahara, Zimbabwe, Australia, France, Italy.
Huge figures and small people next to them.
The history textbook says that primitive man wanted to somehow express himself and realize his primitive creativity with what was at hand. This is how rock paintings appeared on rocks in deep caves.
But just how primitive were our ancestors? And was everything really as simple a few thousand years ago as we imagine? The drawings from primitive art collected in this article may make you think about something.