Six masterpieces of rock art. Prehistoric cave paintings Report on cave paintings of primitive people

All over the world, speleologists in deep caves find confirmation of the existence of ancient people. The rock paintings have been excellently preserved for many millennia. There are several types of masterpieces - pictograms, petroglyphs, geoglyphs. Important monuments of human history are regularly entered in the World Heritage Register.

Usually on the walls of caves there are common subjects, such as hunting, fighting, images of the sun, animals, and human hands. People in ancient times attached sacred significance to paintings, they believed that they were helping themselves in the future.

Images were applied using various methods and materials. For artistic creation, animal blood, ocher, chalk and even bat guano were used. A special type of murals is hewn murals, they were knocked out in stone using a special chisel.

Many caves are insufficiently explored and limited in visiting, while others, on the contrary, are open to tourists. However, most of the precious cultural heritage disappears unattended, not finding its researchers.

Below is a short excursion into the world of the most interesting caves with prehistoric rock paintings.

Ancient rock paintings.

Bulgaria is famous not only for the hospitality of the inhabitants and the indescribable flavor of the resorts, but also for the caves. One of them, with the sonorous name Magura, is located north of Sofia, near the town of Belogradchik. The total length of the cave galleries is more than two kilometers. The halls of the cave are colossal in size, each of them is about 50 meters wide and 20 meters high. The pearl of the cave is a rock painting made right on the surface covered with guano of bats. The murals are multi-layered; here are a number of paintings from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze ages. The drawings of the ancient homo sapiens depict figures of dancing villagers, hunters, many outlandish animals, constellations. The sun, plants, tools are also presented. Here begins the story of the festivities of the ancient era and the solar calendar, scientists assure.

The cave with the poetic name Cueva de las Manos (from Spanish - "Cave of many hands") is located in the province of Santa Cruz, exactly one hundred miles from the nearest settlement - the city of Perito Moreno. The art of rock painting in the hall 24 meters long and 10 meters high dates back to 13-9 millennia BC. An amazing picture on the limestone is a voluminous canvas decorated with handprints. Scientists have built a theory about how they got amazingly crisp and clear handprints. Prehistoric people took a special composition, then they put it in their mouths, and through a tube they blew it with force onto a hand applied to the wall. In addition, there are stylized images of humans, rhea, guanacos, cats, geometric figures with ornaments, the process of hunting and observing the sun.

Enchanting India offers tourists not only the delights of oriental palaces and enchanting dances. In north-central India, there are huge weathered sandstone rock formations with many caves. Ancient people once lived in natural shelters. About 500 dwellings with traces of human habitation have survived in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The Indians named the rocky dwellings by the name of Bhimbetka (on behalf of the hero of the epic "Mahabharata"). The art of the ancients dates back here to the Mesolithic era. Some of the paintings are minor and some of the hundreds of images are very typical and vibrant. 15 rock masterpieces are available for the contemplation of those who wish. Mostly patterned ornaments and battle scenes are depicted here.

In the Serra da Capivara National Park, both rare animals and venerable scientists find shelter. And 50 thousand years ago, here, in the caves, our distant ancestors found shelter. Presumably, this is the oldest community of hominids in South America. The park is located near the town of San Raimondo Nonato, in the central part of the state of Piauí. Experts have counted more than 300 archaeological sites here. The main surviving images date back to the 25-22 millennium BC. The most amazing thing is that extinct bears and other paleofauna are painted on the rocks.

The Republic of Somaliland recently separated from Somalia in Africa. Archaeologists in this area are interested in the Laas-Gaal cave complex. Here are the rock paintings from the times of 8-9 and 3 millennium BC. Scenes of the life and life of the nomadic people of Africa are depicted on the granite walls of the majestic natural shelters: the process of grazing, ceremonies, playing with dogs. The local population does not attach importance to the drawings of their ancestors, and uses the caves, as in the old days, for shelter in the rain. Many of the sketches have not been studied properly. In particular, there are problems with the chronological linking of the masterpieces of the Arab-Ethiopian ancient rock paintings.

Not far from Somalia, in Libya, there are also rock paintings. They are much earlier, and date back to almost the 12th millennium BC. The last of them were applied after the birth of Christ, in the first century. It is interesting to observe, following the drawings, how the fauna and flora changed in this region of the Sahara. First, we see elephants, rhinos and fauna typical of a rather humid climate. Also of interest is the clearly traced change in the lifestyle of the population - from hunting to sedentary cattle breeding, then to nomadism. To get to Tadrart-Akakus, one has to cross the desert east of the city of Ghat.

In 1994, on a walk, by chance, Jean-Marie Chauvet discovered the cave that later became famous. She was named after the speleologist. In the Chauvet cave, in addition to traces of the vital activity of ancient people, hundreds of remarkable frescoes were discovered. The most amazing and beautiful of them depict mammoths. In 1995, the cave became a state monument, and in 1997 a 24-hour surveillance was introduced here to avoid spoiling the magnificent heritage. Today, in order to glimpse the incomparable rock art of the Cro-Magnons, you need to get a special permit. In addition to mammoths, there is something to admire, here on the walls there are both handprints and fingerprints of representatives of the Aurignacian culture (34-32 thousand years BC)

In fact, the name of the Australian National Park has nothing to do with the famous Cockatoo parrots. It was just that the Europeans mispronounced the name of the Gaagudju tribe. This nationality is now extinct, and there is no one to correct the ignorant. The park is inhabited by aborigines who have not changed their way of life since the Stone Age. For thousands of years, indigenous Australians have been engaging in rock paintings. Pictures were painted here 40 thousand years ago. In addition to religious scenes and hunting, stylized drawing stories about useful skills (educational) and magic (entertaining) are sketched here. Of the animals, the extinct marsupial tigers, catfish, barramundi are depicted. All the wonders of the Arnhem Land plateau, Colpignac and the southern hills are located 171 km from the city of Darwin.

It turns out that the first Homo Sapiens reached Spain in the 35th millennium BC, it was the early Paleolithic. They left the outlandish rock paintings in the Altamira cave. Artistic artifacts on the walls of the huge cave date back to the 18th and 13th millennia. In the last period, interesting are polychrome figures, a peculiar combination of engraving and painting, the acquisition of realistic details. Famous bison, deer and horses, or rather, their beautiful images on the walls of Altamir often end up in textbooks for middle school students. The Altamira Cave is located in the Cantabria region.

Lascaux is not just a cave, but a whole complex of small and large cave halls located in the south of France. Not far from the caves is the legendary village of Montignac. The paintings on the walls of the cave were painted 17 thousand years ago. And until now they amaze with amazing forms, akin to modern graffiti art. Scientists especially appreciate the Hall of the Bulls and the Palace Hall of the Cats. It's easy to guess what the prehistoric creators left there. In 1998, the rock masterpieces were nearly destroyed by mold caused by an improperly installed air conditioning system. And in 2008, Lasko was closed to preserve more than 2,000 unique drawings.

PhotoTravelGuide

Cave or rock paintings are drawings that are found on the walls and ceilings of caves, on the surfaces of rocks. The prehistoric images date from the Paleolithic era, about 40,000 years ago. Some scientists believe that cave paintings of primitive people are a way of communicating with the outside world. According to another theory, the drawings were applied for a ceremonial or religious purpose.

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Discovery history

In southwestern France and northern Spain, archaeologists have discovered more than 340 caves containing images of prehistoric times. Initially, the age of the paintings was a controversial issue, as the radiocarbon dating method could be inaccurate due to the dirty surfaces that were being examined. But the further development of technology made it possible to establish the exact period for applying images to walls.

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The chronology can also be established by the subject of the pictures. So, the reindeer depicted in the Cueva de Las cave, which is located in Spain, dates back to the end of the Ice Age. The earliest drawings in Europe are found in the Chauvet Cave in France. They appeared 30,000 BC. The surprise for the scientists was that the images were changed several times over thousands of years, which caused confusion in the granting of the drawings.

Painting in three steps

There are monochrome and polychrome cave paintings. Polychrome cave painting was created in three stages and was completely dependent on the artist's experience and cultural maturity, lighting, surface appearance and available raw materials. At the first stage, the contours of the depicted animal were outlined using charcoal, manganese or hematite. The second stage involved completing the drawing and applying red ocher or other pigment to the image. At the third stage, contours were drawn in black to visually enlarge the image.

Plots and themes

The most common subject in the cave painting of primitive people is the image of large wild animals. At the beginning of the Stone Age, artists painted:

• lions;
• rhinos;
• saber-toothed tigers;
• bears.

Images of animals that people hunted appear in the late Paleolithic period. The image of a person is a very rare occurrence and the pictures are less realistic than the drawn figurines of animals. In primitive art, there are no images of landscapes and landscapes.

The work of ancient artists

The prehistoric inhabitants of the planet found that paint made from animals and plants is not as stable as that extracted from the earth. Over time, people have determined the property of iron oxides found in the ground, not to lose their original appearance. Therefore, they looked for deposits of hematite and could walk tens of kilometers a day to bring the dye home. Modern scientists have discovered trails leading to the deposits, along which the ancient masters plied.

Using seashells as a reservoir for paint, working by candlelight or weak daylight, prehistoric painters applied a variety of painting techniques and methods in their work. At first, they drew with their fingers, and then switched to crayons, moss pads, animal hair brushes, and plant fibers. They used a more advanced method of spraying paint using reeds or bones with special holes.

The birds made holes in the bones and filled them with red ocher. By studying the cave paintings of ancient people, scientists have determined that such devices were used 16,000 years BC. In the Stone Age, artists also used the techniques of chiaroscuro and foreshortening. In each era, new methods of painting appear and the caves are replenished with drawings executed in new styles over the centuries. The ingenious works of prehistoric artists have inspired many contemporary artists to create beautiful pieces.

Primitive (or, in other words, primitive) art territorially covers all continents, except Antarctica, and in time - the entire epoch of human existence, having survived among some peoples living in remote corners of the planet to the present day.

Most of the oldest paintings are found in Europe (from Spain to the Urals).

It was well preserved on the walls of the caves - the entrances were completely heaped up thousands of years ago, the same temperature and humidity were maintained there.

Not only wall paintings have survived, but also other evidence of human activity - clear traces of the bare feet of adults and children on the damp floor of some caves.

The reasons for the origin of creative activity and the functions of primitive art Human need for beauty and creativity.

Beliefs of the time. The man portrayed those whom he venerated. People of that time believed in magic: they believed that with the help of paintings and other images, one could influence nature or the outcome of the hunt. It was believed, for example, that you need to hit a drawn animal with an arrow or a spear in order to ensure the success of a real hunt.

Periodization

Now science is changing its mind about the age of the earth and the time frame is changing, but we will study by the generally accepted names of the periods.
1. Stone Age
1.1 Ancient Stone Age - Paleolithic. ... up to 10 thousand BC
1.2 Middle Stone Age - Mesolithic. 10 - 6 thousand BC
1.3 New Stone Age - Neolithic. From 6 to 2 thousand BC
2. The Bronze Age. 2 thousand BC
3. The era of iron. 1 millennium BC

Paleolithic

The tools were made of stone; hence the name of the era - the Stone Age.
1. Ancient or Lower Paleolithic. up to 150 thousand BC
2. Middle Paleolithic. 150 - 35 thousand BC
3. Upper or late Paleolithic. 35 - 10 thousand BC
3.1 Aurignac-Solutrean period. 35 - 20 thousand BC
3.2. Madeleine period. 20 - 10 thousand BC The period received this name from the name of the La Madeleine cave, where murals related to this time were found.

The earliest works of primitive art date back to the late Paleolithic. 35 - 10 thousand BC
Scientists are inclined to believe that naturalistic art and the depiction of schematic signs and geometric figures arose at the same time.
Pasta drawings. Imprints of a human hand and a messy interweaving of wavy lines pressed in wet clay by the fingers of the same hand.

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

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

Paleolithic painting

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


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

Fragment. Buffalo. Altamira cave. Spain. Late Paleolithic. The caves were lit with lamps and reproduced from memory. Not primitivism, but the highest degree of stylization. When the cave was opened, it was believed that this was an imitation of hunting - the magical meaning of the image. But today there are versions that the goal was art. The beast was necessary for man, but he was terrible and elusive.

Fragment. Bull. Altamira. Spain. Late Paleolithic.
Beautifully brown shades. The tense stop of the beast. They used the natural relief of the stone, depicted on the bulge of the wall.

Fragment. Bison. Altamira. Spain. Late Paleolithic.
Transition to polychrome art, darker outline.

Font de Gaume cave. France

Late Paleolithic.
Characterized by silhouette images, deliberate distortion, exaggeration of proportions. On the walls and vaults of the small halls of the Font de Gaume cave, there are at least about 80 drawings, mostly bison, two indisputable figures of mammoths and even a wolf.

Deer grazing. Font de Gaume. France. Late Paleolithic.
Perspective view of the horns. Deer at this time (the end of the Madeleine era) drove out other animals.

Fragment. Buffalo. Font de Gaume. France. Late Paleolithic.
The hump and crest on the head are emphasized. Overlapping one image with another is a polypsest. Detailed study. A decorative solution for the tail. The image of the houses.

Wolf. Font de Gaume. France. Late Paleolithic.

Nio's cave. France

Late Paleolithic.
Round hall with drawings. There are no images of mammoths and other animals of the glacial fauna in the cave.

Horse. Nio. France. Late Paleolithic.
Depicted already with 4 legs. The silhouette is outlined in black, the inside is retouched in yellow. Pony type horse character.

Stone ram. Nio. France. Late Paleolithic. Partially contour image, with a skin drawn from above.

Deer. Nio. France. Late Paleolithic.

Buffalo. Nio. Nio. France. Late Paleolithic.
Most of the images are bison. Some of them are shown wounded, arrows in black and red.

Buffalo. Nio. France. Late Paleolithic.

Lasko cave

It so happened that it was children, and quite by accident, who found the most interesting cave paintings in Europe:
“In September 1940, near the town of Montignac, in the South-West of France, four high school students set off on an archaeological expedition they had conceived. In place of a tree that had long been uprooted, a hole gaped in the ground that aroused their curiosity. It was rumored that this was the entrance to a dungeon leading to a nearby medieval castle.
Inside was even a smaller hole. One of the guys threw a stone at it and, from the sound of the fall, concluded that the depth was decent. He widened the hole, crawled inside, nearly fell, lit a flashlight, gasped, and called out to others. From the walls of the cave in which they found themselves, some huge animals were looking at them, breathing with such confident power, at times it seemed ready to go into a rage that they felt creepy. And at the same time, the power of these animal images was so majestic and convincing that it seemed to them that they were in some kind of magic kingdom. "

Lasko cave. France.
Late Paleolithic (Madeleine era, 18-15 thousand years BC).
They call it the primitive Sistine Chapel. Consists of several large rooms: rotunda; main gallery; passage; apse.
Colorful images on the limestone white surface of the cave.
The proportions are greatly exaggerated: large necks and abdomens.
Contour and silhouette drawings. Crisp images without layers. A large number of male and female signs (rectangle and many dots).

Hunting scene. Lasko. France. Late Paleolithic.
Genre image. A bull killed by a spear butted a man with a bird's head. Nearby on a stick is a bird - maybe his soul.

Buffalo. Lasko. France. Late Paleolithic.

Horse. Lasko. France. Late Paleolithic.

Mammoths and horses. Kapova cave. Ural.
Late Paleolithic.

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

Paleolithic sculpture

Small-scale art or mobile art (small plastic)
An integral part of the art of the Paleolithic era are objects that are commonly called "small plastic".
These are three types of objects:
1. Figurines and other volumetric items carved from soft stone or from other materials (horn, mammoth tusk).
2. Flattened objects with engravings and paintings.
3. Reliefs in caves, grottoes and under natural awnings.
The relief was knocked out with a deep outline or the background around the image was cut off.

Relief

One of the first finds, called small plastic, was a bone plate from the Schaffaut grotto with images of two fallow deer or deer:
Deer swimming across the river. Fragment. Bone carving. France. Late Paleolithic (Madeleine period).

Everyone knows the wonderful French writer Prosper Mérimée, the author of the fascinating novel Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX, Carmen and other romantic novellas, but few people know that he served as an inspector for the protection of historical monuments. It was he who donated this disc in 1833 to the Cluny Historical Museum, which was just being organized in the center of Paris. Now it is kept in the Museum of National Antiquities (Saint-Germain en Laye).
Later, a cultural layer of the Upper Paleolithic era was discovered in the Shaffaut grotto. But then, just as it was with the painting of the Altamira cave, and with other pictorial monuments of the Paleolithic era, no one could believe that this art is older than the ancient Egyptian. Therefore, such engravings were considered examples of Celtic art (V-IV centuries BC). Only at the end of the 19th century, again, like cave painting, they were recognized as the oldest after they were found in the Paleolithic cultural layer.

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

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

Sculpture- mobile art.
Almost everyone who has studied Paleolithic female figurines, with various differences in details, explains them as cult objects, amulets, idols, etc., reflecting the idea of ​​motherhood and fertility.

"Willendorf Venus". Limestone. Willendorf, Lower Austria. Late Paleolithic.
Compact composition, no facial features.

"The Lady in the Hood from Brassempui." France. Late Paleolithic. Mammoth bone.
Facial features and hairstyle have been worked out.

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

conclusions
Rock painting. Peculiarities of Paleolithic painting art are realism, expression, plasticity, rhythm.
Small plastic.
The depiction of animals has the same features as in painting (realism, expression, plasticity, rhythm).
Paleolithic female figurines are cult objects, amulets, idols, etc., they reflect the idea of ​​motherhood and fertility.

Mesolithic

(Middle Stone Age) 10 - 6 thousand BC

After the melting of the glaciers, the usual fauna disappeared. Nature is becoming more malleable to humans. People are becoming nomads.
With a change in lifestyle, a person's view of the world becomes broader. He is not interested in a single animal or an accidental finding of cereals, but in the vigorous activity of people, thanks to which they find whole herds of animals, and fields or forests rich in fruits.
This is how the art of multi-figured composition was born in the Mesolithic, in which it was no longer an animal, but a person who plays a dominant role.
A change in the arts:
the main characters of the image are not a separate beast, but people in some kind of action.
The task is not in a believable, accurate depiction of individual figures, but in the transfer of action, movement.
Multi-figure hunts are often depicted, scenes of collecting honey, cult dances appear.
The character of the image changes - instead of being realistic and polychrome, it becomes schematic and silhouette. Local colors are used - red or black.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grotto Zaraut-Kamar
In the mountains of Uzbekistan, at an altitude of about 2000 m above sea level, there is a monument widely known not only among archaeological specialists - the Zaraut-Kamar grotto. Painted images were discovered in 1939 by a local hunter I.F.Lamaev.
The painting in the grotto is made with ocher of different shades (from red-brown to lilac) and consists of four groups of images, in which anthropomorphic figures and bulls participate.

Here is the group that most researchers see bull hunting. Among the anthropomorphic figures that surrounded the bull, i.e. There are two types of "hunters": figures in clothes expanding from top to bottom, without bows, and "tailed" figures with raised and drawn bows. This scene can be interpreted as a real hunt for disguised hunters, and as a kind of myth.

The painting in the Shakhty grotto is probably the oldest in Central Asia.
"What does the word Shakhty mean, - writes VA Ranov, - I do not know. Perhaps it comes from the Pamir word" shakhty ", which means rock."

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

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

Neolithic

(New Stone Age) from 6th to 2nd millennium BC

Neolithic- New Stone Age, the last stage of the Stone Age.
Periodization... The entry into the Neolithic is timed to the transition of culture from appropriating (hunters and gatherers) to producing (agriculture and / or cattle breeding) type of economy. This transition is called the Neolithic Revolution. The end of the Neolithic period dates back to the time of the appearance of metal tools and weapons, that is, the beginning of the Copper, Bronze or Iron Age.
Different cultures entered this period of development at different times. In the Middle East, the Neolithic began about 9.5 thousand years ago. BC NS. In Denmark, the Neolithic dates back to the 18th century. BC, and among the indigenous population of New Zealand - the Maori - the Neolithic existed as early as the 18th century. AD: Before the arrival of Europeans, the Maori used polished stone axes. Some peoples of America and Oceania have not yet fully passed from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

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

Achievements and activities
1. New features of people's social life:
- The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.
- At the end of the era, in some places (Western Asia, Egypt, India), a new formation of class society took shape, that is, social stratification began, the transition from the clan-communal system to a class society.
- At this time, cities begin to be built. Jericho is considered one of the most ancient cities.
- Some cities were well fortified, which indicates the existence of organized wars at that time.
- Armies and professional soldiers began to appear.
- It is quite possible to say that the beginning of the formation of ancient civilizations is connected with the Neolithic era.

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

Images of animals begin to appear in the design of household utensils.

Ax in the form of a moose head. Polished stone. Neolithic. Historical Museum. Stockholm.

Wooden bucket from the Gorbunovsky peat bog near Nizhny Tagil. Neolithic. State Historical Museum.

For the Neolithic forest zone, fishing is becoming one of the leading types of economy. Active fishing contributed to the creation of certain reserves, which, combined with hunting for animals, made it possible to live in one place all year round.
The transition to a sedentary lifestyle led to the emergence of ceramics.
The emergence of pottery is one of the main features of the Neolithic era.

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

Cup from Ledce (Czech Republic). Clay. Bell goblet culture. Eneolithic (Copper-Stone Age).

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

"Hunters". Rock painting. Neolithic (?). Southern Rhodesia.

For about three hundred years, the attention of scientists was drawn to the rock known as the "Tomsk Pisanitsa".
"Scribes" are images painted with mineral paint or carved on a smooth surface of a wall in Siberia.
Back in 1675, one of the brave Russian travelers, whose name, unfortunately, remained unknown, wrote:
"Not reached the prison (Verkhnetomsky prison) on the edge of Tom lies a large and tall stone, and on it are written animals, and cattle, and birds, and all sorts of similarities ..."
Real scientific interest in this monument arose already in the 18th century, when, by decree of Peter I, an expedition was sent to Siberia to study its history and geography. The expedition resulted in the first images of the Tomsk scribble published in Europe by the Swedish captain Stralenberg, who participated in the trip. These images were not an exact copy of the Tomsk scribble, but conveyed only the most general outlines of the rocks and the placement of drawings on it, but their value lies in the fact that you can see drawings on them that have not survived to this day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The schematism inherent in Neolithic painting, which replaced Paleolithic realism, penetrated into small plasticity.

Sketchy image of a woman. Cave relief. Neolithic. Croisard. Department of the Marne. France.

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

conclusions

Rock painting of the Mesolithic and Neolithic
It is not always possible to draw an exact line between them.
But this art is very different from the typical Paleolithic:
- Realism, which accurately captures the image of the beast as a target, as a cherished goal, is replaced by a broader view of the world, the image of multi-figure compositions.
- There is a striving for harmonious generalization, stylization and, most importantly, for the transmission of movement, for dynamism.
- In the Paleolithic there was a monumentality and inviolability of the image. Here - liveliness, free fantasy.
- A striving for grace appears in the images of a person (for example, if we compare the Paleolithic "Venuses" and the Mesolithic image of a woman collecting honey, or the Neolithic Bushman dancers).

Small plastic:
- New plots appear.
- Greater craftsmanship and mastery of craft, material.

Achievements

Paleolithic
- Lower Paleolithic
>> taming fire, stone tools
- Middle Paleolithic
>> exit from Africa
- Upper Paleolithic
>> sling

Mesolithic
- microliths, onions, canoes

Neolithic
- Early Neolithic
>> agriculture, cattle breeding
- Late Neolithic
>> ceramics

Eneolithic (Copper Age)
- metallurgy, horse, wheel

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is characterized by the leading role of bronze products, which was associated with the improvement in the processing of metals such as copper and tin, obtained from ore deposits, and the subsequent production of bronze from them.
The Bronze Age succeeded the Copper Age and preceded the Iron Age. In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 35/33 - 13/11 centuries. BC e., but in different cultures they are different.
Art becomes more diversified, spreads geographically.

Bronze was much easier to process than stone, and could be molded and polished. Therefore, in the Bronze Age, all kinds of household items were made, richly decorated with ornaments and of high artistic value. Ornamental decorations consisted mostly of circles, spirals, wavy lines and similar motifs. Particular attention was paid to jewelry - they were large and immediately striking.

Megalithic architecture

In the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC. original, huge structures of stone blocks appeared. This ancient architecture is called megalithic.

The term "megalith" comes from the Greek words "megas" - "large"; and lithos means stone.

Megalithic architecture owes its appearance to primitive beliefs. Megalithic architecture is usually divided into several types:
1. Menhir is a single upright stone, more than two meters high.
On the Brittany peninsula in France, fields of the so-called. menhirs. In the language of the Celts, the later inhabitants of the peninsula, the name of these stone pillars several meters high means "long stone".
2. Trilith is a structure consisting of two vertically placed stones and covered with a third.
3. Dolmen is a structure, the walls of which are made up of huge stone slabs and covered with a roof of the same monolithic stone block.
Initially, dolmens were used for burials.
Trilite can be called the simplest dolmen.
Numerous menhirs, triliths and dolmens were located in places that were considered sacred.
4. Cromlech is a group of menhirs and triliths.

Stone grave. South of Ukraine. Anthropomorphic menhirs. Bronze Age.

Stonehenge. Cromlech. England. The Bronze Age. 3 - 2 thousand BC Its diameter is 90 m, it consists of boulders, each of which weighs approx. 25 t. It is curious that the mountains from where these stones were brought are located 280 km from Stonehenge.
It consists of triliths arranged in a circle, inside a horseshoe of trilites, in the middle - blue stones, and in the very center - a heel stone (on the day of the summer solstice, the star is exactly above it). It is believed that Stonehenge was a temple dedicated to the sun.

Age of Iron (Iron Age)

1 millennium BC

In the steppes of Eastern Europe and Asia, cattle-breeding tribes created the so-called animal style at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

Plaque "Deer". 6th century BC Gold. Hermitage Museum. 35.1x22.5 cm. From the mound in the Kuban region. The relief plate was found attached to a round iron shield in the chief's burial. An example of zoomorphic art ("animal style"). Deer hooves are made in the form of a "big-billed bird".
There is nothing accidental, unnecessary - a complete, thoughtful composition. Everything in the figure is conditional and extremely truthful, realistic.
The sense of monumentality is achieved not by size, but by the generalization of the form.

Panther. Badge, shield decoration. From a burial mound near the village of Kelermesskaya. Gold. Hermitage Museum.
The age of iron.
Served as a shield decoration. The tail and legs are decorated with the figures of curled predators.

Age of iron

The age of iron. The balance between realism and stylization is broken in favor of stylization.

Cultural ties with Ancient Greece, the countries of the Ancient East and China contributed to the emergence of new plots, images and visual means in the artistic culture of the tribes of southern Eurasia.

The scenes of the battle between the barbarians and the Greeks are depicted. Found in the Chertomlyk mound, near Nikopol.

Zaporozhye region Hermitage Museum.

conclusions

Scythian art - "animal style". Striking sharpness and intensity of images. Generalization, monumentality. Stylization and realism.

Rock painting - images in caves made by people of the Paleolithic era, one of the types of primitive art. Most of these objects were found in Europe, since it was there that ancient people were forced to live in caves and grottoes, fleeing the cold. But there are such caves in Asia, for example, Niah Caves in Malaysia.

For many years, modern civilization had no idea about any objects of ancient painting, but in 1879 the Spanish amateur archaeologist Marcelino-Sanz de Sautuola, along with his 9-year-old daughter, during a walk accidentally stumbled upon the Altamira cave, the arches of which were decorated a multitude of drawings of ancient people - the unparalleled find extremely shocked the researcher and prompted him to study it closely. A year later, Sautuola, together with his friend Juan Vilanov-y-Pierre from the University of Madrid, published the results of their research, in which they dated the execution of the drawings to the Paleolithic era. Many scientists took this message extremely ambiguously, Southwola was accused of falsifying the finds, but later similar caves were discovered in many other parts of the world.

Rock painting has been an object of great interest from scientists around the world since its discovery in the 19th century. The first finds were made in Spain, but later rock paintings were discovered in different parts of the world, from Europe and Africa to Malaysia and Australia, as well as in the Americas.

Rock carvings are a source of valuable information for a variety of scientific disciplines related to the study of antiquity, from anthropology to zoology.

It is customary to distinguish between one-color, or monochrome, and multi-color, or polychrome images. Developing over time, by the XII millennium BC. NS. cave painting began to be performed taking into account the volume, perspective, color and proportion of figures, taking into account movement. Later, cave painting became more stylized.

To create the drawings, dyes of various origins were used: mineral (hematite, clay, manganese oxide), animal, vegetable (charcoal). The dyes were optionally mixed with binders such as tree resin or animal fat and applied directly to the surface with the fingers; tools were also used, such as hollow tubes through which dyes were applied, as well as reeds and primitive brushes. Sometimes, to achieve greater definition of the contours, scraping or cutting out the contours of the figures on the walls was used.

Since the caves, in which most of the cave paintings are located, practically does not penetrate sunlight, torches and primitive lamps were used to create the drawings for illumination.

Paleolithic cave painting consisted of lines and was dedicated mainly to animals. Over time, cave painting evolved with the development of primitive communities; In the painting of the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras, there are both animals and handprints and images of people, their interactions with animals and with each other, as well as the deities of primitive cults, their rituals. A significant proportion of Neolithic drawings are images of ungulates such as bison, deer, elk and horses, as well as mammoths; handprints also make up a large proportion. Animals were often depicted as wounded, with arrows sticking out of them. Later cave paintings also depict domesticated animals and other contemporary subjects. Known images of the ships of the sailors of ancient Phenicia, noticed by the more primitive communities of the Iberian Peninsula.

Cave painting was widely practiced by primitive hunter-gatherer societies who took refuge in or near caves. The way of life of primitive people changed little over the millennia, and therefore both the dyes and the plots of the cave paintings practically did not change and were common for populations of people who lived thousands of kilometers from each other.

However, differences exist between cave painting of different time periods and regions. So, in the caves of Europe, animals are mainly depicted, while African rock paintings pay equal attention to both humans and fauna. The technique of creating drawings has also undergone certain changes; later painting is often less rough and demonstrates a higher level of cultural development.

What is the oldest drawing? Probably, it should be painted on an old dilapidated piece of papyrus, which is now kept in some museum under certain temperature conditions. But time will not spare such a pattern even under the most optimal storage conditions - after a few thousand years it will inevitably turn into dust. But to destroy the rock, even in several tens of thousands of years, is a difficult task even for an all-consuming time. Perhaps, in those distant times, when a person just began to live on Earth and huddled not in houses built by his own hands, but in caves and grottoes created by nature, he found time not only to get food for himself and keep the fire, but also to create?

Indeed, rock paintings dating back several tens of thousands of years BC can be found in some caves scattered around the planet. There, in a dark and cold enclosed space, the paint retains its properties for a long time. Interestingly, the first cave paintings were found in 1879 - relatively recently by historical standards - when the archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, walking with his daughter, wandered into the cave and saw numerous drawings that adorned its vault. Scientists around the world at first did not believe in the amazing find, but studies of other caves around the world confirmed that some of them really served as a refuge for an ancient man and keep traces of his stay, including drawings.

To establish their age, archaeologists radiocarbon-analyze the paint particles that were used to paint the images. After analyzing hundreds of drawings, experts saw that rock art existed ten, twenty, and thirty thousand years ago.

It is interesting: Having “decomposed” the found drawings in chronological order, experts have seen how the rock art has changed over time. Beginning with simple 2D images, artists from the distant past have perfected their skills by adding more detail to their creations, and then shadows and volume.

But the most interesting thing, of course, is the age of the rock carvings. The use of modern scanners in the study of caves opens up for us even those rock carvings that are already indistinguishable to the human eye. The antiquity record of the found image is constantly being updated. How deeply were we able to penetrate into the past, exploring the cold stone walls of caves and grottoes? To date, the cave boasts the oldest cave paintings. El Castillo located in Spain. It is believed that it is in this cave that the most ancient rock paintings were discovered. One of them - the image of a human palm by spraying paint on a hand leaning against the wall - is of particular interest.

The oldest drawing to date, age ~ 40,800 years. El Castillo cave, Spain.

Since traditional radiocarbon analysis would give too much variation in the readings, to more accurately determine the age of the images, scientists used the method of radioactive decay of uranium, measuring the amount of decay products in the stalactites formed over thousands of years over the pattern. It turned out that the age of the rock carvings is about 40 800 years, which makes them the most ancient on Earth among the discovered at the moment. Quite possibly, they were drawn not even by homo sapience, but by a Neanderthal.

But El Castillo Cave has a worthy competitor: the caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. To determine the age of the local drawings, scientists examined the age of the calcium deposits formed on top of them. It turned out that calcium deposits appeared no less 40,000 years back, which means that the rock paintings cannot be younger in any way. Unfortunately, it is not possible to more accurately determine the age of the ancient artist's creations. But we know one thing for sure: in the future, humanity will find even more ancient and amazing finds.

Illustration: depiction of a bison in the Altamira cave, Spain. Age about 20,000 years

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