ICE AGE ART

In 1879 a little girl accompanied her father, Don Marcelino de Sautola, to search for prehistoric relics in Altamira cave on his estate in the Province of Santander, Spain. While he made a painstaking survey of the cavern floor for stones and fragments of bone, Maria looked upward and cried, "Papa! Mira, Papa! Toros! Toros pintados!" Painted on the ceiling were vivid bison, wild horses, and charging boars, the work of prehistoric artists. When Don Marcelino published a report of his discoveries, however, his opinions were rejected by the scientific world and the paintings denounced as frauds. He died, dishonored by the skeptics' charges. Not until 1900 was the art at Altamira accepted as authentic.

Students of prehistory now agree that human beings have lived on earth for at least a million years and that the first modern people, the Cro-Magnons, appeared before 30,000 B.C. Unlike their ancestors who existed at the mercy of the environment, retreating southward when the first three ice ages descended upon the northern hemisphere, the Cro-Magnons had learned to adapt and to defend themselves from the hostile climate in Europe. They built fires to warm themselves and cook their meat, and they made needles of bone to stitch animal skins together for clothing and shelter. To protect themselves from the glacial cold, they built huts of mammoth bones and tents of animal skins, or they dwelt beneath rock ledges and in caves.

Although movies and cartoons have presented the cave man as a stooping, hairy, ape-like creature, the Cro-Magnon people were, in fact, splendidly shaped, tall, powerful, and handsome. And they were our first great artists. Using tools of flint and bone, they carved and engraved intricate pictures in ivory, rock, and bone. They engraved pictures and abstract signs and symbols on the walls, ceilings, and floors of stone ledges and caves. They used finger paints, mineral crayons, brushes made of fiber or hair, and "air brushes"--hollowed tubes of bone for blowing paint onto a surface. While some pictures are predictably crude and primitive, others are remarkably sophisticated and lifelike.

Ice Age Art provides some insights into Ice Age culture, but it also raises perplexing questions. Much of the art work is small and portable, in the form of decorated tools and weapons, as might be expected of a nomadic people who survived by following herds of animals on their seasonal migrations. The cave paintings, however, seem to suggest a more domestic, settled culture, perhaps with more leisure. How accurately does the art reflect their world and their culture?

Scholars believe that much of the art was religiously inspired, that the stylized female statues may be their fertility goddesses, that the painted caves were sanctuaries where religious ceremonies were held. But what was the nature of their religion? Were the paintings done as part of a tribal ritual? Do the pictures reveal a superstitious hunting magic--drawing a picture of an animal to insure killing it--or do they reflect a complex perception of spiritual forces which animate the natural world? Why are there so many female statues without male counterparts? Are these simply images designed to insure fertility, or might they suggest a religious status for females profoundly different from our own?

It is said that humankind could not create art until we had developed a language; but since these people left no written record, what can we know of their language? And what is the connection between language and art? Why do many scholars believe that language was human's first invention, that humans had to have a language before we could make tools or create art?

Many theories of Ice Age life and culture are based on what we know of contemporary stone-age peoples--Australian aborigines, the Tasaday people of the Philippines, or native tribes in the jungles of Africa and South America. What is the value of drawing parallels between different cultures? What are some of the weaknesses of this process?

How close can we come to understanding our remarkable ancestors?

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

Art Books

Bandi, Hans-Georg, et al. The Art of the Stone Age: Forty Thousand Years of Rock Painting. Trans. Ann E. Keep. New York: Crown Publishers, 1961.

Berenguer, Magi´n. Prehistoric Man and His Art: The Caves of Ribadesella. Trans. Michael Heron. Park Ridge, N.J.: Noyes Press, 1973.

Grand, P.M. Prehistoric Art: Palaeolithic Painting and Sculpture. Greenwich, CN: New York Graphic Society, 1967.

Graziosi, Paolo. Palaeolithic Art. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1960.

Leroi-Gourhan, André. Treasures of Prehistoric Art. Trans. Norbert Guterman. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1967.

Maringer, Johannes, and Hans-Georg Bandi. Art in the Ice Age. Trans. Robert Allen. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1953.

Mazonowicz, Douglas. Voices from the Stone Age: A Search for Canyon and Cave Art. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974.

Moulin, Raoul-Jean. Prehistoric Painting. Trans. Anthony Rhodes. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1965.

Pericot-Garcia, Luis, et al. Prehistoric and Primitive Art. Trans. Henry Mims. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1967.

Archaelogy/General Information

Bordes, Francois. The Old Stone Age. Trans. J.E. Anderson. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968.

Brew, J.O., ed. One Hundred Years of Anthropology. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968.

Bronowski, Jacob. "Lower Than the Angels," The Ascent of Man. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1973.

Giedion, S. The Eternal Present: The Beginnings of Art. Vol. 1. New York: Pantheon Books, 1962.

Hadingham, Evan. Secrets of the Ice Age. New York: Walker & Co., 1979.

Levy, Gertrude Rachel. The Gate of Horn: A Study of Religious Conceptions of the Stone Age. London: Faber & Faber.

Maringer, Johannes. The Gods of Prehistoric Man. Ed. and trans. Mary Ilford. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.

Marshack, Alexander. The Roots of Civilization. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1972.

Pfeiffer, John E. The Emergence of Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.

Silverberg, Robert. The Morning of Mankind: Prehistoric Man in Europe. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1967.

Ucko, P.J., and A. Rosenfeld. Palaeolithic Cave Art. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967.

Waechter, John. Man Before History. Oxford; Elsevier-Phaidon, 1976.

Washburn, Sherwood L. Social Life of Early Man. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1961.

For Younger Readers

Baldwin, Gordon C. The Riddle of the Past: How Archaeological Detectives Solve Prehistoric Puzzles. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1965.

Baumann, Hans. The Caves of the Great Hunters. Rev. ed. Trans. Isabel and Florence McHugh. New York: Pantheon Books, 1962.

Braidwood, Robert J. Prehistoric Men. 7th ed. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1967.

Constable, George, and the editors of Time-Life Books. The Neanderthals. New York: Time-Life Books, 1973.

Megaw, Vincent, and Rhys Jones. The Dawn of Man. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972

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Pfeiffer, John E., and the Editors of Horizon Magazine. The Search for Early Man. New York: American Heritage Pub. Co., 1963.

Prideaux, Tom, and the Editors of Time-Life Books. Cro-Magnon Man. New York: Time-Life Books, 1973.

THE TEXAS HUMANITIES RESOURCE CENTER

The University of Texas at Arlington Library

This publication has been made possible by grants from The Texas Council for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.