The first drawings of primitive people. How and with what people drew from primitiveness to the Middle Ages. Chumash painted cave

The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 in the south of France, in the department of Ardeche, 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, Eliet Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillair.

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 Eliet, squeezing through a narrow opening, saw a large cavity going into the distance, she realized that she needed to return to the car behind 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 caught an ocher stain on the wall from the darkness. It turned out to be a "portrait" of a mammoth. No other cave in the southeast of France rich in "painting" can be compared with the newly discovered one named after Chauvet, neither in size, nor in the preservation and skill of the execution of 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 postponed the emergence of primitive drawings 5 ​​thousand years ago, but also upset the concept of the evolution of Paleolithic art that had developed by that time, based, in particular, on the classification of the French scientist Henri Leroy-Guran ... According to his theory (as in the opinion of most other specialists), the development of art went from primitive forms to more complex ones, and then the earliest drawings from Chauvet should have generally belonged to the pre-figurative stage (dots, spots, stripes, winding lines, other scribbles) ... However, the researchers of Chauvet painting found themselves face to face with the fact that the oldest images are almost the most perfect in their execution of the Paleolithic known to us (Paleolithic - this is at least: it is not known what Picasso, who admired the Altamir bulls, would have said if he had seen lions and Chauvet bears!). Apparently, art is not very friendly with evolutionary theory: avoiding all stages, it somehow inexplicably arises immediately, out of nothing, in highly artistic forms.

Here is what ZA Abramova, a prominent specialist in the field of Paleolithic art, writes about this: “Paleolithic art appears as a bright flash of flame in the depths of the centuries. finds itself 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 the echoes of Ice Age art penetrated into Picasso's brilliant work "(quoted from: Cher J. When and how did art arise? ).

(source - Donsmaps.com)

The drawing of black rhinoceroses from Chauvet is considered the oldest in the world (32.410 ± 720 years ago; the Network contains information about a certain "new" dating, giving Chauvet's painting 33 to 38 thousand years old, but without credible references).

On this moment, this is the oldest example of human creativity, the beginning of art, not burdened with history. Usually in the art of the Paleolithic, drawings of animals that people hunted predominate - 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 rhinoceroses, tarpans and a number of other ice age animals.

Clickable 1500 px

In addition, no other cave has so many images of a woolly rhinoceros, an animal that is not inferior in size and strength to a mammoth. In size and strength, the woolly rhino almost did not fall behind the mammoth, its weight reached 3 tons, the body length was 3.5 m, the size of the front horn was 130 cm. The rhinoceros died out at the end of the Pleistocene, before the mammoth and the cave bear. Unlike mammoths, rhinos were not herd animals. Probably because this powerful animal, although it was a herbivore, had the same evil disposition as their modern relatives. This is evidenced by the scenes of furious "rock" battles of rhinoceroses from Chauvet.

The cave is located in the south of France, on the steep bank of the Ardezh River canyon, a tributary of the Rhone, in a very picturesque place, in the vicinity of 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". The 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 for only a couple of weeks, several hours a day. Unlike Altamira and Lascaux, Chauvet has not yet been "cloned", so people like you and I will have to admire the reproductions, which we will certainly do, but a little later.

"In the fifteen-plus years since the discovery, there have been many more people who have visited the summit of Everest than those who have seen these drawings," writes Adam Smith in a review of Werner Herzog's documentary about Chauw. Haven't tested, but sounds good.

So, the famous German filmmaker somehow miraculously managed to get permission to shoot. Cave of Forgotten Dreams was shot in 3D and screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, which presumably attracted the attention of the general public to Chauvet. It is not good for us to lag behind the public.

Researchers agree that the caves containing such numbers of drawings were clearly not intended for habitation and were not prehistoric art galleries, but were sanctuaries, places for rituals, in particular, the initiation of young men entering adulthood (about this evidenced, for example, by the surviving footprints of children).

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-figured compositions, were discovered.

Eliet Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillair - participants in the discovery of the Chauvet Cave.

The murals 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 African or Indian relatives, they either did not have it, or it was not so impressive. Often these images show the characteristic lions' tail tassel. The color of the coat, apparently, was of the same color.

In the art of the Paleolithic, drawings of animals from the "menu" of primitive people - bulls, horses, deer - figure for the most part (although this is not entirely accurate: it is known, for example, that for the inhabitants of Lasko, the main "food" animal was a reindeer, while on the walls of the cave, it is found in single specimens). In general, one way or another, commercial ungulates predominate. Chauvet is unique in this sense for the abundance of images of predators - cave lions and bears, as well as rhinos. It makes sense to dwell on the latter in more detail. As many rhinos as in Chauvet have not been found in any other cave.

Clickable 1600px

It is noteworthy that the first "artists" who left their mark on the walls of some Paleolithic caves, including Chauvet, were ... bears: places of engraving and painting were applied directly over the traces of powerful claws, the so-called griffad.

In the Late Pleistocene, at least two species of bears could coexist: the brown ones survived safely to this day, and their relatives, the cave bears (big and small), became extinct, unable to adapt to the damp darkness of the caves. The big cave bear was not just big - it was huge. Its weight reached 800-900 kg, the diameter of the found skulls is about half a meter. Most likely, a person could not have emerged victorious from a fight with such an animal in the depths of a cave, but some zoologists are inclined to assume that, despite its frightening 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 hunters of the Stone Age, cave bears were a kind of beef cattle that did not require care for grazing and feeding." The appearance of a cave bear is conveyed in Chauvet as nowhere else clearly. It seems that he played a special role in the life of primitive communities: the beast was depicted on rocks and pebbles, his figurines were molded from clay, teeth were used as pendants, the skin probably served as a bed, the skull was preserved for ritual purposes. For example, a similar skull was found in Chauvet, resting on a rocky base, which most likely indicates the existence of a bear cult.

The woolly rhinoceros died out a little earlier than the mammoth (according to various sources, from 15-20 to 10 thousand years ago), and, at least, in the drawings of the Madeleine period (15-10 thousand years BC), it is almost not meets. In Chauvet, we generally see a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without any traces of wool. It may be the Merka rhino of southern Europe, but much rarer than its woolly counterpart. The length of its front horn could be up to 1.30 m. In a word, the monster was something else.

There are practically no images of people. There are only chimera-like figures - 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 on the floor there are footprints of primitive visitors to the cave. According to researchers, the cave was a place for magical rituals.

Clickable 1600 px

Previously, researchers believed that several stages can be distinguished in the formation of primitive painting. 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 find shattered this theory. French archaeologist Jean Clotte, having thoroughly researched Chauvet, said 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 both perspective, and chiaroscuro, and different angles, etc.

Interestingly, the Chauvet cave artists used methods that were not applicable anywhere else. Before the drawing was applied, the walls were scraped and leveled. Ancient artists, first scratching out the contours of the animal, gave them the necessary volume with paints. "The people who painted this were great artists," confirms rock art specialist French scientist Jean Clotte.

A detailed study of the cave will take more than a dozen years. 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. Four successive "halls" and numerous lateral branches. In the first two rooms, the images are made in red ocher. In the third, there are 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 has been perfectly preserved.

(source - Flickr.com)

There is an assumption that such images with multiple contours layering on top of each other are a kind of primitive animation. When a torch was quickly led along the drawing in a darkened cave, the rhino "came to life", and one can imagine what effect this had on the cave "spectators" - the "Arrival of the Train" by the Lumière brothers was resting.

There are also 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".

The Chauvet Cave is now closed to public access, as any noticeable change in air humidity can damage the wall painting. Only a few archaeologists are entitled to 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 the rock in front of its entrance.

The Chauvet cave drawings are striking in their knowledge of the laws of perspective (overlapping drawings of mammoths) and the ability to cast shadows - until now it was believed that this technique was discovered several millennia later. And for an eternity before the idea dawned on Seurat, 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 prefer rhinos, lions, cave bears and mammoths. Usually, the animals that were hunted served as models for rock art. "From all the bestiary of that era, artists choose the most predatory, most dangerous beasts," says archaeologist Margaret Conkey of the University of Berkeley in California. Depicting animals that were clearly not on the Paleolithic cuisine menu, but symbolized danger, strength, power, the artists, according to Clott, "learned their essence."

Archaeologists have paid attention to how the images are incorporated into the wall space. In one of the halls, a cave bear without a lower torso is depicted in red ocher, so it seems, says Clott, "as if it were coming out of the wall." In the same room, archaeologists also found images of two stone goats. The horns of one of them are natural crevices in the wall, which the artist expanded.

Image of a horse in a niche (source - Donsmaps.com)

Rock painting clearly played a significant role in spiritual life. prehistoric people... This can be confirmed by two large triangles (symbols of the feminine principle and fertility?) And the image of a creature with human legs, but with the head and body of a bison. Probably, the people of the Stone Age hoped in this way to appropriate at least partially the power of animals. The cave bear, apparently, occupied a special position. 55 bear skulls, one of which lies on a fallen boulder, like on an altar, suggest the cult of this beast. Which also explains the choice of the Chauvet cave by the artists - dozens of holes in the floor indicate that it was a hibernation site for giant bears.

Ancient people came to see the rock paintings again and again. The 10-meter "horse panel" shows traces of soot left by torches, which were fixed in the wall after it was covered with paintings. These footprints, Konka said, are on top of the layer of mineralized sediment that covers the images. If painting is the first step towards spirituality, then the ability to appreciate it is undoubtedly the second.

At least 6 books and dozens of scientific articles have been published about the Chauvet Cave, besides sensational materials in the general press, four large albums of beautiful color illustrations with accompanying text have been published and translated into the main European languages. On December 15, the documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D" will be released in Russia. The film was directed by the German Werner Herzog.

Picture Cave of Forgotten Dreams appreciated at the 61st Berlin Film Festival. More than a million people went to the film. This is the highest grossing documentary in 2011.

According to new data, the age of the coal, which painted the drawings on the wall of the Chauvet cave, is 36,000 years old, not 31,000, as was previously thought.

Refined radiocarbon dating methods show that the settlement of modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Central and Western Europe began 3 thousand years earlier than was thought, and proceeded faster. The time of coexistence of Sapiens and Neanderthals in most parts of Europe has decreased from about 10 to 6 thousand years or less. The final extinction of European Neanderthals may have also occurred several millennia earlier.

The famous British archaeologist Paul Mellars has published an overview of the latest advances in the development of radiocarbon dating, which led to significant changes in our understanding of the chronology of events that took place more than 25 thousand years ago.

The accuracy of radiocarbon dating has increased dramatically in recent years due to two factors. Firstly, methods of high-quality purification of organic substances, primarily collagen secreted from ancient bones, from all impurities have appeared. When it comes to very ancient samples, even the smallest admixture of foreign carbon can lead to serious distortion. For example, if a sample 40,000 years old contains only 1% of present-day carbon, this would reduce the "radiocarbon age" by as much as 7,000 years. As it turned out, most of the ancient archaeological finds contain such impurities, so their age was systematically underestimated.

The second source of errors, which was finally eliminated, is associated with 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 humans and animals that lived during periods of increased 14C content 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 accurate measurements have been carried out, which have made it possible to reconstruct the 14C fluctuations in the atmosphere over the past 50 millennia. For this, unique marine sediments were used in some areas of the World Ocean, where sediments 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 of the ratio of oxygen isotopes 18O / 16O or uranium and thorium.

As a result, correction scales and tables were developed, which made it possible to dramatically increase the accuracy of radiocarbon dating of samples older than 25 thousand years. What did the specified dates tell you about?

It was previously believed that modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared in Southeast Europe about 45,000 years ago. From here they gradually settled in the west and northwest direction. The settlement of Central and Western Europe continued, according to "uncorrected" radiocarbon dates, approximately 7 thousand years (43-36 thousand years ago); the average speed of advance is 300 meters per year. Refined dates show that the settlement took place faster and began earlier (46-41 thousand years ago; the rate of advance is up to 400 meters per year). Around the same speed, agricultural culture later spread in Europe (10-6 thousand years ago), which also came 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 coexistence of modern people and Neanderthals in most parts of Europe was significantly shorter than it was believed (not 10,000 years, but only about 6,000), and in some areas, for example, in the west of France, even less - only 1-2 thousand years. According to updated dates, some of the brightest examples of cave painting turned out to be much older than it was thought; the beginning of the Aurignac era, marked by the emergence of a variety of complex products made of bone and horn, also moved back in time (41,000 thousand years ago, according to new ideas).

Paul Mellars believes that the previously published dates of the latest Neanderthal sites (in Spain and Croatia; both sites, according to "unspecified" radiocarbon dating, are 31-28 thousand years old) also need revision. In reality, these findings are most likely several millennia older.

All this shows that the indigenous Neanderthal population of Europe fell under the onslaught of the Middle Eastern aliens much faster than was thought. The superiority of the Sapiens - technological or social - was too great, and neither the physical strength of the Neanderthals, nor their endurance, nor their adaptability to the cold climate, could save the doomed race.

Chauvet's painting is amazing in many ways. Take angles, for example. It was common practice for cave artists to portray animals in profile. Of course, here this is typical for most of the drawings, but there are breakthroughs, as in the above fragment, where the bison's muzzle is given in three quarters. In the following figure, you can see also a rare face-to-face image:

Maybe this is an illusion, but a distinct feeling of the composition is created - lions, in anticipation of prey, sniff, but still do not see the bison, and he clearly tensed and froze, feverishly figuring out where to run. True, judging by the dull look, he thinks badly.

The running bison is remarkable:

(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 spread among the people from the images of Chauvet:

(source - popular-archaeology.com)

In the recently released science fiction film "Prometheus", the cave promising the discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization that once visited our planet is copied cleanly from Chauvet, including this wonderful group, to which people who are completely inappropriate here are added.

Still from the film "Prometheus" (directed by R. Scott, 2012)

You and I know that there are no people on the walls of Chauvet. What is not, that is not. There are bulls.

(source - Donsmaps.com)

During the Pliocene, and especially during the Pleistocene, ancient hunters exerted significant pressure on nature. The idea that the extinction of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, 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 the then seditious hypothesis that man was to blame for the extinction of the mammoth. Later discoveries confirmed the validity of these assumptions. Development of methods of radiocarbon analysis showed that the last mammoths ( Elephas primigenius) lived at the very end of the Ice Age, and in some places survived until the beginning of the Holocene. The remains of a thousand mammoths were found at the Předmost Paleolithic site (Czechoslovakia). There are mass findings of mammoth bones (more than 2 thousand individuals) at the Volchya Griva site near Novosibirsk, which are 12 thousand years old. 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 painting was a big-horned deer.

The art of the Upper Paleolithic animalists, along with paleontological and archaeozoological finds, is an important source of information about what animals our ancestors hunted. Until recently, the Late Paleolithic drawings from the Lascaux caves in France (17 thousand years) and Altamira in Spain (15 thousand years) were considered the oldest and most complete, but later the Chauvet caves were discovered, which gives us a new spectrum of images of the mammalian fauna of that time. Along with relatively rare drawings of a mammoth (among them, an image of a mammoth, strikingly reminiscent of the mammoth Dima found in the permafrost of the Magadan region) or an Alpine ibex ( Capra ibex) there are many images of two-horned rhinos, cave bears ( Ursus spelaeus), cave lions ( Panthera spelaea), tarpanov ( Equus gmelini).

The images of rhinos in the 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 living species for the one-horned Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinocerus indicus). Perhaps this is Merka rhino ( Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis), who lived in southern Europe until the end of the Late Pleistocene? However, if from the woolly rhinoceros, which was the object of hunting in the Paleolithic and disappeared by the beginning of the Neolithic, quite numerous remnants of skin with hair, horny outgrowths on the skull are preserved (even the only stuffed animal of this species in the world is kept in Lviv), then from the Merka rhinoceros we have survived only bone remains, and the keratin "horns" have not survived. Thus, the discovery in the Chauvet cave raises the question: what kind of rhinoceros were known to its inhabitants? Why are the rhinoceroses from the Chauvet Cave depicted in herds? It is very likely that Paleolithic hunters were also to blame for the extinction of the Merck rhinoceros.

Paleolithic art does not know the concepts of good and evil. Both the peacefully grazing rhino, and the lions lying in ambush are parts of a single nature, from which the artist himself does not separate himself. Of course, it’s impossible to get into the head of a Cro-Magnon man and not to talk “for life” at a meeting, but I am close and, at least understandable, the idea that art at the dawn of mankind still does not oppose nature in any way, a person is in harmony with the world around him. Every thing, every stone or tree, not to mention animals, is considered by him as bearing meanings, as if the whole world were a huge living museum. At the same time, there is no reflection yet, and questions of being are not posed. This is such a pre-cultural, paradise state. Of course, we will not be able to feel it in full (as well as return to paradise), but suddenly we will be able to at least touch it, communicating through tens of millennia with the authors of these amazing creations

We do not see them as vacationers alone. Always hunting, and always almost a whole pride.

In general, the admiration of the primitive man with the huge, strong and fast animals around him is understandable, be it a big-horned deer, a bison or a bear. It's even somehow ridiculous to put yourself next to them. He didn’t. There is a lot to learn from us, filling their virtual "caves" with their own or family photographs in immeasurable quantities. Yes, something, but narcissism was not peculiar to the first people. But the same bear was portrayed with the greatest care and trepidation:

At the end of the gallery is the strangest drawing in the Chauvet, definitely of a cult purpose. It is located in the farthest corner of the grotto and is made on a rocky ledge, which has (not without reason, presumably) a phallic shape

In literature, this character is usually referred to as a "sorcerer" or tavrocephalus. In addition to the bull's head, we see another, lion's, female legs and a deliberately enlarged size, let's say, the bosom, which forms the center of the entire composition. Against the background of their colleagues in the Paleolithic workshop, the craftsmen who painted this sanctuary look pretty avant-garde. We know of individual images of the so-called. “Venus”, male sorcerers in the form of animals, and even scenes hinting at the intercourse of a hoofed animal with a woman, but to mix all of the above so thickly ... It is assumed (see, for example, http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/ francech auvet.htm) that the image of the female body was the earliest, and the heads of the lion and bull were completed later. Interestingly, there is no overlap of the later drawings on the previous ones. Obviously, preserving the integrity of the composition was part of the artist's plans.

, and also take another look at and

Primitive (or, in other words, primitive) art territorially covers all continents, except for 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.

Reasons for the origin creative activity and 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. A 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 survived.

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 a hunt - 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.
Among the images, there are the most 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 who, quite by accident, 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, there was a gaping hole 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).
Called 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 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 contour 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 active 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 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 were 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 still do not know how to recognize them. It is significant 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. Numerous carved and scratched images have been known for a long time in these grottoes and on other planes of the hill. 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 opened in 1939. The greatest interest and large (more than 1 m) images of female and male figures, made with deep carved lines, gained 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 6 to 2 thousand 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 can be said 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 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. As a result of the expedition, the first images of the Tomsk scribble were 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 big 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-figured 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 desire 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 differ.
Art is becoming more diverse, spreading 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" is derived 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. A 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 pictorial 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". Amazing sharpness and intensity of images. Generalization, monumentality. Stylization and realism.

Interesting and picturesque messages from the past - drawings on the walls of caves, which are up to 40 thousand years old - fascinate modern people with their laconicism.

What were they for the people of antiquity? If they served only to decorate the walls, then why were they performed in remote corners of caves, in places where, most likely, they did not live?

The most ancient drawings found were made about 40 thousand years ago, others are younger by several tens of thousands of years. Interestingly, in different parts of the world, the images on the walls of the caves are very similar - in those days, people depicted mainly ungulates and other animals that were common in their area.

The image of hands was also popular: community members put their palms against the wall and outlined them. Such pictures are really inspiring: by pressing a palm to such an image, a person can feel as if he has formed a bridge between modern civilization and antiquity!

Below we bring to your attention interesting images made by ancient people from different parts of the world on the walls of caves.

Pettakere limestone cave, Indonesia

Pettakere cave, 12 kilometers from the town of Maros. At the entrance to the cave, there are white and red hand outlines on the ceiling - 26 images in total. The drawings are about 35 thousand years old. Photo: Cahyo Ramadhani / wikipedia.org

Chauvet cave, south of France

The images, which are about 32-34 thousand years old, are placed on the walls of a limestone cave near the city of Valon-pont-d'Arc. In total, in the cave, which was discovered only in 1994, there are 300 drawings that are striking in their picturesqueness.

One of the most famous images from the Chauvet cave. Photo: JEFF PACHOUD / AFP / Getty Images

Photo: JEFF PACHOUD / AFP / Getty Images

Photo: JEFF PACHOUD / AFP / Getty Images

Photo: JEFF PACHOUD / AFP / Getty Images

Photo: JEFF PACHOUD / AFP / Getty Images

El Castillo cave, Spain

El Castillo contains some of the oldest examples of cave painting in the world. The images are at least 40 800 years old.

Photo: cuevas.culturadecantabria.com

Covalanas cave, Spain

The unique Kovalanas cave was inhabited by people less than 45 thousand years ago!

Photo: cuevas.culturadecantabria.com

Photo: cuevas.culturadecantabria.com

The walls of the caves near Covalanas and El Castillo are also decorated with numerous drawings made by people thousands of years ago. However, these caves are not that famous. Among them are Las Monedas, El Pendo, Chufin, Ornos de la Pena, Culalvera.

Lascaux cave, France

The Lascaux cave complex in southwestern France was accidentally discovered in 1940 by a local resident, an 18-year-old guy named Marcel Ravid. A huge number of paintings on the walls, which have been surprisingly well preserved, give this complex of caves the right to claim the title of one of the largest galleries the ancient world... The images are about 17.3 thousand years old.

There is something magically attractive and at the same time sad in petroglyphs. We will never know the names of the talented artists of antiquity and their history. All that is left for us is rock paintings, by which we can try to imagine the life of our distant ancestors. Let's take a look at 9 famous cave paintings.

Altamira cave

Opened in 1879, Marcelino de Soutola in Spain is called the Sistine Chapel of Primitive Art for a reason. The techniques that were in service with the ancient artists, the Impressionists began to use in their work only in the 19th century.

The painting, discovered by the daughter of an amateur archaeologist, caused quite a stir in the scientific community. The researcher was even accused of falsification - no one could believe that such talented drawings were created thousands of years ago.

The paintings are made realistically, some of them are voluminous - a special effect was achieved using the natural relief of the walls.

After the opening, everyone could visit the cave. Due to the constant visits of tourists, the temperature inside changed, mold appeared on the drawings. Today the cave is closed to visitors, but there is a Museum not far from it. ancient history and archeology. Just 30 km from the Altamira cave, you can get acquainted with copies of rock paintings and curious finds of archaeologists.

Lasko cave

In 1940, a group of teenagers accidentally discovered a cave near Montillac in France, the entrance to which was opened by a tree that fell during a thunderstorm. It is small, but there are thousands of drawings under the vaults. Some of them were painted on walls by ancient artists as early as the 18th century BC.

It depicts people, symbols and in motion. The researchers divided the cave into thematic zones for convenience. The drawings of the Hall of the Bulls are known far beyond the borders of France, its other name is the Rotunda. Here is the largest rock art of all found - a 5-meter bull.

There are more than 300 drawings under the vaults, including here you can see the animals of the Ice Age. It is believed that the age of some of the paintings is about 30 thousand years.

Nio's cave

In the southeast of France, it is located, about the painting inside which the locals knew back in the 17th century. However, they did not attach due importance to the drawings, leaving numerous inscriptions nearby.

In 1906, Captain Molar discovered a room with images of animals inside, which was later called the Black Salon.

Inside you can see bison, deer and goats. Scientists believe that in ancient times rituals were performed here to attract good luck on the hunt. For tourists, next to Nio, the Pyrenees Park of Prehistoric Art is open, where you can learn more about archeology.

Koske cave

Not far from Marseille it is located, which can only be reached by those who know how to swim well. To see the ancient images, one has to swim through a 137-meter tunnel located deep under water. An unusual place was discovered in 1985 by the diver Anri Koske. Scientists believe that some of the images of animals and birds found inside were taken 29 thousand years ago.

Kapova cave (Shulgan-Tash)

Cueva de las Manos cave

Ancient painting was also discovered in the south of Argentina in 1941. There is not one cave here, but a whole series, the total length of which is 160 km. The most famous of them is Cueva de las Manos. Its name is translated into Russian as "".

Inside there are many images of human palms - our ancestors made prints on the walls with their left hands. In addition, hunting scenes and ancient inscriptions can be seen here. The images were taken from 9 to 13 thousand years ago.

Nerja caves

The caves of Nerja are located 5 km from the city of the same name in Spain. The rock carvings were discovered by chance by teenagers, as happened earlier in the Lascaux cave. Five guys went to catch bats, but accidentally saw a hole in the rock, looked inside and found a corridor with stalagmites and stalactites. The find interested scientists.

The cave turned out to be of impressive size - 35,484 square meters, which is equivalent to five football fields. The fact that people lived in it is evidenced by many finds: tools, traces of a hearth, ceramics. There are three halls below. The hall of ghosts scares the guests with unusual sounds and strange outlines. The hall of waterfalls was equipped as a concert hall, it can simultaneously accommodate 100 spectators.

Montserrat Caballe, Maya Plisetskaya and other famous artists performed here. The Bethlehem Hall impresses with its bizarre columns with stalactites and stalagmites. Rock carvings can be seen in the Hall of Spears and the Hall of Mountains.

Before the discovery of this cave, scientists assumed that the most ancient drawings are in the Chauvet cave. According to recent studies, our distant ancestors began to engage in creativity even earlier than modern science believed. The results of radiocarbon analysis showed that six images of seals and fur seals were taken, presumably 43 thousand years ago - respectively, they are even older than the rock art found at Chauvet. However, it is too early to draw conclusions.

Magura cave

The images in all these caves and the way they are applied are completely different. However, there are some similarities. Artists of antiquity conveyed their perception of the world with the help of creativity and shared a view of life, only they did it not in words, but in drawings.

Vintage cave paintings of primitive people were very amazing images, mostly they were all drawn on stone walls.

There is an opinion that the cave paintings of ancient people are various animals that were hunted at that time. Then these drawings played a major role in magical rites, hunters wanted to attract real animals during their hunt.

Pictures and rock paintings of primitive people very often resemble a two-dimensional image. Rock paintings are very rich in drawings of bison, rhinoceroses, deer, mammoths. Also in many pictures you can find hunting scenes or people with spears and arrows.

What did the first people draw?

Cave paintings of ancient people- this is one of the manifestations of their emotional state and imaginative thinking. Not everyone was able to create a vivid image of an animal or a hunt, this could only be done by those people who, in their subconscious minds, could create such an image.

There is also an assumption that ancient people with the help of rock paintings transmitted their visions and life experiences so they expressed themselves.

Where did primitive people draw?

The hard-to-find cave sites are some of the best places for drawing. This explains the significance of the rock paintings. Painting was a certain ritual, the artists worked by the light of stone lamps.