Painting in the prehistoric age.Cave paintings(France, Spain, Romania)

Nowadays, most people think only abut modern technology, popularity. They never think back to history of the world, how the first civilization emerged, what happened in the ancient time, how the ancient people lived, the way to find food and so on. In ancient time, before people had the writing system like nowadays, they used to draw some record or some action on the wall, especially in the deep cave. Some archeologists have found a lot of cave painting, especially in Europe.It is hard to understand how the early people could paint on the cave ceiling, and the meaning of the cave painting. The emergence of the cave painting has existed from the Old Stone Age until the early century A.D.; furthermore, there are thousands of caves found by archaeologists in different places around the world in different chronicles. Most of the cave painting has the similar type of painting that is mostly about the hunting and animals. It was in the late 20th century that the first decorated cave which is known as the most beautiful cave in Europe was found in France, and this cave art, called Lascaux cave painting, has contributed significant studies about the early human civilization.As we will discuss and analyze about the cave painting in our writing, we will explain the methods, characteristics, and meanings of the cave paintings.

Most part of this writing are derived from the internet sources while some are based on general knowledge and books.The caves of Lascaux in France are world famous, but tourists are no longer allowed there.

The Discovery of the Lascaux cave painting

Marcel Ravidat Georges Agnel

Jacques Marsal Simon Coencas

Located in the Dordogne Valley of south central France, the Lascaux cave is a rock shelter with excellent cave paintings

which were painted by Paleolithic artists between 15,000 and 17,000 years ago in the Paleolithic age, the time which we know that people were nomad living in the simple social structureThe Lascaux cave was discovered by four French teenagers - Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas along with their dog- Robot.In September 1940, setting out an adventure in Dordogne, the boys and their dog started their adventure with the purpose of treasure hunting . Their dog, Robot, led them to see a deep depression in the ground.After seeing the hole, teenagers thought that it might be the way that would lead them to reach the hidden treasure; as the result, they decided to explore it. Then, when reaching the dark underground, the four teenagers used their oil lantern to search around the chamber by shining it on the walls and ceiling. Many paintings of animal appeared on the wall and ceiling, and one person depicted with a birds head.In addition, the ceiling was pure white covered with calcite, and the paintings were brilliantly multicolored in red, black, brown and ochre .

The adventure of the four came to an abrupt end two days later, when they were swept up into historical circumstances of a much tragic nature. The Nazis invaded France. Geoges and Simon fled France with their parents, and Marcel and Jacques spent the rest of the WWII guarding the cave against Nazis invaders.In 1948,once the war was over, they decided to invite their friend in the charge of forty cent per person for admission fee. Later on, they told their professors and experts about this cave. His professor, Leon Laval, gave them two rules: Do not let anyone touch the paintings, and, more importantly, guard the cave from possible vandals. After going back and studying about cave at their school, they realized that this cave painting had sealed at prehistoric time at least 17,000 years. Publicly, the cave complex was opened for people to visit in 1948, but the serious effect from this allowance is that the carbon dioxide  which was produced by 1,200 visitors per day had obviously damaged the paintings by 1955. As consequence, in 1963, with the purpose of preserving these fabulous paintings, the cave

was closed to public, and then in 1979, Lascaux was considered as the world heritage and added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site lists. Today you can visit an exact replica of the cave called Lasko II.

Altamira cave paintings

In 1879 a Spanish landowner named Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was searching for prehistoric artifacts on the floor of a cave on his family property in northern Spain when his young daughter, Maria, interrupted, calling out “Look, Papa, oxen” as she looked up at the cave’s ceiling and “saw vivid yet delicate paintings of bison, almost fully life-sized, that appear to be tumbling across the sky.” Maria had just become the first modern human to set eyes on the first gallery of prehistoric paintings . When De Sautuola came over to see what she was looking at, he saw a ceiling dominated with dozens of paintings...but they were not of "oxen"—they were aurochs, a species of ox that had long been extinct. Her discovery swiftly brought ancient cave paintings to widespread public attention, and set off a complex history of dispute about their origin and meaning. Since then, thousands of similar paintings have been discovered in more than two hundred caves scattered through southwestern France and northeastern Spain on either side of the Pyrenees.The caves are inscribed as masterpieces of creative genius and as the humanity’s earliest accomplished art. They are also inscribed as exceptional testimonies to a cultural tradition and as outstanding illustrations of a significant stage in human history.

Altamira was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985.

In 2014 a small groups of visitors was allowed in the cave so researchers could measure their impact on the cave's temperature, humidity, microbiological contamination and CO2 levels.The results will be used to determine whether or not the cave can be reopened to the public, a controversial decision that has pitted the local tourist economy against government scientists.

Cave paintings in Romania(Colobaia)A group of spelunkers from several Romanian caver clubs, including Tudor Rus, Mihai Besesek, and Roxana Laura

Toiciu, were exploring Coliboaia using diving equipment and finally spotted the cave art. Some of the drawings could be reached only by lying in the water with one's head poking just above the surface. About half a dozen images have been found, including a bison, a horse, two bear heads, and two rhinoceros heads, very similar to animal motifs found in Western European caves.

A team of French experts visited the cave and verified that the images were indeed examples of prehistoric art. Water probably has destroyed other drawings, but these are above the water line.The discovery shows that the land was inhabited 32,000 years ago. The carbon that was used to draw them is 36,000 years old.Archeologist Jean Clottes is an expert on cave drawings and says, "The cave in Coliboaia is very important because it's the first in central Europe where we have tens of animal representations . It's also important because on the basis of the radio carbon data, we have concluded an age of 36

000 years for the carbon used for those specific drawings and 32 000 years for the drawings themselves. This places the cave in a culture that is the oldest known European culture. It's similar data as the one in the cave Chauvet in France, considered until now the oldest in Europe."

How were these paintings made?

In the Stone Age, chemistry was unknown. However, humans had learned the use of pigments for making pictures and symbols. We can see them in caves around the world.

In those days, sophisticated oil paints or water colors were unknown. However, many Stone Age tribes knew the use of coloured mineral pigments. Today we know that these pigments are made of minerals like barium manganate (blue), hematite (red), gypsum (orange), malachite (green) or limonite (yellow) ,mixed with various binders, including water, vegetable juices, urine, animal fat, bone marrow, and blood.These minerals are sometimes found in caves (which is why Stone Age art is found only in some caves). To make a pigment, the mineral was crushed into gravel by pounding with a big stone. The gravel was then ground between stones to make a powder. The paint could be applied with animal hair brushes (a technology still in use, 30,000 years later) or by tinting the hand and sticking it on the wall.

What made them last so long?Paintings made with oil or watercolour can fade after a few decades. So what made these rock paintings last?

Most of the painted caves are found either in deserts or deep underground. The air in these caves became very dry over time, and no bacteria or fungi could grow. If they could have grown, they would have released carbon dioxide, which would dissolve in moisture to form carbonic acid. Over time, the carbonic acid would corrode the paintings. In caves that weren’t dry enough, the paintings were not so lucky, vanishing over time.

Purposes of Cave painting

Like all prehistoric art, the purpose of these painting remains obscure. In recent years, new research has suggested that the Lascaux paintings may incorporate prehistoric star charts. Some anthropologists and art-historians also theorize that the paintings could be an account of past hunting success, or they could represent a mystical ritual to improve future hunting endeavors. An alternative theory, broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings pertained to shamanism.Some people believe that the cave people thought that painting animals on their walls would make animal spirits come to them and bring good fortune. Others believe that the cave paintings sometimes sent messages to other people passing through or living in the cave in the future.

David Lewis-Williams and associated archeologists have rehabilitated the interpretation of Paleolithic cave art as a form of magic by focusing on the geometric images that appear in great numbers on the cave walls, instead of the realistic depiction of animals that was Breuil's focus in his hunting magic theory. An expert on the San Bushman people of South Africa, Lewis-Williams argued, in a series of well-documented papers, that the transfigured form constants are present on cave walls painted by Bushman shamans. Shamans are ritual experts, often found in hunting communities, adept at entering trance states in which they visit the world of the spirits. They take these excusions to retrieve the lost souls of the desperately ill, to influence the weather, to oppose the forces of witchcraft , and to negotiate with the animal spirits over game. According to Lewis-Williams, the Bushman cave paintings, which were made well into the 19th century, are records of the visionary experiences of the shamans. In a more controversial series of papers and books, Lewis-Williams has argued that the form-constants that Kluver identified also underlie the geometric images of Paleolithic European cave art. The bridge that connects the two is the common neurological  makeup that the Bushman, and all currently living human beings, share with the Paleolithic hunters. When the human brain is destabilized in certain ways - through sensory deprivation, rhythmic chanting or drumming, flickering lights, certain forms of dance, as well as the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs - it reacts by generating paterns that are similar to the geometric images found in cave paintings. From these considerations, Lewis-Williams draws the conclusion that the paintings and engravings of the Old Stone Age European caves were the result of shamanic ceremonies

conducted in dark caverns deep within the earth. As Breuil had suspected, their purpose was magical. What he did not know was that the magic occurred in the context of shamanic trance.The brain physiology behind entoptic imagery does not in itself demonstrate conclusively that the geometric forms on the walls of Paleolithic caves are records of shamanic experiences. What establishes the plausibility, though not the certainty, of the shamanic interpretation of Paleolithic cave art is the recognition that the people who created them share with the San Bushman, as well as other indigenous hunting communities, a common way of making a living. Hunting big game in small communal bands requires great intimacy with the animals. The shamans who live in "primitive"  hunting communities cultivate such intimacy in their travels to the spirit world.

Conclusion:

The need to create is clearly part of the human condition, an unquenchable desire which is as old as our species and quite probably embedded in our DNA, as innate to us as eating, fighting and laughing at other people's misfortune,

and the cave paintings are the proof.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvhDb4phhzY

http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/early.html

http://www.speotimis.ro/dictionar-speologic/picturi-rupestre.html

The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by by David Lewis Williams

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/altamira-cave-paintings-open-public-spain-cantabria

Pictures:

http://arthistorytowns.blogspot.ro/2013/09/curate-understandsteal-protect.html

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/enlarge/lascaux-cave-walls-photography.html

http://museodealtamira.mcu.es/Prehistoria_y_Arte/historia.html

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/07/31/arts/international/31iht-caves31A/31iht-caves31A-master675.jpg

http://www.imperialtransilvania.com/read-more/argomenti/places-of-interest-1/articolo/coliboaia-cave-the-place-that-houses-the-worlds-oldest-cave-paintings.html

http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/new-exhibition-hall-devoted-human-origins-opens-national-museum-natural-history