1. Welcome to the Stone Age

2. Prehistoric Art
Prehistory is the time before people had writing systems, which means we have NO written documents from that time!
We only have the objects and images left behind to tell us about how these people lived.

3. Prehistoric Art

4. The Stone Age is divided into three large time periods:
Paleolithic – Old Stone
(1,500,000 – 45,000 years ago)
Mesolithic – Middle Stone
(8000 to 4000 B.C.)
Neolithic – New Stone
(4000 to 2000 B.C.)

5. Prehistoric Painting
Cave painters used powered minerals to paint onto damp walls, or they mixed their own paints using animal fats, vegetable juices, water, or blood!
Hyena and Panther
Chauvet cave, Ardeche Valley, France
25,000 – 17,000 B.C.
Red ochre on limestone

6. Prehistoric Sculpture
Sculpture in the round – this means you can view the sculpture from ALL angles
Relief sculpture – this means the sculpture is attached to the original material and has a background

7. Sculpture in the Round or Relief?
Venus de Brassempouy, Brassempouy, France, 25, 000 years ago, Carved from ivory

8. Sculpture in the Round or Relief?
Bison with turned head
La Madeleine, Tarn, France
11,000 – 9,000 B.C.
Carved from Reindeer Horn

9. Paleolithic Paleolithic Nomadic hunter-gatherers Tents of animal skins
Huts of mud, plant fibers, stone, and bone
Sculptures of ivory, bone, clay, and stone
Bison with turned head
La Madeleine, Tarn, France
11,000 – 9,000 B.C.
Carved from Reindeer Horn

10. Paleolithic Paleolithic Jellyfish Cosquer cave, Marseilles, France
25, 000 B.C.
Painting on black stalagmite

11. Paleolithic Paleolithic Hall of Running Bulls
Lascaux, Dordogne, France
15,000 – 13,000 B.C.
Paint on limestone rock

12. Mesolithic Paleolithic
People began to gather around bodies of water and fishing became a major source of food.
Beginnings of agriculture
Focus on survival tools

13. Neolithic Paleolithic No longer hunter gatherers due to farming
New art form created: monumental stone architecture known as megaliths.
Megaliths are huge stone structures built without mortar (paste).

14. Paleolithic
Menhirs
Menhirs are slightly shaped single stones that stand upright in the ground.
Kerloas Menhir
France
3,000 – 4,000 B.C.

15. Paleolithic
Dolmens
Dolmens are like tables. They have two or more tall stones that support a large single stone.
Likely started as tombs and later became passageways.
Dolmen
Carnac, Brittany, France
4,000 B.C.

16. Paleolithic Cromlechs
Cromlechs are groups of menhirs arranged in circles.
Believed to be sacred spaces.
Stonehenge
Salisbury Plain, England
B.C.
Interpretations:
Giant sundial
Druid ritual site
Architectural magic conjured by Merlin

17. Paleolithic
Post and Lintel
Also called a trilithon.