Paleolithic Cave Art in Europe - Dr Jean Clottes Ice Age Europe http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/My%20Documents/Paleolithic%20Art.htm http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/sculpture/gallery.php http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/index.php Around 40,000 years ago, modern humans (Homo Sapiens) migrated to Europe. Biologically identical with contemporary humans, the migrants had the same physical and mental capacities that we possess, though they lacked the thousands of years of cultural development that are now behind us. They arrived in Europe around the height of the last glacial advance, and learned to survive in the extreme cold by sewing animal skins together into warm clothing, and hunting the migratory herds of reindeer, bison, and other big game animals that roamed Ice Age Europe. The earliest examples of European cave art that have been discovered date back approximately 32,000 years. They already include fine examples of realistic painting, and so must have been preceded by a long-term development of artistic style and technique. Their beauty still moves us more than 30 millennia after they were created. The most recent cave paintings, including some at Lascaux, date back to around 9,000 BCE. At first, the painters created their works at the cave entrances or in very shallow areas. As the millennia progressed, they ventured further, ending in the deepest parts of the caves. In order to get to such depths, they sometimes had to overcome dangerous cave-dwelling felines and bears, break through walls of stalagmites, and even cross underground lakes. Such excursions were made possible by the invention of fat-burning lamps capable of illuminating the total darkness. The incredible effort it took to penetrate into the depths of the earth suggests that the caves were not the equivalent of contemporary art galleries, and that the paintings had a sacred or ritual significance. European Ice Age Art Ice Age art can be naturalistic and figurative - it can also be geometric and non-representational. Some of the oldest works of art were found in the Schwäbische Alb, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The so-called Venus figurine known as the Venus of Hohle Fels, dates to some 40,000 years ago. Other fine examples of art from the Upper Palaeolithic (broadly 40,000 to 10,000 years ago) includes: cave painting (such as at Chauvet, Lascaux, Altamira, Cosquer, and Pech Merle), incised / engraved cave art such as at Creswell Crags,[7] portable art (such as animal carvings and sculptures like the Venus of Willendorf), and open air art (such as Côa Valley and Mazouco in Portugal, Domingo García and Siega Verde, in Spain, and Fornols-Haut in France). There are a large number of carved or engraved pieces of bone and ivory, such as the Swimming Reindeer found in France from the Magdalenian period. These include spear throwers, including one shaped like a mammoth, and many of the type of objects called a bâton de commandement. One of the most famous pieces of portable art from Britain is the Robin Hood Cave Horse from Derbyshire. Other examples include the Kendrick's Cave Decorated Horse Jaw. Dr Jean Clottes The eminent French prehistorian Jean Clottes, former director of prehistoric antiquities for the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, served as scientific advisor on prehistoric art to the French Ministry of Culture until his retirement five years ago. He is an internationally acclaimed expert on painted cave art whose research interests include not only matters of archaeological context and dating but also problems of epistemology and meaning. Born in the Pyrénées an area exceptionally rich in rock art of the early Stone Age, Dr. Clottes studied at the University of Toulouse and began his career as a language teacher, first in Britain and then for nearly fifteen years in Foix, where he also taught prehistory at the Ecole Normale d'Instituteurs. He was appointed director of prehistoric antiquities for the Midi-Pyrénées in 1971 and four years later received his Ph.D. in prehistory from Toulouse. For nearly thirty years, Dr. Clottes led excavations of Early Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age sites throughout southern France. In 1998, he headed the research team that appraised Grotte Chauvet, the extensive Paleolithic cave in the Ardèche Valley, which had been discovered just four years earlier and whose paintings, dating back some 30,000 years, rival those at Lascaux in terms of number, diversity, originality, beauty, and state of conservation. He also has evaluated the underwater cave, Cosquer, close to the mouth of the Rhone River off the coast of Marseilles, where the hands of the artists were stenciled on rock nearly 28,000 years ago.

• published: 19 Jan 2014
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