How Early Humans Made Art: Methods, Materials and Intoxication | Early European History And Religion

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EARLY MODERN HUMAN ART

Laura Anne Tedesco wrote for The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Paintings and engravings found in caves along walls and ceilings are referred to as "parietal" art. The caves where paintings have been found are not likely to have served as shelter, but rather were visited for ceremonial purposes. The second category, "mobiliary" art, includes small portable sculpted objects which are typically found buried at habitation sites. In the painted caves of western Europe, namely in France and Spain, we witness the earliest unequivocal evidence of the human capacity to interpret and give meaning to our surroundings. Through these early achievements in representation and abstraction, we see a newfound mastery of the environment and a revolutionary accomplishment in the intellectual development of humankind.” [Source: Laura Anne Tedesco, Independent Scholar. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org, October 2000]

Abri Castanet cave in France, occupied as far back as 40,000 years, produced a large variety of objects and materials. The cave was a highly structured domestic site with distinct areas for various activities such as beadmaking and reindeer hide preparation. More than 90 percent of the bones found belonged to reindeer. The beads were made from soapstone for the central Pyrenees, and sea shells from both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. Tools found at the site have included keeled scrapers made from flint and spear points made of reindeer bones and antlers. Early humans may have created all kinds of stuff that was made of perishable materials that are even older or more beautiful but we will never about them because they have been lost time. Wood, for example, is one of the most plentiful and easy-to-work materials but is rots and disappears after a relatively short time.

Melissa Hogenboom wrote for the BBC: “One study proposes that our technological innovation was key for our migration out of Africa. We started to assign symbolic values to objects such as geometrical designs on plaques and cave art. There is little evidence that any other hominins made any kind of art. One example, which was possibly made by Neanderthals, was hailed as proof they had similar levels of abstract thought. However, it is a simple etching and some question whether Neanderthals made it at all. The symbols made by H. sapiens are clearly more advanced. We had also been around for 100,000 years before symbolic objects appeared so what happened? [Source: Melissa Hogenboom, BBC, July 6, 2015 |::|] “Somehow, our language-learning abilities were gradually "switched on", Tattersall argues. In the same way that early birds developed feathers before they could fly, we had the mental tools for complex language before we developed it. We started with language-like symbols as a way to represent the world around us, he says. For example, before you say a word, your brain first has to have a symbolic representation of what it means. These mental symbols eventually led to language in all its complexity and the ability to process information is the main reason we are the only hominin still alive, Tattersall argues. It's not clear exactly when speech evolved, or how. But it seems likely that it was partly driven by another uniquely human trait: our superior social skills. |::|

Websites and Resources on Prehistoric Art: Chauvet Cave Paintings archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet ; Cave of Lascaux archeologie.culture.fr/lascaux/en; Trust for African Rock Art (TARA) africanrockart.org; Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com; Australian and Asian Palaeoanthropology, by Peter Brown peterbrown-palaeoanthropology.net; Websites on Neanderthals: Neandertals on Trial, from PBS pbs.org/wgbh/nova; The Neanderthal Museum neanderthal.de/en/ ; Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Books: “Cave Art” by Jean Clottes (Phaidon, 2008); “The Cave Painters” by Gregory Curtis (2006), with interesting insights offer by a non-specialist; “The Nature of Paleolithic Art” by R. Dale Guthrie (2005); “Images of the Past” by Douglas I. Price and Gary M. Feinman (McGraw-Hill, 2006); “The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies’ edited by Chris Scarre (Thames & Hudson, 2005); “The Dawn of European Art: An Introduction to Palaeolithic Cave Painting” by André Leroi-Gourhan (Cambridge University Press, 1982); “The Origin of Modern Humans” by Roger Lewin (Scientific American Library, 1993).

Early Modern Human Painting Methods

Lascaux lamp Ancient artists used earth pigments — mainly colors ground from red and yellow ochers and blackish manganese oxides — flint chisels, limestone lamps fueled by animal fat and some kind of scaffolding to reach the high walls and ceiling. The negative hand paintings found in many caves were believed to have been made placing a hand on a cave wall and blowing pigment through a tube and spitting it out of the mouth.

Scholars speculate that the first drawing may have been made with the charred end of a burnt stick placed in a fire. Later the artists started using other material around them and experimented until they found the best substances. Some of the paintings are placed along cracks the follow the outline of an animals body, or, in the case of ta carving in La Magadelaine Cave in France, the curves of a woman's body. [Source: History of Art by H.W. Janson, (Prentice Hall)]

The Lascaux paintings were made early modern humans, using animal fat lamps — made with a plant wick placed in hollow stone — to light the cave and scaffolding to reach the cave ceiling. The "paints" came from brown, reddish-brown, yellow, black and white minerals; and it appears they were mixed and heated to get the best shading. The painting themselves were made by rubbing these minerals along the rock. Red and black are the primary colors with red being made with crushed hematite (ocher) and the black made with charcoal made from the embers of Scotch pine.

Laura Anne Tedesco wrote for The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The pigments used to paint Lascaux and other caves were derived from readily available minerals and include red, yellow, black, brown, and violet. No brushes have been found, so in all probability the broad black outlines were applied using mats of moss or hair, or even with chunks of raw color. The surfaces appear to have been covered by paint blown directly from the mouth or through a tube; color-stained, hollowed-out bones have been found in the caves. [Source: Laura Anne Tedesco, Independent Scholar. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org, October 2000]

Did Prehistoric Painters Purposely Deprive Themselves of Oxygen to Get High

ocher from Blombos Cave

Prehistoric cave dwellers in Europe starved themselves of oxygen on purpose to hallucinate while creating their wall paintings, according to a study by Tel Aviv University researchers published in the scientific journal "Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness, and Culture" in April 2021.Researchers have long wondered why so many of the world's oldest paintings were located deep inside cave systems, where it is pitch-black dark, instead of closer to cave entrances. The study argues that the location was deliberate because it induced oxygen deprivation and caused cavemen to experience a state called hypoxia.

Business Insider reported: “Hypoxia can bring about symptoms including shortness of breath, headaches, confusion, and rapid heartbeat, which can lead to feelings of euphoria, near-death experiences, and out-of-body sensations. The team of researchers believes it would have been "very similar to when you are taking drugs", the Times reported. [Source: Sophia Ankel, Business Insider, April 12, 2021]

"It appears that Upper Paleolithic people barely used the interior of deep caves for daily, domestic activities. Such activities were mostly performed at open-air sites, rock shelters, or cave entrances," the study says, "While depictions were not created solely in the deep and dark parts of the caves, images at such locations are a very impressive aspect of cave depictions and are thus the focus of this study."

“According to Ran Barkai, the co-author of the study, the cavemen used fire to light up the caves, which would simultaneously also reduce oxygen levels. Painting in these conditions was done deliberately and as a means of connecting to the cosmos, the researcher says. "It was used to get connected with things," Barkai told CNN, adding that cave painters often thought of the rock face as a portal connecting their world with the underworld, which was associated with prosperity and growth. The researcher also suggested that cave paintings could have been used as part of a kind of initiation rite.

The study focused on decorated caves in Europe, mostly in Spain and France. The cave paintings, which date from around 40,000 to 14,000 years ago, depict animals such as mammoths, bison, and ibex. "It was not the decoration that rendered the caves significant but the opposite: The significance of the chosen caves was the reason for their decoration," the study reads, according to CNN.

77,000-Year-Old Etched Ocher Found in South Africa’s Blombos Cave

Christopher Henshilwood of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and the University of Bergen, Norway discovered what some regard as the world’s oldest artwork — a piece of ocher with some 77,000-year-old ethings on them, Chip Walter wrote in National Geographic: . Some of his most memorable discoveries have come from Blombos Cave, 28 miles east of Klipdrift, near an area where he used to play as a kid. One day in 2000 his team dug out a small block of engraved red ocher a bit smaller than a flip phone. Ocher is common in this part of Africa and has been used for millennia for everything from body paint to a food preservative. This piece, though, was different: Roughly 75,000 years in the past, some clever person had carefully etched on it a pattern of overlapping, parallel, triangular markings. [Source: Chip Walter, National Geographic, January 2015 ]

“No one knows the meaning of those marks, which have since been found on 13 other pieces of ocher. A signature? Calculations? A primeval grocery list? Whatever their elusive purpose, they were 35,000 years older than any other undisputed evidence of symbolic behavior known at the time. Controversy dogged the discovery at first. Some scientists attacked the little rock as a one-off, nothing but random scratchings or idiosyncratic doodling. “They said it was meaningless,” says Henshilwood. “They said everything negative you could possibly think.” In time, however, others regarded it as a breakthrough.

“Soon more examples of symbol and ornament were uncovered. Henshilwood’s team discovered the shells of little sea snails called Nassarius that were some 75,000 years old and perforated, with evidence they had been strung together. Blombos itself kept yielding treasures: finely carved and decorated bone tools, and evidence that as long as 100,000 years ago the cave’s inhabitants had methodically ground ocher into fine powder and mixed it with other ingredients to make a paste. Stored in abalone shells—the earliest known containers—it could have been used as a decorative paint for bodies, faces, tools, or clothing. In 2009 Henshilwood reported finding more ocher and rocks marked with deliberate cross-hatchings, also dating as far back as 100,000 years” as well as 49 beads smeared with ochre.

100,000-Year-Old Art Supplies Found in South African Cave

David Herbert wrote in Archaeology magazine: “A cave in southwestern South Africa was used as a paint production workshop, where ancient artists made a liquid ochre pigment. The toolkit of shells, stone, and bone from Blombos Cave suggests Middle Stone Age humans were capable planners. [Source: David Herbert, Archaeology, January/February 2012 +]

“Similar paint-making workshops have been found, such as the one at Lascaux Cave in France. But, at 100,000 years old, the Blombos toolkit is now the oldest one uncovered. "A Middle Stone Age painter has left all his tools for us," says Francesco d’Errico, a University of Bordeaux archaeologist involved in the excavation, noting the kit’s complete and preserved state. +\

“Two abalone shells were found with ochre and mineral residue in them, along with tools resembling mortars and pestles made of stone and bone from a variety of animals. The shells used for storing the powder are caked with both yellow and red pigments, implying repeated use. The variety of tools suggests their owner returned to the cave repeatedly to grind ochre from clay found nearby, using and discarding tools as needed. +\

Aboriginal rock art from Australia

“The acquisition of different ingredients and equipment, as well as evidence of storage, "implies planning abilities that a number of researchers would have not previously granted to Middle Stone Age populations," explains d’Errico. He adds that the ochre might have been produced for painting and body decoration.” +\

100-000-Year-Old “Paint” Found in Blombos Cave

Brian Vastag wrote in the Washington Post, “A hundred thousand years ago... a craftsman — or woman — sat in a cave overlooking the Indian Ocean, crushed a soft rusty red rock, mixed it inside a shell with charcoal and animal marrow, and dabbed it on something — maybe a face, maybe a wall. Before the person left, he or she stacked the shell and grindstones in a neat pile, where they lay undisturbed for a hundred millennia. [Source: Brian Vastag, Washington Post, October 13, 2011 +++]

“Unearthed in 2008 and described in the journal Science, these paint “tool kits," researchers say, push deeper into human history the evidence for artistic impulses and complex, planned behavior. Previously, the oldest evidence of ochre paint was found at another site in South Africa dated to about 60,000 years ago." “They probably understood basic chemistry," said Christopher Henshilwood, the archaeologist who led the discovery team. +++

“Traces of paint on the tools show that the cave — dwellers mixed ochre — red or yellow minerals that contain metal oxides — with bone marrow, charcoal, flecks of quartz, and a liquid, probably water. With ground ochre as the base, the marrow and charcoal acted as binders. The quartz could have made the compound sticky, with water — in the right amount — providing the proper consistency. Paint experts at the Louvre in Paris performed the analysis. +++

“This deliberate mixture “implies that people at the time had complex cognition," said Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Wadley studies early ochre paint but was not involved in the research. “They could . . . multitask and think in abstract terms," Wadley said. The cave, called Blombos, sits in a cliff on the coast of South Africa about 180 miles east of Cape Town. It shows signs of human use starting 130,000 years ago. Protected from wind and rain and close to seafood, antelope and other game, the cave apparently made for an inviting stopover for wave after wave of nomadic hunter-gatherers. Henshilwood, who splits his time between the University of Bergen in Norway and Witwatersrand, began excavating Blombos in 1992, digging through layers of animal bones, crustacean shells and other evidence of occupation during the Paleolithic, or Stone Age. +++

“But the deepest layer, which the team reached in 2008, was different. Instead of scattered remains, two tidy “tool kits” emerged, covered by sand. Both included fist-size abalone shells and lay in neat piles. In one kit, a round stone sat inside the shell. Six other grinding or pounding stones were arrayed around the shell and were probably used to smash the ochre. A small slab — a grinding stone — rested on top of the assemblage. A shoulder blade from a seal revealed evidence of heating and marrow extraction, and paint at the end of a thin forearm bone from a dog or a wolf showed that it was used to spread the paint, Henshilwood said. +++

turtle from Australia

Ochre comes in colors from mellow yellow to raging red. Whoever made the ancient paint selected only the brightest of reds. “It could've been ornamental," Henshilwood said. Even today, groups in southern Africa paint their faces and torsos with ochre to identify which group they belong to or whether they're married. Ochre paint can also serve as a sunscreen and an insect repellant. +++

“For whatever reasons the paint was made, early humans had a fondness for ochre. “Nearly all South African sites from the Paleolithic show ochre, and it has been found at ancient sites in the Middle East and Europe, Henshilwood said. But all of those finds are tens of thousands of years younger than the Blombos paint kits.

“The cave walls show no paintings, but quickly accreting limestone would have obscured any obvious signs, Henshilwood said. He plans to return with lights that can detect traces of ochre paint. If he finds any on the walls, it would push deeper into the past solid evidence of the human artistic impulse. The oldest known cave paintings, in France, are about 35,000 years old.” +++

Rock Art in Australia Colored by Microbe Rather Than Paint

Eliza Strickland wrote in Discover: “A particular set of rock paintings dating from more than 40,000 years ago don’t seem to be made of paint anymore. According to a new study published in the journal Antiquity, the vibrant artworks were long ago colonized by colorful microbes, which serve as “living pigments” in the paintings. [Source: Eliza Strickland, Discover, December 29, 2010]

“Lead researcher Jack Pettigrew, of the University of Queensland in Australia, explains: ‘Living pigments’ is a metaphorical device to refer to the fact that the pigments of the original paint have been replaced by pigmented micro-organisms…. These organisms are alive and could have replenished themselves over endless millennia to explain the freshness of the paintings’ appearance.” [BBC News]

“When the researchers analyzed the so-called Bradshaw rock artworks found in Western Australia’s Kimberley region, they didn’t find paint. Instead they found a black fungus, probably belonging to a fungi group known as Chaetothyriales, as well as a reddish organism that is suspected to be a species of cyanobacteria.

“Successive generations of these fungi grow by cannibalising their predecessors. That means that if the initial paint layer – from tens of thousands of years ago – had spores of the fungus within it, the current fungal inhabitants may be direct descendants. The team also noted that the original paint may have had nutrients in it that “kick-started” a mutual relationship between the black fungi and red bacteria that often appear together. The fungi can provide water to the bacteria, while the bacteria provide carbohydrates to the fungi. [BBC News]

rock painting from Australia

“The constant refreshing of the microbes that make up the paintings may account for the difficulty researchers have had in dating the Bradshaw artworks. According to the study, these works have only been indirectly dated via their subject matter: they’re thought to have been painted between 70,000 years ago, when the first boab trees began growing in Australia, and 46,000 years ago, when the megafauna depicted in the paintings died out.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024