Parietal art east of Western Europe

[Daryl Habel]

To all, especially Paul,

I had to go to the library and take out the book:

Jelenik, Jan (1975). The Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Evolution of Man. New York: Hamlyn.

To answer Paul's question about parietal art east of Western Europe, Jelinek says (1975:283: "Outside western Europe only two sites are known with paintings dating undoubtedly from the Paleolithic period; this is the Kapova cave in the southern Urals (USSR) and the Ait Tsenker cave in Mongolia."

Jelinek doesn't have anything else on these in his text, but does have some photographs of the mammoths drawn in Kapova Cave, as well as photographs of the rock art drawn on the cliffs above the Lena River in Siberia at Shishinko (which is late and might be Mesolithic).

I've scanned these photographs into a 2.8 Mb (hefty) pdf. which I'm sending to Paul, but if anyone else is interested, send me an email and I'll attach the pdf in return.

I've mentioned the exfoliated pieces found in southern German caves.  This information comes from:

Conard, N.J. & Floss, H. (1999). Une pierre peinte du Hohle Fels (Baden-Wurttemberg, Allemagne). et la question de l'art parietal paleolithique en Europe centrale (A painted stone from Hohle Fels (Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany). Paleo. No. 11. pp.? (please excuse missing accents and umlauts.)

"The archaeological layer from which the find was excavated is radiocarbon dated to ca. 13,000 BP, and based on stylistic comparisons with parietal and mobile art, the painted wall fragment appears to be of Magdalenian age" (Conard & Floss 1999: English abstract).

Apparently there have been claims for other Paleolithic wall paintings (exfoliated onto the stratigraphy) from the Swabian caves, but this one supposedly is the "best evidence".

Also, I forgot to mention the two petroglyphs in Auditorium cave, Bhimbetka, India (Bahn & Vertut 1997:24), with reference to Bednarik), which were covered by an Acheulean occupation layer (probably at least 150-200 kyr old).

Bahn, P.G. & Vertut, J. (1997) Journey Through the Ice Age. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

And the voluminous  Australian parietal art is east of western Europe, also.

There might be a few I've missed, but it is true that Paleolithic parietal art is rare east of Western Europe (except in Australia).

Dar

[trehinp]

To all, especially Paul,

 <Snip>

I've scanned these photographs into a 2.8 Mb (hefty) pdf. which I'm sending to Paul, but if anyone else is interested, send me an email and I'll attach the pdf in return.

 <Snip>

And the voluminous  Australian parietal art is east of western Europe, also.


Dar

 Thanks a lot Dar,

I received the pictures. They are excellent. The two mammoth on the first page seem to have the facture and style of Palaeolithic paintings, similar to those found in Western Europe at various periods.

The comments on the illustrations on the second page confirmed my impression of Mesolithic style, concerning the two bulls (of cows for the one above) on the left side of the page. The picture on the right side is not dated but may probably be Neolithic.

The evolution of drawings and paintings from Palaeolithic to Neolithic seems to have followed a trend towards more schematically styled representations.

Concerning your remark about Australian art, I completely agree, it is awesome.  

I have read several books about this art. It is quite different from the Western Europe prehistoric art. In itself it challenges most theories of art origins and evolution.

on one side, I have not found realistic pictures or paintings of a style similar to the one found in the occidental art western Europe and even some African engravings.  
On the other side, some of the Australian art is absolutely unique and has no equivalent in the rest of the world.

I think that these remarks would justify a specific discussion thread. As moderator, what do you think of the idea?

Paul

[Daryl Habel]

Paul,

Well, while I'm not sure what you are implying about there being no "realistic pictures or paintings of a style similar to the one found in the occidental art [of] Western Europe" in the Australian petroglyphs and paintings, I'd have to say that in many illustrations I've seen in both Jelinek's (1975) book and in Bahn & Vertut's (1997) "Journey Through the Ice Age", Australian parietal art seem every bit as realistic as that of "realistic" Western European representational art.  However, perhaps you are referring to style.  In either case,  Australian parietal art is still relevant to this thread title.

But if you wish to expand into artwork styles and motifs, both parietal and mobile, perhaps a new thread title is advised.

Best,
Dar

[trehinp]

Dar,

What I meant by no "realistic pictures or paintings of a style similar to the one found in the occidental art [of] Western Europe",  was that in all the research I've made on the web as well as a thorough reading of the three books on Australia prehistory (ref bellow), I have not seen a single painting or drawing that matches the level of representational skills found in the horses of Chauvet, in the horses in Niaux, of the bisons in Rouffignac.

Not that Australian rock art is to be considered less interesting, quite the contrary, it seems to convey a lot more symbolic meaning than the palaeolithic art described above.  The Panaramitee style, just to quote one, is absolutely marvelous. Yet from a pure painting or darwing techniques there doesn't seem to be examples of such advanced skills as these later art styles.

But Australian art is very rich and I may have missed images that would match that level of technique in the Western Europe palaeolithic art.

I must admit that I had some difficulties with getting dates for most of the pictures I saw. But even without dates, none of the pictures I've found so far reach the level of representational technique I'm describing above.

If you know examples of such art in Australia let me know.

With regard to a specific thread on Australian prehistoric art it was a suggestion to you as moderator. If there are enough members on this forum who are interested, it might be interesting. I find quite intriguing the sequence of art styles in Australia. I find also fascinating the "x-ray" style, which to my knowledge is unique to Australian art. But that's only one interested member :-)


Paul

References to some australian rock art :
J. Flood, "Rock Art of the Dreamtime", Harpercollins publishers, Australia 1997
J. Flood, "The Riches of Anciant Australia", University of Queensland Press, Australia 1990
J. Mulvaney, J. Kamminga, "Prehistory of Australia", Allen&Unwin , Australia 1999