Paleolithic art in the news

[Daryl Habel]

A couple of items hit the news today which might be of interest to some here:  The first, from times.online.uk:

Stone Age artists are getting older
By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent
 
RECENT discoveries in Italy and Germany have pushed back the age of Stone Age art in Europe by several millennia. Cave painting from near Verona and carved animal figures from the Danube valley suggest that our ancestors were creating art across a broad area well before 30,000 years ago...(more) 

Nothing particularly new that has not been previously known, but  quotes by Alberto Broglio and Nicholas Conard are worth reading.
Complete story here

The other is a EurekaAlert release promoting Dale Guthrie's new book and a free public seminar to be held at University of Alaska Fairbanks on February 24.

Most cave art the work of teens, not shamans
A landmark study of Paleolithic art

Long accustomed to lifting mammoth bones from mudbanks and museum shelves and making sketches from cave art to gather details about Pleistocene animal anatomy, renowned paleobiologist and artist R. Dale Guthrie offers a fascinating and controversial interpretation of ancient cave art in his new book "The Nature of Paleolithic Art."
This ancient art was made during the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 to 35,000 years ago, and has typically been the purview of art historians and anthropologists, many of whom view Paleolithic art as done by accomplished shaman-artists. "This assumption may be true of a few of the best known and better-drawn images, but these are a small proportion of preserved Paleolithic art," Guthrie said.

Using new forensic techniques on fossil handprints of the artists and examining thousands of images, "I found that all ages and both sexes were making art, not just the senior male shamans," Guthrie said. These included hundreds of prints made as ocher, manganese, or clay negatives and a few positive prints made with pigments or mud applied to hands that were then placed on cave surfaces.

"The possibility that adolescent giggles and snickers may have echoed in dark cave passages as often as the rhythm of a shaman's chant demeans neither artists nor art," writes Guthrie....(more)

Complete release here

From the EurekaAlert release: "Guthrie will present a free public seminar on The Nature of Paleolithic Art, Friday, February 24, at 3:30 p.m. in Elvey Auditorium on the UAF campus. Seminar information available at:"
Click Here
(but I think you'll have to click the icon in the upper-right-hand box "seminar dates" to "next" or "24 Feb 06"  to advance to Guthrie's seminar information)

Dar

[trehinp]

Thanks Dar,

This is very interesting. Regardless of the final conclusions of  Pr Guthrie, I believe that it is likely differents people who were drawing or painting on cave walls or on plaquettes, or even working on satuettes during the Upper Palaeolithic. However I wouldn't be so sure about the representative art of the Neolithic which convey more meaning through a much less "perfect" artistic technique.

By comparison, one can say that most painting and sculptures of the Italian Renaissance were not the works of the priests but that of talented artists receiving orders from the church authorities. Likewise it should be quite unlikely that shamans would have been the authors of the work of art during the Upper Palaeolithic, but gifted painters or sculptors.

Interestingly enough, Jean Auel in the last volume of her famous "Children of Earth" series, "The Shelters of stones", also proposes that the "artists" were talented individuals rather than the shaman.

Yours sincerely.

Paul

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

A couple of items hit the news today which might be of interest to some here:  The first, from times.online.uk:

Stone Age artists are getting older
By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent
 
RECENT discoveries in Italy and Germany have pushed back the age of Stone Age art in Europe by several millennia. Cave painting from near Verona and carved animal figures from the Danube valley suggest that our ancestors were creating art across a broad area well before 30,000 years ago...(more) 

Nothing particularly new that has not been previously known, but  quotes by Alberto Broglio and Nicholas Conard are worth reading.
Complete story here

<snip>

Dar

Dar

Apologies for not bringing this up earlier, but the link you kindly provided us with is to a piece that, in my view short changes the full range of information of the publication it is based on and whose full reference is:

Broglio, Alberto and Giampaolo Dalmeri (Eds.) 2005. Pitture Paleolitiche Nelle Prealpi Venete – Grotta di Fumane e Riparo Dalmeri. Memorie del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona – 2. serie – Sezione Scienze dell’Uomo 9.

It consists of a lengthy report on what was presented at a symposium (including a round table) that was held in 2003, in Verona, Italy. The book -- 190 pages containing an impressive number of very readable illustrations – is divided in three major sections: the first one on Fumane Cave and its Aurignacian content and significance, the second on a number of papers that came out of the round table, and the third one on the late Epi-Gravettian evidence from the Dalmeri rockshelter. And for those of us who are linguistically challenged, the book’s sections are all accompanied by lengthy and informative abstracts in French and/or English. Anyone interested in finding out more about these should get in touch with me directly. In the meantime, here is below a scan of the cover page, and you can click here to download a high resolution copy of the TOCs.

HERE.

Jacques

[trehinp]

Thanks for the info Jacques.

I am quite intrigued by the illustration at the bottom of your post.

What I find puzzling is that the style of these two pictures is generally more associated with Neolithic artistic representations while the book title is “Palaeolithic paintings in the Venetian Pre-alps”.

Which paper(s), taken from the index, provide the best analysis of the art in the Fumane Cave? (I have no problem with Italian language)

Yours sincerely.

Paul

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Thanks for the info Jacques.

I am quite intrigued by the illustration at the bottom of your post.

What I find puzzling is that the style of these two pictures is generally more associated with Neolithic artistic representations while the book title is “Palaeolithic paintings in the Venetian Pre-alps”.

Which paper(s), taken from the index, provide the best analysis of the art in the Fumane Cave? (I have no problem with Italian language)

Yours sincerely.

Paul

Paul,

The image on the left is from the "Grotta di Fumane" and, therefore considered "Aurignacian". As for the one on the right, I can only guess that it comes from the "Riparo Dalmeri" and is datable to the late Epi-Gravettian.

But for the first two papers of the "Fumane" section, they all focus on various, detailed analytical facets of the "art" in question

Cordialement,

Jacques