What Is Paleolithic Art?

Author: Jean Clottes
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022618806X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
The noted archaeologist explores the varieties of prehistoric cave art across the world and offers surprising insights into its purpose and meaning. What drew our Stone Age ancestors into caves to paint in charcoal and red hematite, to watch the likenesses of lions, bison, horses, and aurochs as they flickered by firelight? Was it a creative impulse, a spiritual dawn, a shamanistic conception of the world? In this book, Jean Clottes, one of the most renowned figures in the study of cave paintings, pursues an answer to the “why” of Paleolithic art. Discussing sites and surveys across the world, Clottes offers personal reflections on how we have viewed these paintings in the past, what we learn from looking at them across geographies, and what these paintings may have meant—and what function they may have served—for their artists. Steeped in Clottes’s shamanistic theories of cave painting, What Is Paleolithic Art? travels from well-known Ice Age sites like Chauvet, Altamira, and Lascaux to visits with contemporary aboriginal artists, evoking a continuum between the cave paintings of our prehistoric past and the living rock art of today. Clottes’s work lifts us from the darkness of our Paleolithic origins to reveal surprising insights into how we think, why we create, why we believe, and who we are

The Nature of Paleolithic Art

Author: R. Dale Guthrie
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226311265
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
Publisher Description

Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit

Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615920560
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Whitley, one of the world's leading experts on cave paintings, rewrites the understanding of shamanism and its connection with artistic creativity, myth, and religion by interweaving archaeological evidence with the latest findings of cutting-edge neuroscience.

Paleolithic Politics

Author: Barry Cooper
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268107157
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 542

Book Description
Using his background in political theory and philosophical anthropology, Barry Cooper is the first political scientist to propose new interpretations of some of the most famous extant Paleolithic art and artifacts in Paleolithic Politics. This book is inspired by Eric Voegelin, one of the major political scientists of the last century, who developed an interest in the very early symbolism associated with the caves and rock shelters of the Upper Paleolithic, but never finished his analysis. Cooper, who has written extensively on Voegelin’s theories, takes up the enterprise of applying Voegelin’s approach to an analysis of portable and cave art. He specifically applies Voegelin’s philosophy of consciousness, his concept of the compactness and differentiation of consciousness, his argument regarding the experience and symbolizations of reality, and his notion of the primary experience of the cosmos to images previously regarded as pedestrian. Cooper demonstrates the political significance of the earliest expressions of human existence and is among the first to argue that political life began not with the Greeks, but 25,000 years before them. Archaeologists, prehistorians, and political scientists will all benefit from this original and provocative work.

Archaeological Thought in America

Author: C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521406437
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
American archaeology today encompasses a huge range of approaches and draws eclectically on a multitude of academic disciplines. Until now, however, there has been no book seeking to separate the main strands and traditions of research and present a rounded picture of American archaeological thought in all its diversity. The seventeen essays in Archaeological Thought in America describe recent theoretical advances and present substantive interpretations of prehistoric data drawn from a variety of cultures and time-frames, including Mesoamerica, Central Asia, India and China. The contributors include many of the leading North American archaeologists of this generation.

Climate, Clothing, and Agriculture in Prehistory

Author: Ian Gilligan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108470084
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Book Description
The first book on the origin of clothes shows why climate change was crucial - for the origin of agriculture too.

Painters of the Caves | Prehistoric Art on Cave and Rock | Fourth Grade Social Studies | Children's Art Books

Author: Baby Professor
Publisher: Speedy Publishing LLC
ISBN: 1541951697
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 73

Book Description
Did your child enjoy the school discussions on prehistoric art? Then feed that excitement even more by supplementing with this book of social studies. Through the lessons discussed in these pages, your child will learn to examine and describe the key characteristics of prehistoric cave art. Get a copy for your child today.

The Cradle of Humanity

Author: Georges Bataille
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
Art of indigenous peoples.

Stepping-Stones

Author: Christine Desdemaines-Hugon
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300159064
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 389

Book Description
“The next best thing to actually seeing the prehistoric cave art of southern Franc[e] . . . A rapturous guide through five major Ice Age sites” (Archaeology). The cave art of France’s Dordogne region is world-famous for the mythology and beauty of its remarkable drawings and paintings. These ancient images of lively bison, horses, and mammoths, as well as symbols of all kinds, are fascinating touchstones in the development of human culture, demonstrating how far humankind has come and reminding us of the ties that bind us across the ages. Over more than twenty-five years of teaching and research, Christine Desdemaines-Hugon has become an unrivaled expert in the cave art and artists of the Dordogne region. In Stepping-Stones she combines her expertise in both art and archaeology to convey an intimate understanding of the “cave experience.” Her keen insights communicate not only the incomparable artistic value of these works but also the near-spiritual impact of viewing them for oneself. Focusing on five fascinating sites, including the famed Font de Gaume and others that still remain open to the public, this book reveals striking similarities between art forms of the Paleolithic and works of modern artists and gives us a unique pathway toward understanding the culture of the Dordogne Paleolithic peoples and how it still touches our lives today. “Her vivid descriptions help readers visualize the Cro-Magnon man or woman painting the beautiful bison, horses, mammoths, and other symbols. [A] fine reading experience.” —Library Journal

Prehistoric Art

Author: Randall White
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9780810942622
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
Drawing on the most up-to-the-minute research on prehistoric art, an anthropologist presents a global survey, starting with the first explosion of imagery that occurred approximately 40,000 years ago but also including the creations of essentially "prehistoric" peoples living as recently as the early 20th century. 226 illustrations.