Cave Art: Complex Paintings from the Stone Age

Sheila explores the sophistication of cave art and the prehistoric painters who created it. Learn about the techniques and pigments they used, and how much effort went into getting just the right colour!

The earliest examples of European rock art are dated to about 36,000 years ago, but it was not until around 18,000 years ago that European rock art actually flourished. This was the time following the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (22,000-19,000 years ago) when climatic conditions were beginning to improve after reaching their most critical point of the Ice Age.

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World History Encyclopedia

[wienerwoods]

I used to teach art theory and history. I used the example of Lascaux as evidence that art has not advanced one bit since the stone age. Nothing created after Lascaux is more beautiful or sophisticated. Technologically more complex and involved perhaps, but not "better" in any objective sense. Ancient artists were the same beings as their contemporaries when it came to observation and poetic depictions of the world around them. Their skill was breath taking. It's a profound and deeply moving thing to contemplate, and it's why these works still have the power to inspire awe and wonder in modern humans.

[sethother]

Here is an interesting thought, though. She mentions at 2:00 that the artist was so careful about choosing colors that is somewhat implied that he travelled 150 kilometres to get the manganese just to do the art work. This is somewhat assuming that ancient people needed to gather all their own materials, which is an easy assumption to make since these drawings predates written records. Historians seem to view writing as coinciding with the birth of agriculture and trade, since the first writings appear to be methods of doing commercial transactions. But I don't think this necessarily means that trade didn't exist before writing, or even that it didn't exist before settling on river banks for that matter. Sure, it would have become much more complex once the nomads settled, and certainly that will be reflected in the first writings. But without the writing, we don't have a whole lot of evidence to prove that tribes didn't trade with other tribes. There were just no transaction records. So it may not necessarily be that the artist travelled 150 miles for the magenta. It may have been as simple making an exchange with a vagrant tribe, and boom he has his magenta pencil. There is so much he can't even know about society that predates writing. But it's possible that further study might reveal evidence of trade and commerce being more likely than travelling 150 miles for the pencil for his drawing

[TahoeJones]

Where is the soot on the ceilings from torches?
Thousands of always dark caverns,
where sunlight cannot be reflected in.
So how did they get light for extended hours?

[kmadge]

Oh thanks. This is the first person I've heard who pays proper attention to the technique used to make these paintings.

[lovelee]

These images are created in a time we don't completely comprehend. Our brains were triggered differently. We were motivated differently.

[rb_xd]

I want a dutch subtitle here, it hard to translate to an other language

[richardjennings]

You should see the ancient art I have at my Paleolithic site Missouri, I have the oldest painted human in the world, on a middle Paleolithic tools, , extremely old

[keeyan]

Whose here thanks to Kurzgesagt and John Green?