Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art: Topography, Distortion, Animation and Participation in the Production and Experience of Cantabrian Cave Art

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-688
Author(s):  
Takashi Sakamoto ◽  
Paul Pettitt ◽  
Roberto Ontañon-Peredo
Keyword(s):  
Physical Nature ◽  
3D Modelling ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Quantitative Manner ◽  
Cave Wall ◽  
Animal Images ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Viewing Position ◽  
Cave Art

The physical nature of cave walls and its impact on Upper Palaeolithic image making and viewing has frequently been invoked in explanations about the function of cave art. The morphological features (convexities, concavities, cracks and ridges) are frequently incorporated into the representations of prey animals that dominate the art, and several studies have attempted to document the relationship between the cave wall and the art in a quantitative manner. One of the effects of such incorporation is that undulating walls will distort the appearance of images as viewers change their viewing position. Was this distortion deliberate or accidental? Until now, the phenomenon has not been investigated quantitatively. We address this here, analysing 54 Late Upper Palaeolithic animal images deriving from three Cantabrian caves, Covalanas, El Pendo and El Castillo. We introduce a novel use for photogrammetry and 3D modelling through documenting the morphology of these caves’ walls and establishing the specific relationship between the walls and the art created on them. Our observations suggest that Palaeolithic artists deliberately placed images on very specific topographies. The restricted nature of these choice decisions and the fact that the resulting distortions could have been avoided but were not suggest that the interaction between viewer, art and wall was integral to the way cave art functioned.

Travelling Through the Rock to the Otherworld: The Shamanic ‘Grammar of Mind’ Within the Rock Art of Siberia

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-432
Author(s):  
Andrzej Rozwadowski
Keyword(s):  
Rock Art ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rock Surface ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
The World ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Universal Nature ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Cave Art

One of the aspects of the relationship between rock art and shamanism, which has been supposed to be of a universal nature, inspired by trance experience, concerns the intentional integration of the images with rock. Rock surface therefore has been interpreted, in numerous shamanic rock-art contexts, as a veil beyond which the otherworld could be encountered. Such an idea was originally proposed in southern Africa, then within Upper Palaeolithic cave art and also other rock-art traditions in diverse parts of the world. This paper for the first time discusses the relevance of this observation from the perspective of unquestionable shamanic culture in Siberia. It shows that the idea of the otherworld to be found on the other side of the rock actually is a widespread motif of shamanic beliefs in Siberia, and that variants of this belief provide a new mode of insight into understanding the semantics of Siberian rock art. Siberian data therefore support previous hypotheses of the shamanic nature of associating rock images with rock surface.

Nahal Ein Gev I : A Late Upper Palaeolithic Site by the Sea of Galilee, Israel

Paléorient ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Belfer-Cohen ◽  
A. Davidzon ◽  
A. N. Goring-Morris ◽  
Daniel E. Lieberman ◽  
M. Spiers
Keyword(s):  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic

Palaeolithic Cave Art at Creswell Crags in European Context

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Southern France ◽  
European Context ◽  
The World ◽  
Cave Art ◽  
Illustrated Book

Cave art is a subject of perennial interest among archaeologists. Until recently it was assumed that it was largely restricted to southern France and northern Iberia, although in recent years new discoveries have demonstrated that it originally had a much wider distribution. The discovery in 2003 of the UK's first examples of cave art, in two caves at Creswell Crags on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, was the most surprising illustration of this. The discoverers (the editors of the book) brought together in 2004 a number of Palaeolithic archaeologists and rock art specialists from across the world to study the Creswell art and debate its significance, and its similarities and contrasts with contemporary Late Pleistocene ("Ice Age") art on the Continent. This comprehensively illustrated book presents the Creswell art itself, the archaeology of the caves and the region, and the wider context of the Upper Palaeolithic era in Britain, as well as a number of up-to-date studies of Palaeolithic cave art in Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy which serve to contextualize the British examples.

The Palaeolithic of Klithi in its wider context

1992 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tool ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Village ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
Palaeolithic Archaeology

Klithi is a rockshelter in the lower reaches of the Voidomatis gorge, near the village of Klithonia in Epirus. Excavations in progress since 1983 have revealed evidence of a late Upper Palaeolithic occupation dated between 16,000 BP and 10,000 BP, with rich microlithic stone tool industries and faunal assemblages dominated by chamois and ibex. The excavations have been accompanied by wider investigations of the local and regional palaeoenvironment and reexamination of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites excavated by Eric Higgs in the 1960s, notably Kokkinopilos, Asprochaliko, and Kastritsa. This paper presents some of the detailed results of the Klithi excavations and sets the results within the wider context of the global issues which inform the study of Palaeolithic archaeology, the Palaeolithic of Greece as a whole, and the regional picture of Palaeolithic settlement in Epirus.

scholarly journals Searching for the Scottish Late Upper Palaeolithic: A case study from Nethermills Farm, Aberdeenshire

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Torben Bjarke Ballin ◽  
Caroline Wickham-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Tool ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic

In connection with the recent examination, cataloguing and discussion of approximately 30,000 mainly Mesolithic lithic artefacts from Nethermills Farm at Banchory in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, excavated by the late James Kenworthy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a small number of finds were identified as almost certainly whole or fragmented Late Upper Palaeolithic lithic artefacts, and others as pieces likely to date to this period. The Nethermills flint objects add to a growing list of Late Upper Palaeolithic sites and implements identified across Scotland, including tanged and other points, scrapers, and truncated pieces from Howburn in South Lanarkshire and Kilmelfort Cave on the Scottish west-coast, as well as tanged and other points from the Western and Northern Isles, with eastern Scotland so far having yielded none. On the basis of this case study, the authors suggest an approach for the continued search for Late-Glacial settlers in Scotland in general, as well as for further investigation of the large Nethermills Farm assemblage. The proposed approach suggests that we focus not only on diagnostic tool forms (in particular, tanged and backed points), which have been the focus of Scottish Late Upper Palaeolithic research thus far, but also include other chronologically significant elements, such as diagnostic technological attributes and full operational schemas.

scholarly journals Mid and Late Upper Palaeolithic in the Adriatic Basin: Chronology, transitions and human adaptations to a changing landscape

2022 ◽  
Vol 276 ◽  
pp. 107319
Author(s):  
Aitor Ruiz-Redondo ◽  
Nikola Vukosavljević ◽  
Antonin Tomasso ◽  
Marco Peresani ◽  
William Davies ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Adriatic Basin

Sexual dimorphism in Upper Palaeolithic hand stencils

Antiquity ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 80 (308) ◽  
pp. 390-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean R. Snow
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dimorphism ◽  
Adult Male ◽  
Human Hand ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Roles ◽  
Adult Females ◽  
Palaeolithic Art ◽  
Cave Art

Sexual roles in deep prehistory are among the most intriguing puzzles still to solve. Here the author shows how men and women can be distinguished by scientific measurement in the prints and stencils of the human hand that occur widely in Upper Palaeolithic art. Six hand stencils from four French caves are attributed to four adult females, an adult male, and a sub-adult male. Here we take a step closer to showing that both sexes are engaged in cave art and whatever dreams and rituals it implies.

Light, Human Evolution, and the Palaeolithic

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Pettitt ◽  
Stefanie Leluschko ◽  
Takashi Sakamoto
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Evolutionary Significance ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Low Light ◽  
Light Production ◽  
Constituent Component ◽  
Palaeolithic Art ◽  
Cave Art

Human light-producing technology (i.e. the controlled use of fire) evolved during the Palaeolithic. Among its more obvious advantages to survival (heat, cooking, protection), fire-provided light in the form of hearths and lamps probably had considerable evolutionary significance. As human symbolic systems spread with the late Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic in Eurasia, it became a constituent component of European cave art. After reviewing the biological basis of human perception in low-light situations, we examine the existing evidence for the evolution of controlled use of fire (light production), and focus on its use in the performance of Upper Palaeolithic art and other activities in the deep caves of Western Europe.

VeriWcation of the Age of the Palaeolithic Cave Art at Creswell Crags

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair W. G. Pike ◽  
Mabs Gilmour
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Current Level ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Arm Span ◽  
Almost All ◽  
International Experts ◽  
Bison Priscus ◽  
Critical Reason ◽  
Cave Art

Upon discovery of the Creswell cave art in April 2003, and a systematic survey and study of known images in June of the same year, it was believed on several grounds that the art was clearly of Pleistocene antiquity (Pettitt 2003). The reasoning was as follows: . The sharp line and bright colour of engraved graffiti dating to the 1940s stand in clear contrast to the eroded and dulled nature of the genuine art. Clearly, on the grounds of weathering the art is not a modern forgery. . In several places, thin flowstone crusts clearly overlay engravings, demonstrating a degree of antiquity for the art. . The location of almost all of the art at heights considerably above the reach of an adult’s arm span, given the current level of the floor in Church Hole Cave, indicates that if the engravings were made after 1876 (when the sediments were excavated down to their current levels) a ladder would have been necessary. While this cannot be ruled out, it would imply considerable effort in forging the art, certainly to avoid drawing attention to the perpetrator. . Several images bear clear resemblances to known Upper Palaeolithic art, particularly that of the Magdalenian, both in terms of style and subject matter. By contrast, none of the art can be said to have Holocene parallels, that is, if it were Mesolithic or later, it would be unique. On the grounds of parsimony it seems that the closest estimate of antiquity therefore was Pleistocene. . At least one of the images (the large bovid) represents a species known to be extinct in Europe, either since the seventeenth century (if identified as Bos primigenius) or the Late Pleistocene (if Bison priscus). The discovery team were therefore confident from the first that genuine Upper Palaeolithic cave art had been discovered. This having been said, a critical reason for the ‘Creswell Art in European Context’ conference was to expose the art to the scrutiny of international experts in Palaeolithic archaeology and rock art, and the clear consensus of the conference delegates was that the art is genuine.

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