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.

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.

European Art: the Palaeolithic Legacy?

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Bednarik
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Southern France ◽  
Northern Portugal ◽  
Age Estimates ◽  
Cave Art ◽  
Art Experts

The recent discovery of open-air rock engravings in the Côa valley of northern Portugal has been followed by a vigorous debate over their true age. On grounds of style and of stylistic parallels, many rock art specialists attribute the Côa engravings (and similar carvings at a handful of other sites in Iberia and southern France) to the Upper Palaeolithic, contemporary with the more famous cave art ofLascaux and elsewhere. Attempts so far to date the Côa engravings by scientific techniques have produced relatively recent age estimates for this art. Robert Bednarik has been among the strongest proponents of such a recent date, and in this noe he seeks to explain how the Côa art could be Holocene, or even late Holocene, yet still bear striking stylistic resemblance to carvings or other representations of known Palaeolithic age. In the spirit of the debate, we have invited three rock art experts to comment on Bednarik's theory of artistic continuity, and have appended his own reply to these responses.

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.

Pleistocene Images outside Europe.

1991 ◽  
Vol 57 (01) ◽  
pp. 91-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Bahn
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Central Basin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Artistic Activity ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Dating Methods ◽  
The World ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Different Parts

At first sight it may seem a pointless exercise to produce a survey of late Pleistocene ‘artistic activity’ around the world, but there are two specific aims involved here: first, to show that human beings in different parts of the world were producing ‘art’ at roughly the same time, i.e. from about 40,000 BC onward, and particularly at the end of the Pleistocene, from about 12,0000 BC, and second, to show that the well known Ice Age art of Europe is no longer unique, but part of a far more widespread phenomenon (Bahn 1987; Bahn and Vertut 1988, 26–32). The European art remains supreme in its quantity and its ‘quality’ (i.e. its realism and its wide range of techniques), but that situation may well alter in the next decade or two as new discoveries are made elsewhere and new dating methods are refined and extended.Ironically, the first clue to Pleistocene art outside Europe was found as long ago as 1870, only a few years after Edouard Lartet's and Henry Christy's discoveries in southern France were authenticated. Unfortunately, the object in question was badly published, and dis-appeared from 1895 until its rediscovery in 1956, and consequently very few works on Pleistocene art mention it. This mineralized sacrum of an extinct fossil camelid was found at Tequixquiac in the northern part of the central basin of Mexico. The bone is carved and engraved (two nostrils have been cut into the end) so as to represent the head of a pig-like or dog-like animal (pl. 18a). The circumstances of its discovery are unclear, but it is thought to be from a late Pleistocene bone bed, and to be at least 11,000 or 12,000 years old (Aveleyra 1965; Messmacher 1981,94). At present it is on exhibit in Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.

Flint and Fauna

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Weiner ◽  
Chris Stringer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Fresh State ◽  
Self Consistent ◽  
The World ◽  
The Times ◽  
Centre Piece ◽  
Cave Art

The manifestly fraudulent elements in the man-ape combination called Eoanthropus dawsoni are the filed down molars and canine, the Vandyke brown staining of the latter and the iron-coloration of the jaw. Taken with the massive evidence of the complete incompatibility of jaw and cranium, those fabrications assure us of the enormity of the larger deception, the foisting of a spurious fossil human ancestor on to the world of palaeontology. The plot achieved its great success because it provided in the spurious fossil a self-consistent array of evidence and this fitted well with the presumed antiquity of the gravels of the Sussex Ouse; for that antiquity there was supporting testimony in the presence of palaeolithic tools and remains of animals of the earliest phase of the Ice Age. But now with the centre-piece proved spurious, what of its appurtenances? Since the jaw is no fossil, but a recent intrusion and a deliberate one, can we help but suspect these other objects in the gravel, impressive and persuasive as the fossil animals and implements appear on first sight? The club-like bone implement discovered in 1914 ranks next to the skull as the most remarkable of the discoveries at Piltdown. Implements of bone are well-known to have been used in the late Ice Age, for example, by men of the cave-art period. Not only is the Piltdown specimen entirely unique in its shape, but as a primitive tool, which Dawson and Woodward were confident it was, it would rank as by far the earliest ever used; in the words of the discoverers, ‘their opinion was that the working and cutting of the bone were done when it was in a comparatively fresh state’. Moreover, Woodward had identified the bone as one which in all likelihood had been obtained from the femur of a very early species of elephant. Judging from the other elephant and mastodon remains, such an animal would certainly have been in existence in the times of Piltdown man.

The age of the Côa valley (Portugal) rock-art: validation of archaeological dating to the Palaeolithic and refutation of ‘scientific’ dating to historic or proto-historic times

Antiquity ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 69 (266) ◽  
pp. 883-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Zilhão
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic

The dating studies of the ‘modern rock-art scientists’, when critically examined, are found not to show that the Côa valley petroglyphs are of recent age. Their Upper Palaeolithic characteristics, and therefore their likely late Pleistocene age, are consistent with their archaeological context.

scholarly journals The end of the Ice Age in southern Europe: Iberian images in the Palaeolithic to Post-Palaeolithic transition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Primitiva BUENO RAMÍREZ ◽  
undefined Rodrigo de BALBÍN BEHRMANN
Keyword(s):  
Early Holocene ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Future Challenge ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Social Traits ◽  
Graphic Representations ◽  
The World ◽  
Prehistoric Art ◽  
Palaeolithic Art

The documentation of Palaeolithic art in the open air, together with direct dates for parietal art and the study of territories marked by the last hunter groups in southern Europe, supports new interpretations of Palaeolithic art and its continuity in the early Holocene. We provide updated information about the graphic representations in that time of transition, grouped under the term Style V. We also reflect on the chronological framework of some themes and techniques for which dates are available, from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. These topics reveal the strength of the Palaeolithic background in more recent versions of prehistoric art, especially the schematic art associated with the first farmers. These new considerations are added to the presence of ­Palaeolithic and Post-Palaeolithic art throughout Europe and all over the world, which shows how symbols are social traits of communication associated with human groups. The study of con­nections through these archaeological items, with their undeniable materiality, is a future challenge that will ­undoubtedly produce interesting results.

scholarly journals CONCILIATE ROCK ART, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GEOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF DECORATED CAVES: THE CASE OF SAINT-FRONT CAVE (OR MAMMOTH’S CAVE, DOMME) AND FEW OTHER CAVERNS FROM DORDOGNE (FRANCE)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Cretin ◽  
S. Madelaine ◽  
F.V. Le ◽  
A. Morala ◽  
D. Armand ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rock Art ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Common System ◽  
European Area ◽  
South West ◽  
Frame Potential ◽  
The Common ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Lascaux Cave ◽  
Cave Art

French South-West, especially the Dordogne region, is one of the richest European area of Palaeolithic sites, whether for human dwelling (including epony-mous and very famous sites like La Madeleine) as for Upper Palaeolithic rock art (of which Lascaux cave, Rouffignac cave, Font-de-Gaume cave, etc.). Those two categories are testimony of organization of daily life and livelihood strategies on one side, and the common system of values and meaning (culture) on the other side. Those two aspects are however very difficult to bring together. For adorned caves, it is often difficult to cross data coming from the walls and ground from a same decorated cave, data sometimes acquired separately. One way to deal with this problem is to develop a multi-disciplinary approach, which allows to combine rock art, archaeological and geological studies and which implies interactions and dialogs between many specialists. This goal, which goes be-yond simply providing archaeological and geological contexts for an image or a group of images, leads to the development of new approaches. Fig. 1. This paper proposes to present cases to the interdisciplinary study of the Great Saint-Front Cave (or Mammoths cave) and other adorned sites, studied within the frame of a collective research program, conducted from 2013 to 2016 and called Archologie des grottes ornes de Dordogne: cadre conceptuel, potentiel et ralit (Cave art archaeology: conceptual frame, potential and reality).

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