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

Author(s):  
Primitiva BUENO RAMÍREZ ◽  
undefined Rodrigo de BALBÍN BEHRMANN

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.

Author(s):  
Olivia Rivero ◽  
Juan F. Ruiz

Upper Palaeolithic art is found across much of Europe as portable (mobiliary) art, pictographs or engravings in deep caves, or as engravings in open-air sites. European Upper Palaeolithic art was among the first prehistoric art to be discovered by researchers, and it remains among the oldest dated art in the world. Since the late 1800s, a range of theoretical approaches have been used to comprehend its meaning(s), with most effort aimed at the construction of chrono-stylistic frameworks by which to understand the art’s origins and evolution over time. More recently, new analytical techniques such as radiocarbon and uranium-series dating, digital imaging, and 3-D recording have improved our abilities to analyse the art. The Iberian Peninsula is especially rich in post-Palaeolithic assemblages of varied ages, including some that progress into the Neolithic. In this context, current discussions are focused on continuities of deeply rooted Palaeolithic traditions into the Mesolithic and on ruptures at the onset of the Neolithic.


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.


1991 ◽  
Vol 57 (01) ◽  
pp. 149-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Lewis-Williams

In 1902 Emile Cartailhac published hisMea Culpa d'un Sceptique. His acceptance of the high antiquity of prehistoric art in western Europe followed Capitan and Breuil's convincing discoveries in Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles and reflected a widespread change of opinion. Despite previous scepticism, researchers were beginning to allow that the parietal as well as the mobile art did indeed date back to the Upper Palaeolithic. But this swing in scientific opinion opened up an even more baffling problem: why did Upper Palaeolithic people make these pictures? In the year following Cartailhac's turn-about Salomon Reinach tried to answer this question by developing an analogical argument based on ethnographic parallels. He could see no other way of approaching the problem: ‘Our only hope of finding outwhythe troglodytes painted and sculpted lies in asking the same question of present-day primitives with whom the ethnography reveals connections’ (Reinach 1903, 259; my translation, his emphasis).


Antiquity ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (339) ◽  
pp. 64-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Rivero ◽  
Georges Sauvet

The motifs, techniques and stylistic features of Upper Palaeolithic art offer enormous potential for the investigation of social and cultural interactions in south-western France and northern Spain during the later stages of the last ice age. The key regions of Aquitaine, Cantabria and the Pyrenees clearly share an overall family resemblance, but detailed analysis of horse heads on portable objects of bone, antler and stone from Magdalenian contexts reveal that particular features can be attributed to different regions at different periods. Furthermore, the patterns of interconnection are structured very differently in the Upper Magdalenian than in the Middle Magdalenian, perhaps as rising temperatures in the latter period led to territorial expansion and social realignment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (60) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Olstein

Abstract World history can be arranged into three major regional divergences: the 'Greatest Divergence' starting at the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 15,000 years ago) and isolating the Old and the New Worlds from one another till 1500; the 'Great Divergence' bifurcating the paths of Europe and Afro-Asia since 1500; and the 'American Divergence' which divided the fortunes of New World societies from 1500 onwards. Accordingly, all world regions have confronted two divergences: one disassociating the fates of the Old and New Worlds, and the other within either the Old or the New World. Latin America is in the uneasy position that in both divergences it ended up on the 'losing side.' As a result, a contentious historiography of Latin America evolved from the very moment that it was incorporated into the wider world. Three basic attitudes toward the place of Latin America in global history have since emerged and developed: admiration for the major impact that the emergence on Latin America on the world scene imprinted on global history; hostility and disdain over Latin America since it entered the world scene; direct rejection of and head on confrontation in reaction the former. This paper examines each of these three attitudes in five periods: the 'long sixteenth century' (1492-1650); the 'age of crisis' (1650-1780); 'the long nineteenth century' (1780-1914); 'the short twentieth century' (1914-1991); and 'contemporary globalization' (1991 onwards).


Antiquity ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 70 (268) ◽  
pp. 276-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Clottes

Trustworthy dates on charcoal from the classic European painted caves have given a sharper view of images and their making in the later Palaeolithic. The new Grotte Chauvet has its own original themes, revealing a striking and an unexpected Aurignacian art with — again — dates from charcoal in which one can have confidence.


2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Hodgson

There has been much controversy recently regarding Lewis-Williams's assertion that altered states of consciousness and shamanism can explain Palaeolithic art. Evidence now seems to be accumulating that this account is unable to provide a sustainable explanation for Upper Palaeolithic depictions. This proposition will be explored and substantiated by examining further weaknesses contained therein. Additionally, in response to claims by those defending altered states that no alternative explanation for palaeoart has been proposed as a viable alternative, it will be shown that such a description does exist but has not been given the attention it deserves because of a misplaced concern for shamanism.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1435-1444 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Shulmeister ◽  
Justine Kemp ◽  
Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons ◽  
Allen Gontz

Abstract. Here we present the results of a multi-proxy investigation – integrating geomorphology, ground-penetrating radar, and luminescence dating – of a high-elevation lunette and beach berm in northern New South Wales, eastern Australia. The lunette occurs on the eastern shore of Little Llangothlin Lagoon and provides evidence for a lake high stand combined with persistent westerly winds at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM – centring on 21.5 ka) and during the early Holocene (ca. 9 and 6 ka). The reconstructed atmospheric circulation is similar to the present-day conditions, and we infer no significant changes in circulation at those times, as compared to the present day. Our results suggest that the Southern Hemisphere westerlies were minimally displaced in this sector of Australasia during the latter part of the last ice age. Our observations also support evidence for a more positive water balance at the LGM and early Holocene in this part of the Australian sub-tropics.


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