SAMPLE Humanities

Chapter3: Prehistoric Era (290,000–5,000 BCE) Overview This chapter will trace the earliest examples of visual art from more than 40,000 years ago or even before recorded history began ( prehistory ). It will cover how early humans attempted to control their surroundings by, for example, painting lifelike animals on the walls of caves as seen in Paleolithic art. After which, we’ll discuss mesolithic and neolithic artworks to see how art representations changed throughout prehistory. Objectives

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to: ● state the key artworks per prehistoric era ● discuss the speculations of why experts think these artworks were created

A. Paleolithic Era Art (40,000–10,000 BCE) Paleolithic artists painted graceful and realistic animals on the walls of caves and carved stone statuettes of females as symbols of fertility to master their environment. Caves in southwest Europe hold some of humanity's most ancient paintings and engravings Images often show animals and may have been ritual worship sites. Often these sculptures showed pregnant women or exaggerated female sexuality. The Paleolithic sites of Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain have yielded some of the most famous examples of this type of art. Additionally, early humans carved stone statuettes of females, which were likely meant to symbolize fertility. The "Venus" figures of Willendorf, Lespugue, and Lausell are some of the best-known examples of this type of artifact.

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