Rock Art: Origin, History and Main Characteristics

Rock art is a term that is used to define the art that was formerly done in rocks and mainly inside caverns. Considering that the term also encompasses everything related to the stone, it also includes carvings and all kinds of artistic representation that manifests or has manifested using rocks or stones.

The study of this art suggests that the drawings and expressions are not only decorative expressions, but it is theorized that they were also used to communicate with other people. In fact, many of these works have been found in caves that do not have easy access and in areas where there are no indices that they were inhabited.

The term rock art is commonly associated only with the paintings that are made in the stones, and while this was the most common way of expressing oneself in antiquity, the humans of yesteryear also sculpted forms to express themselves artistically and socially.

Origins and history

The use of art as a form of expression varies throughout the world and different manifestations have been found in different periods. It originated as one of the first forms of human (and even Neanderthal) expression before ancient languages ​​existed.

It has been quite complicated to determine the origin of rock art because usually the caves and rocks are contaminated with material from other eras (newer or older). As the study that is used to determine the age of a rock is the radiocarbon, the results that it throws end up being quite ambiguous and are not reliable.

However, advances in technology have made it possible to find more accurate results in this area.

Only in France and Spain have been found more than 340 areas containing rock art and it is estimated that the oldest painting of an animal that has been found is that of a pig on an island in Indonesia, whose age seems to be almost 35000 years.

The oldest painting in Europe is almost 38,000 years old and was found in Spain. This date coincides with the antiquity of the first homosapiens that were found in Europe. However, some scientists claim that many cave paintings were created by the closest ancestor of humans: the Neanderthal.

New studies (2018)

Upgrade: an article from Science published in February 2018 states that the cave paintings of La Pasiega (Spain) are of near-dentales and are from more than 64,800 years ago, 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe.

characteristics

The characteristics of rock art vary depending on the type of art you are referring to. The three types of cave art that have been categorized are pictograms, petroglyphs and earth figures.

Pictograms

Pictograms are works of art depicted on rocks or rocky surfaces. This is the branch of rock art to which more reference is made and is the one that includes all the prehistoric paintings, such as those of the Altamira caves.

This painting was made with minerals from Earth and other natural components found throughout the world. The colors that were most used were red, black and white.

White is possibly one of the simplest to create, since it was mostly natural chalk. Red was obtained by the discoloration of the ocher clay of the earth and black was pure coal.

Petroglyphs

The petroglyphs are carvings that were made in the rocks. To create them, small, hard rocks were used to damage the surface of another softer rock and to shape it. There were societies that selected the type of stone with which it was carved based on religious beliefs.

A second stone could also be used when carving, as if it were a chisel. In fact, this was one of the first artistic uses that was given to this tool.

There was a third technique, not so common, that consisted in carving the stone with long metallic threads, but the result was almost imperceptible and its use was not extensive.

Earth figures

Earth figures are designs or huge motifs that are created on rocky surfaces. The designs had different attributions, mainly religious.

One of the most famous examples of this type of art can be seen in Peru, and is known as the Nazca Lines, where more than 300 forms of animals and plants were represented.

Palaeolithic rock art

The cave art of the Paleolithic is one of the oldest art forms known. It is to this type of art that the expression"prehistoric art"refers. The first indications of this art were found in Europe, but there is evidence that it may have originated in Africa first.

The appearance of art in this period is what defines the Paleolithic and is considered a revolutionary invention for the time.

The most common types of creations in this era were simple jewelry, cave painting, drawings, scratching, engravings and sculptures. It was in this period that the figures of Venus were created.

The human figures who painted and sculpted the most at this time were those of women; although men were also represented, their presence was limited more to creations related to hunting.

In the same way, the most common thing in the Palaeolithic period was to represent all kinds of animals in the paintings of the caves, mainly deer and animals that used to be chased in the hunt, as well as other predators.

Rock art in the Iberian Peninsula

More than 700 places have been found in Spain with artistic representations that are believed to have been created in the Stone Age. This art, which consists of the creation of small figures of animals and humans, is the best preserved of this period of humanity, not only in Europe but also throughout the world.

It was a popular art over several thousand years and its most common representations are well preserved in caves throughout eastern Spain.

It also refers to this art as rock art of the Mediterranean Iberian basin, and although there are a lot of sites located near the sea, many also reach Aragón and Castilla-La Mancha.

References

1. Devlet, Ekaterina (2001). "Rock Art and the Material Culture of Siberian and Central Asian Shamanism"(PDF). The Archeology of Shamanism. pp. 43-54. Taken on February 2, 2018.
2. Rock Art, (n.d.), February 13, 2018. Taken from Wikipedia.org
3. Hirst, K. Kris. "Cave Art", (n.d.). Taken from about.com.
4. Parietal Art, (n.d.), November 28, 2017. Taken from Wikipedia.org
5. "Cave paintings change ideas about the origin of art", Ghosh, Pallab. BBC News Taken from bbc.com
6. Parietal Art, (n.d.), February 22, 2018. Taken from Wikipedia.org
7. Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin, (n.d.), December 21, 2017. Taken from Wikipedia.org
8. Rock Art of the Upper Paleolithic, (n.d.), January 30, 2018. Taken from Wikipedia.org
9. Tim Appenzeller (2018). Europe's first cave artists were Neanderthals, newly dated paintings show. Taken from sciencemag.org.