Lascaux Cave History
Foundations of Civilization Report
High quality and antiquity make cave paintings a sight to see. With only about 350 of them having been found so far, their importance to archaeology is always increasing. Incredibly old, they both give insight as to who and what lived in that region’s past, and help archaeologists learn about early painting methods. While the most well known is the Lascaux Caves, they are all important to understanding the history of various areas. With no written language at the time, this was the closest early civilizations came to putting their writing down on paper.
Early painting methods were completely different than today's methods. According to BBC News, early artists made certain paintings by pressing hands into …show more content…
their cave walls and carefully blowing paint around. This may have been because of the lack of paintbrushes at that time. An alternative website on visual arts describes the materials they used in painting. While they started with simple scratches into the rock, they would later use charcoal, manganese, and other pigments in place of paint. When done, they had created beautiful works that would stand the test of time. Mostly depicting animals (the ones that were hunted for game), there were occasionally stylized humans, symbols, and handprints.
These paintings, while being amazing as art, also hold a different purpose.
Scientists have used the caves to look into the past. Due to most of the art being hunted game, archaeologists have learned about what kinds of animals lived in the area, and which ones were killed for meat. A drawing in the Leang Timpuseng cave in Sulawesi, for example, gives evidence that babirusas were found in the region. The handprints might help find out how many people had passed through the cave. What were thought to be unimportant scribbles are considered by some scientists to be the turning point when ancient people when from realistic drawings to the symbolical. The Guardian has comprised a list of such drawings on their website, to show the variations. This being said, there is as much history in these as there is beauty.
These symbolical scribbles are also important for another reason. There is the chance that these were the beginning of written language. Defined by Crystal Links, a pictograph is when a symbol is used to represent an object or concept, not unlike the written languages of today. Egyptian pictographs, for example, told the history of their gods. Interestingly, Egyptian writing holds similarities with the cave painting symbols, the water of the Nile being comparable to early finger fluting images. Such similarities should not be possible, due to geographical
differences.
To sum up, cave paintings are an extremely important part of their region’s history. Even with there lack of numbers, they have withstood the test of time and brought important details to light. These exceptional drawings show the transition from early painting methods and materials to the commonly used paints and practices of today. At the same time, they have a connection to history which shows the animals of that era, and the people that hunted them. They also show the beginnings of written language, due to their global pictographic similarities. Archaeologists worldwide agree that these caves have multiple reasons to both be protected and shown to the world, as examples of an age long gone.
High quality and antiquity make cave paintings a sight to see. With only about 350 of them having been found so far, their importance to archaeology is always increasing. Incredibly old, they both give insight as to who and what lived in that region’s past, and help archaeologists learn about early painting methods. While the most well known is the Lascaux Caves, they are all important to understanding the history of various areas. With no written language at the time, this was the closest early civilizations came to putting their writing down on paper.
Early painting methods were completely different than today's methods. According to BBC News, early artists made certain paintings by pressing hands into …show more content…
their cave walls and carefully blowing paint around. This may have been because of the lack of paintbrushes at that time. An alternative website on visual arts describes the materials they used in painting. While they started with simple scratches into the rock, they would later use charcoal, manganese, and other pigments in place of paint. When done, they had created beautiful works that would stand the test of time. Mostly depicting animals (the ones that were hunted for game), there were occasionally stylized humans, symbols, and handprints.
These paintings, while being amazing as art, also hold a different purpose.
Scientists have used the caves to look into the past. Due to most of the art being hunted game, archaeologists have learned about what kinds of animals lived in the area, and which ones were killed for meat. A drawing in the Leang Timpuseng cave in Sulawesi, for example, gives evidence that babirusas were found in the region. The handprints might help find out how many people had passed through the cave. What were thought to be unimportant scribbles are considered by some scientists to be the turning point when ancient people when from realistic drawings to the symbolical. The Guardian has comprised a list of such drawings on their website, to show the variations. This being said, there is as much history in these as there is beauty.
These symbolical scribbles are also important for another reason. There is the chance that these were the beginning of written language. Defined by Crystal Links, a pictograph is when a symbol is used to represent an object or concept, not unlike the written languages of today. Egyptian pictographs, for example, told the history of their gods. Interestingly, Egyptian writing holds similarities with the cave painting symbols, the water of the Nile being comparable to early finger fluting images. Such similarities should not be possible, due to geographical
differences.
To sum up, cave paintings are an extremely important part of their region’s history. Even with there lack of numbers, they have withstood the test of time and brought important details to light. These exceptional drawings show the transition from early painting methods and materials to the commonly used paints and practices of today. At the same time, they have a connection to history which shows the animals of that era, and the people that hunted them. They also show the beginnings of written language, due to their global pictographic similarities. Archaeologists worldwide agree that these caves have multiple reasons to both be protected and shown to the world, as examples of an age long gone.