Rock Art

We explain what rock art is and its main characteristics. Also, what is the history of these ancient drawings.

What is rock art?

Rock art is called prehistoric stone creations that were made by early humans and they testify to their imagination.

The word rock comes from Latin rupeswhich means “rock.” The term “rock art” is related today to the set of artistic manifestations (engravings, paintings, sculptures) that date back to prehistory. The study of rock art has focused especially on drawings found in caves that is, in the cave painting that, due to its high degree of preservation, testifies to the life of our ancestors.

Unlike petroglyphs, geoglyphs, sculptures and engravings from the same period, most of the cave paintings are preserved in very good condition, protected by caves, where they are safe from erosion and wear.

It is one of the oldest cultural manifestations in our history as a species. The first cave paintings date back to about 75,000 years ago time of the last planetary glaciation called the Würm Glaciation, which had a great impact on the worldview and cultural development (technological, social and artistic) of the Homo sapiens.

Cave paintings have been found on almost all continents (except Antarctica), but the best known are those of Spain (Altamira Caves, in Cantabria) and France (Lascaux Caves and Chauvret Caves), whose origin dates back to the transition period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.

The importance of these finds is due not only to their aesthetic value, but also to all the questions they raise regarding the origin and ways of life of the first human beings.

Although the motivations for its creation remain a mysteryit is assumed that these drawings may have had some symbolic value communication functions or magical-religious purposes (invoking success in hunting, for example). If anything, it's about art, and humans thousands of years ago may have had the same motivations for making art as we do today.

• See also: Prehistoric art

Characteristics of rock art

Topics

The cave paintings found have more or less similar themes: those from the Paleolithic generally show wild animals and abstract symbols, while in the Neolithic there is a greater presence of human figures, handprints and representations daily experiences of agricultural life and domestication of animals such as cows, goats and sheep.

Most of the animals drawn are mammoths, bison, horses, deer and reindeer, often wounded with arrows or hunting spears. In the Neolithic, geometric shapes and pictograms (simplified representations of objects or ideas) appear.

Materials

Despite being thousands of kilometers from each other, many cave drawings were made with very similar materials: charcoal pigments, feces and other body fluids, hematite, clay and manganese oxide, probably mixed with animal fat, saliva, blood or some oil as a binder.

Use of color

In general, In rock art one or two colors prevail: black, red and brown. In the Neolithic the palette expanded to blues, greens and yellows. In both periods, pigments were smeared onto the stone directly with fingers or rudimentary brushes made of animal hair. In the Neolithic the use of feathers to apply color was incorporated.

Techniques

Animal figures were often scraped with a stone or tool to generate realism and three-dimensional effects. The use of sticks and bones, burins and scrapers was common.

Using a color, a figure was outlined that was then filled, shaded and modeled with pigments that generated light and shadow effects. The rock projections were used to generate relief effects.

The first engraving techniques and the schematic use of shapes come from the Neolithic.

History of rock art

It is difficult to determine the precise dates of production of the cave painting. Radiocarbon dating (the method of determining the age of an organism's remains by accounting for their carbon-14 amounts) and DNA analyzes reveal some information about the paintings. However, the presence of materials from different periods in the caves, as well as the contamination of the samples over the years, can lead to erroneous results.

There are various theories about the origin of rock art, but none is conclusive: The circumstances surrounding these paintings remain a mystery. Some researchers believe that it could have been a form of communication or storytelling, while others speak of mythical or sacred purposes linked to hunting rituals or related to the representation of the spiritual universe that our ancestors had.

The main finds of cave paintings occurred between France and Spain because it was a highly populated region and favorable for survival during the glaciation, but also in South Africa (Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg), Namibia (Twyfelfontein), Argentina (Córdoba and San Luis), Peru (Nazca), Malaysia (Gua Tambun in Perak), and many other places around the world.

• abstract art
• visual arts
• contemporary art

References

• Bahn, P. G. (2012). Cave Art. Frances Lincoln.
• ‌Clottes, J. (2010). The art of prehistoric caves. Phaidon, Impr.
• Rock art, a communication system. (2022, January 4). Argentina.gob.ar. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/