Vintage cave paintings of primitive people were very amazing images, basically they were all drawn on stone walls.

There is an opinion that the rock paintings of ancient people are various animals that were hunted at that time. Then these drawings played a major role in magical rites, hunters wanted to attract real animals during their hunt.

Pictures and rock paintings of primitive people very often resemble a two-dimensional image. rock painting very rich in drawings of bison, rhinos, deer, mammoths. Also in many pictures you can see hunting scenes or people with spears and arrows.

What did the first people draw?

Rock paintings of ancient people- this is one of the manifestations of their emotional state and figurative thinking. Not everyone was able to create a vivid image of an animal or a hunt; only those people who could create such an image in their subconscious could do this.

There is also an assumption that ancient people with the help of rock art conveyed their visions and experiences That's how they expressed themselves.

Where did primitive people paint?

Parts of the caves that were hard to find - this is one of the best places to draw. This explains the significance of the rock paintings. Drawing was a certain ritual, the artists worked by the light of stone lamps.

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Red discs, hand stencils and animal paintings in Spanish caves represent the oldest known examples of rock art in Europe.

The symbols on the walls at 11 sites in Spain, including the World Heritage Sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo, have always been prized by scholars for their antiquity.

Recently, however, researchers have used improved dating methods to get more accurate information about the age of the images.

The main goal of scientists was to confirm that the most ancient drawing is a pale red dot (disk), which is supposedly more than 40,000 years old.

Hand stencils and images of animals dominate the El Castillo cave in Spain. One of the stencils has been dated to 37,300 years ago and the red disk to 40,800 years ago, making them the oldest rock art in Europe (image: Pedro Saura). Photo from msn.com

“In Cantabria, El Castillo, we find numerous hand stencils that are formed by spraying paint around hands pressed against a cave wall,” explained Dr Alistair Pike from the University of Bristol, UK, and lead author of an academic paper published in the journal Science.

“We believe one of these stencils is over 37,300 years old, and there is a red disk nearby made using a similar technique that is closer to 40,800 years old. We now know that these oldest pieces of ancient art in Europe are at least 4,000 years older than we thought,” Pike told reporters. This is possibly the oldest reliably dated rock carving in the world.

The two-metre-high depictions of horses at Tito Bustillo are superimposed on earlier red dots that are over 29,000 years old (image: Rodrigo De Balbin Behrmann). Photo from msn.com

The team determined the age of the samples by examining the calcium carbonate (calcite) of plaque that had formed over the years on the image.

This material builds up in the same way that stalagmites and stalactites form in caves.

In the process of formation, a small amount of natural radioactive uranium atoms is included in calcite. From the level of decay of these atoms into thorium and the ratio of two different elements in a sample of material, one can very accurately determine the moment when the calcite deposit formed.

Uranium/thorium dating has been used for decades, but the technique has improved so much over the years that scientists now only need a small sample of the material to get a very accurate result.

The Corredor de los Puntos is located in the El Castillo Cave of Spain. The red discs here date back to 34,000 - 36,000 years ago, and elsewhere in a cave 40,800 years ago, making them examples of the earliest rock art in Europe (image: Pedro Saura). Photo from msn.com

The team took thin sediment samples just above the paint pigments, and the images should be equal to or older than the calcite.

The earliest dates coincide with the first known immigration to Europe of modern humans (Homo sapiens). Previously, about 41,000 years ago, their evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), dominated the continent.

The work of Dr. Pike and his colleagues raises some intriguing questions about who is the creator of the signs.

The antiquity of the paintings leads study co-author Joao Silao, a lecturer at the University of Barcelona, ​​to suggest that some of the fragments were created by Neanderthals. If images even older than the red dot at El Castillo could be found, it might confirm that the professor's "gut feeling" is not deceiving.

“There is a chance that the authors of these images are Neanderthals,” said Professor Silao. - But I will not say that we have proved it, because it cannot even be proved now. Now all we can do is go back and look for older specimens until we are convinced that there are no drawings older than 42,000 to 44,000 years old. We will go through all the caves in Spain, Portugal and Western Europe, and in the end we will get the necessary information.

By tracing the origin and change in the level of thought and behavior of man in relation to time, one can understand the process of development, which is undoubtedly important in relation to the understanding of human history.

The use of symbols - the ability of one thing to replace another in the mind - is one of the traits that distinguishes our animal species from all others. This is what supports our creativity and use of speech.

Paintings and engravings on the rocks began to be painted tens of thousands of years before the birth of such civilizations as Greece and Mesopotamia. While most of these writings remain a mystery, they scold modern scholars to understand the daily lives of prehistoric people, to understand their religious beliefs and culture. It is a real miracle that these ancient drawings have survived for such a long time in the face of natural erosion, wars and destructive human activities.

1. El Castillo

Spain
Some of the oldest known rock paintings in the world, depicting horses, bison and warriors, are located in the El Castillo Cave, in Cantabria in northern Spain. Inside the cave there is a hole so narrow that you need to crawl through it. In the cave itself, you can find many drawings that are at least 40,800 years old.

They were made shortly after humans began migrating from Africa to Europe, where they met the Neanderthals. In fact, the age of the rock paintings suggests the possibility that they were made by Neanderthals living in the region at the time, although the evidence for this is not at all conclusive.

2.Sulawesi

Indonesia
For a long time, El Castillo cave was believed to contain the oldest known rock art. But in 2014, archaeologists made a stunning discovery. In seven caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, handprints and primitive drawings of local pigs were found on the walls.

These images were already known to the locals, but no one even guessed how old they were. Scientists have estimated the age of the rock paintings at 40,000 years. Such a discovery called into question the long-standing belief that human art first appeared in Europe.

3. Arnhem Land Plateau

Australia
Recent studies have shown that some places in Australia may well compete in age with the world's oldest art. A 28,000-year-old rock painting has been found at the Navarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in the north of the country. However, scientists believe that some of the drawings may be much older, as one of them depicts a giant bird that became extinct about 40,000 years ago.

Therefore, either the rock art is older than expected, or the bird lived longer than suggested. modern science. At Nawarla Gabarnmang, you can also find drawings of fish, crocodiles, wallabies, lizards, turtles and other animals made tens of thousands of years ago.

4. Apollo 11

Namibia
This cave got such an unusual name because it was discovered by a German archaeologist in 1969, when the first spacecraft (Apollo 11) landed on the moon. Drawings made with charcoal, ocher and white paint have been found on the stone slabs of a cave in southwestern Namibia.

The creatures, which resemble cats, zebras, ostriches and giraffes, are between 26,000 and 28,000 years old and are the oldest fine art found in Africa.

5. Pech-Merle cave

France
Scholars believed that the paintings of two spotted horses on the walls of the Peche Merle cave in south-central France, which were made 25,000 years ago, were the product of an ancient artist's imagination. But recent DNA studies have shown that a similar spotted horse did exist in the region at that time. Also in the cave you can find 5000-year-old images of bison, mammoths, horses and other animals, painted with black manganese oxide and red ocher.

6. Tadrart-Acacus

Libya
Deep in the Sahara desert in southwest Libya, in the Tadrart Acacus mountain range, thousands of paintings and rock paintings have been found that show that once there was water and lush vegetation in these arid lands. Also on the territory of the present Sahara lived giraffes, rhinos, and crocodiles. The oldest drawing here was made 12,000 years ago. But, after Tadrart-Acacus began to be swallowed up by the desert, people finally left this place around 100 AD.

7. Bhimbetka

India
In the state of Madhya Pradesh, there are about 600 caves and rock dwellings in which rock paintings have been found, made between 1,000 and 12,000 years ago.
These prehistoric images are painted with red and white paint. In the paintings you can find hunting scenes for buffaloes, tigers, giraffes, elks, lions, leopards, elephants and rhinos. Other drawings show fruit and honey gathering and animal domestication. You can also find images of animals that have long since become extinct in India.

8. Laas Gaal

Somalia
The complex of eight caves in Somaliland contains some of the oldest and best preserved rock paintings in Africa. They are estimated to be between 5,000 and 11,000 years old, and these drawings of cows, humans, dogs, and giraffes are done in red, orange, and cream. Almost nothing is known about the people who lived here at that time, but many locals still consider the caves to be sacred.

9. Cueva de las Manos

Argentina
This unusual cave in Patagonia is literally overflowing with 9,000-year-old red and black handprints on the walls. Since there are mainly images of the left hands of teenage boys, scientists have suggested that drawing the image of one's hand was part of the rite of initiation for young men. In addition, hunting scenes of guanacos and flightless rhea birds can also be found in the cave.

10 Swimmers Cave

Egypt
In the Libyan desert in 1933, they found a cave with cave paintings from the Neolithic era. The images of floating people (from which the cave got its name), as well as the handprints that adorn the walls, were made between 6000 and 8000 years ago.

primitive art

Anyone endowed with a great gift - feel the beauty surrounding world, feel harmony lines, admire the variety of shades of colors.

Painting- this is the artist's attitude captured on canvas. If your perception of the surrounding world is reflected in the artist's painting, then you feel an affinity with the works of this master.

Pictures attract attention, fascinate, excite the imagination and dreams, evoke memories of pleasant moments, favorite places and landscapes.

When did they appear first images man-made?

Appeal primitive people to a new type of activity for them - art - one of the greatest events in human history. Primitive art reflected the first ideas of man about the world around him, thanks to him knowledge and skills were preserved and transferred, people communicated with each other. In the spiritual culture of the primitive world, art began to play the same universal role that a pointed stone played in labor activity.

What prompted a person to think of depicting certain objects? How do you know if body painting was the first step towards creating images, or if a person guessed the familiar silhouette of an animal in a random outline of a stone and, having cut it, gave it a greater resemblance? Or maybe the shadow of an animal or a person served as the basis for the drawing, and the imprint of a hand or a step precedes the sculpture? There is no definite answer to these questions. Ancient people could come up with the idea of ​​depicting objects not in one, but in many ways.
For example, to the number the most ancient images on the walls of caves of the Paleolithic era are also human handprints, and a disorderly weave of wavy lines, pressed into the damp clay with the fingers of the same hand.

The works of art of the early Stone Age, or Paleolithic, are characterized by simplicity of forms and colors. Rock paintings are, as a rule, the contours of the figures of animals., made with bright paint - red or yellow, and occasionally - filled with round spots or completely painted over. Such ""paintings"" were clearly visible in the twilight of the caves, illuminated only by torches or the fire of a smoky fire.

At the initial stage of development primitive fine arts didn't know laws of space and perspective, as well as composition, those. intentional distribution on the plane of individual figures, between which there is necessarily a semantic connection.

In living and expressive images rises before us life history of primitive man era of the Stone Age, told by him in the rock paintings.

Dance. Painting by Lleid. Spain. With various movements and gestures, a person conveyed his impressions of the world around him, reflecting in them his own feelings, mood and state of mind. Frantic jumps, imitation of the habits of an animal, stamping feet, expressive hand gesturescreated the prerequisites for the emergence of dance. There were also martial dances associated with magical rituals, with the belief in victory over the enemy.

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Composition in the cave of Lascaux. France. On the walls of the caves you can see mammoths, wild horses, rhinos, bison. Drawing for primitive man was the same "witchcraft" as a spell and ritual dance. “Conjuring” the spirit of the drawn animal by singing and dancing, and then “killing” it, the person seemed to master the power of the animal and “defeat” it before the hunt.

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And these are petroglyphs. Hawaii

Paintings on the Tassili-Adjer mountain plateau. Algeria.

Primitive people practiced sympathetic magic - in the form of dancing, singing, or pictures of animals on the walls of caves - to attract herds of animals and ensure the continuation of the family and the safety of livestock. The hunters acted out successful hunting scenes to draw energy into the real world. They turned to the Mistress of the Herds, and later to the Horned God, who was depicted with the horns of goats or deer to emphasize his leadership in the herds. The bones of animals were supposed to be buried in the ground so that animals, like people, would be reborn from the womb of Mother Earth.

This is a cave drawing in the Lascaux region of France from the Paleolithic era.

Large animals were the preferred food. And the Paleolithic people, skilled hunters, destroyed most of them. And not just large herbivores. During the Paleolithic, cave bears completely disappeared as a species.

There is another type of rock paintings, which is of a mystical, mysterious nature.

Rock paintings from Australia. Either people, or animals, or maybe not both...

Drawings from West Arnhem, Australia.

Huge figures and a number of little men. And in the lower left corner, something is generally incomprehensible.

And here is a masterpiece from Laskaux, France.

North Africa, Sahara. Tassili. 6 thousand years BC Flying saucers and someone in a space suit. Or maybe it's not a spacesuit.

Rock painting from Australia...

Val Camonica, Italy.

and the next photo is from Azerbaijan, Gobustan region

Gobustan is included in the UNESCO heritage list

Who were those "artists" who managed to convey to remote eras the message of their time? What prompted them to do this? What were the hidden springs and the driving motives that guided them?..Thousands of questions and very few answers...Many of our contemporaries are very fond of being offered to look at history through a magnifying glass.

But is it really all that small?

After all, there were images of the gods

In the north of Upper Egypt is ancient city temples of Abydos. Its origin dates back to prehistoric times. It is known that already in the era of the Old Kingdom (about 2500 BC), the universal deity Osiris enjoyed wide veneration in Abydos. Osiris, on the other hand, was considered a divine teacher who gave the people of the Stone Age diverse knowledge and crafts, and, quite possibly, knowledge about the secrets of the sky. By the way, it was in Abydos that the oldest calendar was found, dating back to the 4th millennium BC. e.

Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome also left a lot of rock evidence that reminds us of their existence. They already had developed writing - their drawings are much more interesting, from the point of view of studying everyday life, than ancient graffiti.

Why is humanity trying to find out what happened millions of years ago, what knowledge ancient civilizations had? We seek the source because we think that by uncovering it, we will know why we exist. Humanity wants to find where is the starting point from which it all began, because it thinks that there, apparently, there is an answer, “what is all this for”, and what will happen in the end ...

After all, the world is so vast, and the human brain is narrow and limited. The most difficult crossword puzzle of history must be solved gradually, cell by cell...

On this day, December 18, 1994, French caver Jean Marie Chauvet made one of the largest archaeological discoveries of the century. Together with two assistants, he discovered the Chauvet cave gallery with unique rock paintings. In honor of this event, we talk about the oldest "pictures" of mankind.

1. Chauvet Cave, France When exactly 19 years ago, Jean Marie Chauvet descended into the Pont d'Arc gorge in the French department of Ardèche, he did not even suspect that from that day on his name would go down in history. It was in honor of the French speleologist that the gallery with cave paintings was named Chauvet (French Chauvet-Pont-d "Arc Cave). Photo credit: Thomas T. They discovered it by accident - having illuminated the wall with a flashlight, Jean Marie stumbled upon an ocher spot. Looking closely, he saw that this “spot” was an image of a mammoth. In addition to it, more than 300 ancient drawings were found in the cave. Among them were horses, lions, rhinos, wolves, bison... With the help of radiocarbon dating, scientists managed to establish the estimated age of the rock "zoo". So, the age of some drawings is 30-33 thousand years old! It's no secret that the south of France is famous for its caves with petroglyphs (for example, the Lascaux cave, Cro-Magnon, Trois-Frères, Font-de-Gaumes), but the Chauvet gallery surpasses them both in size and in preservation.

Photo credit: EOL Learning and Education Group However, the unique murals are closed to the public in order to save the fragile "paintings" from damage, which can be caused by the slightest changes in temperature and humidity, as well as the penetration of light. Even archaeologists are allowed to stay in the cave for only a few hours. One of the lucky ones who managed to admire the oldest example of cave art was the German director Werner Herzog. Together with four assistants, he filmed a 3D documentary called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams. By the way, the film crew had to get permission from the French Minister of Culture himself and shoot in a limited time using equipment that does not radiate heat. This film is perhaps the only way to look into the Chauvet cave.

2. Newspaper Rock, USA 40 km northwest of the city of Monticello in the US state of Utah, there is an amazing rock that contains one of the most impressive collections of petroglyphs per square meter. Due to the abundance of drawings, the stone art panel resembles a strip of a newspaper that can be read.

Photo credit: Nick Taylor Presumably the ancient Indians of the pre-Columbian culture, Fremont and Anasazi, "printed" it. Scientists believe that the story told on the "Newspaper Rock" (from the English Newspaper Rock) was "carved" both in the prehistoric period and after meeting Europeans. Judging by the numerous images of animals such as bison, wild boars and mammoths, the history of the stone "newspaper" tells of hunting, domestication of horses and bulls, as well as the invention of the wheel and tools.

Photo by: Cacophony In total, there are about 650 different images of animals, people and symbols on Newspaper Rock. However, the ancient “newspaper” failed to find an answer why a relatively small site was chosen for such a large number of petroglyphs.

Photo by:Jirka Matousek 3. Cueva de las Manos, Argentina Literally, the “Cave of the Hands” (from the Spanish Cueva de las Manos) has preserved on its stone walls the prints of hundreds of hands, mostly left ones. It is located in the south of Argentina in the province of Santa Cruz (163 km from the city of Perito Moreno) in the Pinturas river valley.

Of the approximately 800 rock paintings, more than 90% depict the left hand. Author of the photo: Marianocecowski. At first glance, palms with spread fingers look very modern, as if someone had sprayed a spray can of paint on a stencil. In fact, the rock paintings were supposedly created between 13,000 and 9,000 years ago. By the way, scientists suggest that this rock "autograph" was left by spraying paint around the palm attached to the wall.

Photo credit: Carlos Zito Probably, in his right hand, the artist held bone tubes for spraying the dye. The left, respectively, served as kind. Most of the hands are on the entrance stone - as if they greet the one who entered the Patagonian cave. There is an opinion that the image of hands meant the transition to adulthood, so the palms of teenage boys are printed on the walls of this place revered by the ancestors of the Indians.

In addition to the images of hands in the cave, there are drawings of animals such as the ostrich-nandu and guanaco (a kind of llamas), as well as hieroglyphic inscriptions. Photo credit: Joanbanjo. 4. Altamira, Spain Many call the cave, located in northern Spain, the "Sistine Chapel of Primitive Art." Its walls are painted with unique rock "paintings" of the Paleolithic era. The age of the drawings depicted on the walls and ceiling of Altamira (from Spanish “La cueva de Altamira”) is about 20 thousand years old.

Due to the large flow of tourists, the drawings began to collapse. To preserve the rock art, Altamira was closed to the public. In 2001in the museum complex, located next to the cave, copies of the panels of the Large ceiling were discovered, which can be admired without harming the fragile petroglyphs. Located 30 km from the city of Santander (Cantabria), it was discovered in 1879 by the Spanish lawyer and amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. Rather, it is he who is credited with the discovery of rock paintings. Marcelino explored Altamira before (in 1875), and before him, a local shepherd informed about unusual ancient finds (tools, bones, horns) found in the cave. One fine day, when Sautuola took his 6-year-old daughter Maria with him to excavations, he was lucky. The girl was extremely inquisitive and was the first to see the cave drawing of a bison. So the world learned about the 270-meter cave, the vaults of which are full of polychrome images of animals and human palms.

Photo credit: Rameessos It is noteworthy that ancient artists used charcoal and ocher to add color, and wall relief to add volume. Authenticity primitive painting many scholars have questioned and accused Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola of forgery. And only after the death of the discoverer, in 1902, the world recognized the uniqueness of Altamira.

Photo by Jose-Manuel Benito 5. Alta, Norway Petroglyphs found near the Arctic Circle in the city of Alta in the 1970s prove that presumably in the period 4200-500 BC, this area was inhabited by people. They left about five thousand amazing rock paintings at 45 archaeological sites.

Photo by: Ahnjo The largest and only open to the public is located 4 km from the city of Alta. About 3,000 open-air images have been included in the World Heritage List. By the way, this is the only UNESCO monument of the prehistoric period in Norway. Petroglyphs tell how the ancient ancestors of the Scandinavians fished (the image of a fisherman holding a large fish in his hands), hunted (scenes showing how hunters drove herds of deer into the water, where they were more vulnerable, and overtook them with spears) and rested (dance scenes). In addition, many petroglyphs depict religious rituals such as shamanistic rituals with a tambourine.

Photo credit: Jerzy Durczak 6. Kalbak-Tash, Russia The complex of rock compositions Kalbak-Tash (Tyalbak-Tash) is located on the right bank of the Chuya River on the 723rd kilometer of the Chui tract between the villages of Inya and Iodro. This tract is the largest accumulation of petroglyphs in the Altai Mountains, its length is about 10 km. There are over 5,000 drawings and runic inscriptions in the Altai gallery.

Animal motifs - the most popular in Kalbak-Tash. Most often in the tract there are images of bulls, deer, wolves, leopards and other animals common in Altai. Photo credit: Zouave M. Kalbak-Tash was an ancient sanctuary for people of different ages: from the Neolithic (VI-IV thousand years BC) to the ancient Turkic era (VII-X centuries BC). In addition to the Scythian images of animals, people and hunting scenes, in the Kalbaktash sanctuary there are also tribal family signs of tamgas dating back to the ancient Turkic era, as well as ritual plots depicting shamans with their animal companions ker-tyutpas, transferring their owners to the underworld.

The Kalbak-Tash tract is part of the natural and economic park "Chui-Oozy" - a specially protected natural area of ​​the Altai Republic. Photo credit: Zouave M.