Prehistory Flashcards
Panel of Horses
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 30,000 BCE
Style: Paleolithic cave painting
Key Features: Depicts four horses in various postures, drawn with black charcoal and red ochre.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Found in the Chauvet Cave in France, this artwork is one of the oldest known examples of prehistoric art, showcasing early human’s ability to represent animals with remarkable realism.
Venus of Willendorf
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 28,000–25,000 BCE
Style: Upper Paleolithic figurine
Key Features: Limestone statuette with exaggerated female features, tinted with red ochre.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Discovered in Austria, this figurine is believed to represent fertility and is one of the most famous examples of prehistoric art.
Warty Pig
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 45,500 BCE
Style: Prehistoric cave painting
Key Features: Depicts a Sulawesi warty pig with distinctive spiky head crests and snout warts, painted in red ochre.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Found in Indonesia, it is considered one of the oldest known examples of figurative art, highlighting the symbolic significance of animals in prehistoric cultures.
Löwenmensch Figurine
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 40,000 BCE
Style: Upper Paleolithic sculpture
Key Features: Carved from mammoth ivory, depicting a human body with a lion’s head.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Discovered in Germany, it is one of the oldest known examples of zoomorphic art, reflecting early human’s mythological and spiritual beliefs.
Stonehenge
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 3000–2000 BCE
Style: Neolithic monument
Key Features: Circular arrangement of massive sarsen stones and smaller bluestones.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Located in England, Stonehenge is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments, believed to have been used for ceremonial or astronomical purposes.
Plastered Skulls
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 8000–6000 BCE
Style: Neolithic funerary art
Key Features: Human skulls covered with plaster, with features modeled and painted.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Found in the Levant, these skulls are some of the earliest examples of portraiture and are believed to be linked to ancestor worship.
Jade Cong
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 3300–2200 BCE
Style: Liangzhu culture jade carving
Key Features: Cylindrical tube encased in a square block, often decorated with mask motifs.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Found in China, these objects are believed to have had ritual significance, possibly related to cosmology and the afterlife.
Bushel with Ibex
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 4200–3500 BCE
Style: Neolithic painted pottery
Key Features: Large vessel decorated with geometric patterns and stylized animal motifs, including an ibex.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Discovered in Susa, Iran, this bushel reflects the artistic and cultural practices of early agricultural communities.
Curved Pick Bannerstone
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 3000–1500 BCE
Style: Archaic period stone tool
Key Features: Symmetrical, polished stone with a central perforation.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Found in North America, bannerstones are thought to have been used as weights for atlatls (spear-throwers) and may have had ceremonial significance.
Clovis Spear Point
Artist: Unknown
Date: c. 13,000–10,000 BCE
Style: Paleo-Indian flint knapping
Key Features: Fluted projectile point made from chert or obsidian.
Cultural Influence and Significance: Associated with the Clovis culture in North America, these points are among the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas.
