Unit 1 - Global Prehistory Flashcards
Apollo 11 Stones: Identifiers
Style: Paleolithic
Location: Wonderwerk Cave, Namibia
Date: c. 25,500 BCE
Apollo 11 Stones: Form + Function
Form: charcoal on 2 pieces of cave stone, maybe used mineral based pigment bc they found ostrich egg painted
Function: unknown, small enough to fit in hand, taken from place to place?
Apollo 11 Stones: Content
- supernatural, part-animal, part-human creature?
- originally a feline & human legs added later?
- therianthrope
Apollo 11 Stones: Context
- found in Hun’s Mnts. of Namibia
- 7 other tablets that contained animal figures
- found during the Apollo 11 moon landings
Great Hall of Bulls: Identifiers
Style: Paleolithic
Location: Lascaux Caves, France
Date: 15,000 BCE
Great Hall of Bulls: Form
- hall of bulls can hold up to 50 people
- stone tools
- holes from tree limb scaffolding
- organic lines, naturalistic
- colors of brown red, yellow, white, from ocher
- twisted perspective
Great Hall of Bulls: Function + Content
Function: telling a story, hunting strategy, memorializing their kill, offering imagery for future hunt, importance of survival, used for religious rituals, storytelling and preserving history
Content: animals of importance (bulls, horses, cattle, deer), human vs animals
Great Hall of Bulls: Context
- one of 350 sites
- discovered in 1940, opened to public in 1948, closed in 1963
- created over centuries
- stone age
- replica built to preserve artwork
Camelid Sacrum in the Shape of a Canine: Identifiers
Style: Paleolithic
Location: Central Mexico
Date: 14,000 BCE
Camelid Sacrum in the Shape of a Canine: Form
- made from fossilized remains of sacrum-triangular pelvic bone of a camelid (extinct)
- sacrum = sacred bone at base of spine
- camelid- camel, alpaca, llama, etc.
- holes for eyes, nostrils
Camelid Sacrum in the Shape of a Canine: Function
- unknown but prehistoric artisans drew/painted/sculpted what they saw in their everyday life, so choice to render image of canine makes sense
- spiritual significance of sacrum, pelvic bone is fulcrum of the body and central to internal organs
- could be a symbol of fertility or connection to ancestry and posterity/ hunting
- mask?
Camelid Sacrum in the Shape of a Canine: Context
- lost to scholars for 60 years, privately owned
- discovered 40 ft below surface in Mexico City by a drainage worker in 1870
Running Horned Woman: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Algeria
Date: c. 6,000 BCE
Running Horned Woman: Form
- hierarchal scale
- pigment on rock (pictograph)
- illusion of movement
- twisted perspective, woman profile, horns frontal
- conservation issues: walls often sponged with water to enhance image
Running Horned Woman: Function
- emphasized importance of survival
- recognition of importance animal and human relationship
- representation of a deity
- role and importance of women
- size = importance
Running Horned Woman: Content
- very remote and difficult to access location, assume figure is important
- dancing and action and interaction
- her size and horns indicate importance- largest and most elaborate, hunter gatherers did not typically wear horned helmets, figures in bg are smaller
- white dots = grain
Running Horned Woman: Context
- found in area with high elevation and unique topography
- hunter gatherer society
- thousands of paintings were found in the area
- found in Algeria, Africa
Beaker with Ibex Motifs: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Susa (Present Day Iran)
Date: c. 4,200 BCE
Beaker with Ibex Motifs: Form
- handmade
- 1 ft tall, 8 lbs
- registers- birds, dogs, ibex
- animals reduced to geometric forms
Beaker with Ibex Motifs: Function + Content
Function: Unknown/ funerary? found in burial ground
Content: various animals
Anthropomorphic Stele: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Arabian Peninsula
Date: c. 4,000 BCE
Anthropomorphic Stele: Form + Function + Content
- Form: 3 ft. high, geometric forms, flat
- Function: grave marker
- Content: face w/ 2 eyes, flattened nose, necklace, 2 chords, wide belt with double bladed dagger
Anthropomorphic Stele: Context
- prehistoric Saudi Arabia was fertile & lush
- domesticated animals, lived in mountainous regions linked to others by caravan trails
- temporary sites
- communication between different groups
- art history for this region does not begin with Islam
Jade Cong: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Liangzhu, China
Date: c. 3,000 BCE
Jade Cong: Form
- cong - tube with a circular inner section and squarish outer section
- Jade
- Bi - round disks w holes in the center
Jade Cong: Function + Content
Function: unknown, represent the earth & heavens?, funerary?
Content: Taotie
Jade Cong: Context
- neolithic China
- found near grave sites
- sometimes broken or burned, indicating a possible funerary purpose
Stonehenge: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: United Kingdom
Date: 2,500 BCE
Stonehenge: Form
- henge
- megaliths
- built in 3 phases
- post & lintel- 2 or more vertical elements used to support a bridging horizontal one
- mortise & tenon- a conical projection from one piece fitting into a hole in the next
Stonehenge: Function
- evident that the 2nd stage of construction, Stonehenge was used as a burial site - important figures
- horseshoes of trilithons frames mark both mid-summer solstice and midwinter sunset
Stonehenge: Content
- 3 phases
- concentric circles of huge stones- lintel stones carved to create the curved lines of a circle
- huge pits dugged which allows stones to stay upright
Stonehenge: Context
- 1st phrase started around 3100 BCE concurrent w first dynasties of ancient Egypt, construction continued next 500 years
- used machinery to get lintel stones on top of post stones
The Ambum Stone: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Papua New Guinea
Date: c. 1,500 BCE
The Ambum Stone: Form/Function/Content
Form: 8 in. greywacke (sedimentary stone), stylized
Function: mortar and pestle? ward off danger
Content: animal, likely an echidna, possibly a baby echidna
The Ambum Stone: Context
- used for rituals up until 1960s by Enga people, supernatural potency
- 1930s Christian missionaries show up, many embrace new religion
Tlatilco Female Figurine: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Central Mexico
Date: 1,200 BCE
Tlatilco Female Figurine: Form
- small scale, 4 inches high
- ceramic
- many are doubled faced and women
- sharp edged eyes nearly closed
- painted, detailed hairstyles
- emphasis on waist and hips not on hands of feet
- made by hand
Tlatilco Female Figurine: Function + Content
Function: found in tombs, fertile or religious/ double faced shaman
Content: abnormalities suggest access to supernatural, some with details showing social status
Tlatilco Female Figurine: Context
- people of Tlatico flourished 2,000-3,000 years before the Aztec came to power in this Valley
- we cannot learn more about their settlements because it is beneath modern day Mexico city
- male figures are rare- usually wear costumes and masks
Terra Cotta Fragment: Identifiers
Style: Neolithic
Location: Solomon Islands
Date: c. 1,000 BCE
Terra Cotta Fragment: Form
- hand shaped
- low open fire (no kiln)
- incised geometric patterns
- anthropomorphic face
- mix of sand and clay
Terra Cotta Fragment: Function + Content
- Function: used to serve and store food (bowls)
Content: repeat of patterns- strict system, as they moved farther across the islands, designs simplified
Terra Cotta Fragment: Context
- sophisticated seafarers, traveling from island to island via canoe: diaspora- the dispersion of any people from their original homeland
- pottery sherds left behind
