Global prehistory

Apollo 11 stones

• Date: 25,000-25,300

• Location: Namibia

• Medium: charcoal on stone

• Function: The appearance of a supernatural creature may indicate ritualistic or spiritual significance

• Context: among the oldest works of art, earliest dated work in Africa

• History: named after Apollo 11 moon landings, discovered in 1969

Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine

• Date: 14,000-17,000 BCE

• Location: Central Mexico

• Medium: bone

• Content: carved from a sacrum to represent a mammal’s skull

• Context: Mesoamerican idea that the sacrum is the second skull. Sacrum symbolizes the soul in some cultures- tied to procreation and resurrection

• History: found in 1870

Anthropomorphic Stele

• Date: 4th millennium. BCE

• Location: Saudi Arabia

• Medium: sandstone

• Content: Anthropomorphic, Belted rope hangs from which hangs doubled bladed sword, double cross’s stretch diagonally across chest with awl unifying them

• Function: religious or burial purpose, perhaps grave marker

• Context: one of the earliest known works in Arabia, found in an area with extensive ancient trade routes

Jade Cong

• Date: 3300-2200 BCE

• Location: Liangzhu China

• Medium: carved jade

• Content: circular hole within a square, abstract design, main decoration is a face pattern perhaps spirits or deities, haunting mask design in each corner resembling motifs seen on Liangzhu jewelry

• Context: Jade appears in burial places of high rank individuals; jades may have been ritually burned; jade religious objects are found ritually interred with dead; Chinese have associated Jade with durability, subtlety and beauty

• Function: played a role in ritualistic burial of high rankings individuals, spiritual significance, largely unknown

Ambum stone from Ambum Valleu

• Date: 1500 BCE

• Location: Papua New Guinea

• Medium: graywacke (hard, dark colored sandstone)

• Content: composite human animal figure, maybe half human half anteater

• Context: Anteaters thought to be significant because of their fat deposits; may have functioned as a pestel- club used to crush or grind things

• Functionally: largely speculative. Could be a masked human, an anteater embryo, a pestle or related tool, a ritual object, a fertility symbol, or an embodiment of a spirit or ancestor- no one really’s got a clue no

Terra cotta fragment

• date: 1000 BCE

• Location: Lapita, Reef Islands Solomon Islands

• Medium: Incised(engraved with clean sharp edges) Terra cotta

• Content: curved stamp patterns: dots circular hatching as characteristic of oceanic art, depicts a human face

• Context: one of the oldest human faces in oceanic art Lapita culture is known for its pottery used dentate stamping

  
  

Tlitilco female figurines

Date: 1200- 900 BCE

Location: Central Mexico

Medium: Ceramic

Content/Form:

• flipper arms,

• huge thighs,

• pronounced hips,

• narrow waist,

• female figure,

• unclothed except for jewelery,

• double faced or deformed face

Context:

• Deformities perhaps signify conjoined twins or stillborn children.

• Bifacial images could express duality.

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• Function: Found in graves, may have funerary context

Great hall of bulls

Date: 15,000-13,000 BCE

Location: Paleolithic Europe

Medium: Rock Painting (charcoal, iron or ore paints, pain colors bound with animal fat, paint may have been blown)

Content/Form:

• Twisted Perspective of animals

• Overlapping figures

• Some animals appear pregnant

• 650 paintings

• Most common animals cows, bulls, horses, deer

Context:

• Deep inside cave

• Negative handprints that may indicate signatures

Function:

• painted tonsure a successful hunt

• Ancestral animal worships

• Shamanism

Running horned woman

Date: 6000-4000

Location: Algeria

Medium: pigment on rock

Content/form:

• Women with horn headrest running

• Livestock, wildlife, humans all around background

• Dots reflect body ritual paint

• White patterns are raffia garments

Function: Depiction of attendance at ritual ceremony

Context:

• 15000 drawings and engravings found at site

• Probably painted by many groups over series of time

Stonehenge

Date: 2500-1600 BCE

Location: Neolithic Europe

Medium: Sandstone

Technique:

• Post and lintel building

• Megaliths in center 20 feet tall form horseshoe surrounding a central flat stone

• Ring of megalithic, originally unified by lintels surround central horseshoe

• Hundreds of smaller stones placed around monument

Context:

• Size of stones reflect permanence of structure

• Some stones imported from over 150 miles away, meaning they may have significance

• Stone circles common in neolithic Britain

Function:

• Oriented to sunrise in summer and sunset in winter

• Observatory to predict eclipses

• Center of ceremonies of death and burial- elite males

• Healing site

• We really don’t know

Beaker with ibex motifs

Date: 4200-3500 BCE

Location: Susa Iran

Medium: painted terra cotta

Form/Content:

• Stylized Aquatic birds on top, suggests wading into Mesopotamia river

• Below: stylized hunting dogs

• Main scene is ibex with oversized and abstract horns

• Middle of horns is clan symbol of family

Context:

• Found near burial site

• Found with hundreds of baskets, bowls and metallic items

Function:

• May identify deceased as belonging to certain family