Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:43:55.610Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pleistocene Images outside Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Paul G. Bahn
Paul G. Bahn
Affiliation:
428 Anlaby Rd, Hull, HU3 6QP, U.K.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

At first sight it may seem a pointless exercise to produce a survey of late Pleistocene ‘artistic activity’ around the world, but there are two specific aims involved here: first, to show that human beings in different parts of the world were producing ‘art’ at roughly the same time, i.e. from about 40,000 BC onward, and particularly at the end of the Pleistocene, from about 12,0000 BC, and second, to show that the well known Ice Age art of Europe is no longer unique, but part of a far more widespread phenomenon (Bahn 1987; Bahn and Vertut 1988, 26–32). The European art remains supreme in its quantity and its ‘quality’ (i.e. its realism and its wide range of techniques), but that situation may well alter in the next decade or two as new discoveries are made elsewhere and new dating methods are refined and extended.

Ironically, the first clue to Pleistocene art outside Europe was found as long ago as 1870, only a few years after Edouard Lartet's and Henry Christy's discoveries in southern France were authenticated. Unfortunately, the object in question was badly published, and dis-appeared from 1895 until its rediscovery in 1956, and consequently very few works on Pleistocene art mention it. This mineralized sacrum of an extinct fossil camelid was found at Tequixquiac in the northern part of the central basin of Mexico. The bone is carved and engraved (two nostrils have been cut into the end) so as to represent the head of a pig-like or dog-like animal (pl. 18a). The circumstances of its discovery are unclear, but it is thought to be from a late Pleistocene bone bed, and to be at least 11,000 or 12,000 years old (Aveleyra 1965; Messmacher 1981,94). At present it is on exhibit in Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , 1991 , pp. 91 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aikens, C. M. and Higuchi, T. 1982. Prehistory of Japan. London and New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Anati, E. 1985. The rock art of Tanzania and the East African sequence. Bollettino del Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici 23, 15–68.Google Scholar
Anati, E. 1986. Etat de la recherche sur l'art rupestre: rapport mondial. L'Anthropologie 90, 783–800.Google Scholar
Aslin, G. D. and Bednarik, R. G. 1984. Karlie-ngoinpool Cave: a preliminary report. Rock Art Research 1 (1), 36–45.Google Scholar
Aslin, G. D. and Bednarik, R. G. 1984a. Koorine Cave, South Australia. Rock Art Research 1 (2), 142–44.Google Scholar
Aslin, G. D., Bednarik, E. K. and Bednarik, R.G. 1985. The ‘Parietal Markings Project’ — a progress report. Rock Art Research 2 (1), 71–74.Google Scholar
Aslin, G. D. and Bednarik, R. G. 1985. Mooraa Cave – a preliminary report. Rock Art Research 2 (2), 160–65.Google Scholar
Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda, L. 1965. The Pleistocene carved bone from Tequixquiac, Mexico. A reappraisal. American Antiquity 30, 261–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bahn, P. G. 1987. A la recherche de l'iconographie paléolithique hors de l'Europe. Travaux de l'Institut d'Art Prehistoire de Toulouse 29, 7–18.Google Scholar
Bahn, P. G. and Vertut, J. 1988. Images of the Ice Age. Leicester: Windward; New York: Facts on File.Google Scholar
Beaumont, P. B. 1973. Border Cave – a progress report. South African Journal of Science 69, 41–46.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R. G. 1986. Parietal finger markings in Europe and Australia. Rock Art Research 3, 30–61 and 159–70.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R. G. 1987/1988. The cave art of Western Australia. The Artefact 12, 1–16.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R. G. 1989. On the Pleistocene settlement of South America. Antiquity 63, 101–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belfer-Cohen, A. and Bar-Yosef, O. 1981. The Aurignacian at Hayonim Cave. Paléorient 7 (2), 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewster, R. 1986. Aboriginal cave paintings among oldest in world. Popular Archaeology 7 (6), 44.Google Scholar
Brown, S. 1987. The 1986 AURA Franco-Cantabrian field trip: summary report. Rock Art Research 4 (1), 56–60.Google Scholar
Butzer, K. W. et al. 1979. Dating and context of rock engravings in southern Africa. Science 203, 1201–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chaloupka, G. 1984. From Palaeoart to Casual Paintings. Darwin: Monograph 1, Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, R. and Jones, R. 1989. Judds Cavern: A subterranean aboriginal painting site, Southern Tasmania. Rock Art Research 6, 96–104.Google Scholar
Dorn, R. I., Nobbs, M. and Cahill, T. A. 1988. Cation-ratio dating of rock engravings from the Olary Province of arid South Australia. Antiquity 62, 681–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dortch, C. 1979. Australia's oldest known ornaments. Antiquity 53, 39–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dortch, C. 1984. Devil's Lair: A Study in Prehistory. Perth: Western Australia Museum.Google Scholar
Goren-Inbar, N. 1986. A figurine from the Acheulian site of Berekhat Ram. Mi'Tekufat Ha'Even 19, 7–12.Google Scholar
Goren-Inbar, N. (ed.) 1990. Quneitra: A Mousterian Site on the Golan Heights. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology (Monograph 31).Google Scholar
Griffin, J. B., Meltzer, D. J., Smith, B. D. and Sturtevant, W. C. 1988. A mammoth fraud in science. American Antiquity 53, 578–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidon, N. and Delibrias, G. 1986. Carbon-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32,000 years ago. Nature 321, 769–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hachi, S. 1985. Figurines en terre cuite du gisement ibéromaurusien d'Afalou Bou Rhummel. Travaux du Lab. de Préhist. et d'Ethnographie des Pays de la Méditerranée Occidentale, étude 9, 6 pp.Google Scholar
Hachid, M. (in press). El-Hadjra El Mektouba, Les Pierres Ecrites de VAtlas Saharien. Algiers: Laphomic.Google Scholar
Hovers, E. 1990. Art in the Levantine Epi-Palaeolithic: an engraved pebble from a Kebaran site in the lower Jordan Valley. Current Anthropology 31, 317–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Julien, M. and Lavallee, D. 1987. Les chasseurs de la préhistoire, in Ancien Pérou: Vie, Pouvoir et Mort. Exhibition catalogue, Musée de l'Homme, pp. 45–60. Paris: Nathan.Google Scholar
Kraft, J. C. and Thomas, R. A. 1976. Early man at Holly Oak, Delaware. Science 192, 756–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumar, G., Narvare, G. and Pancholi, R. 1988. Engraved ostrich eggshell objects: new evidence of Upper Palaeolithic art in India. Rock Art Research 5 (1), 43–53.Google Scholar
Lartet, E. 1865. Une lame d'ivoire fossile … Comptes rendus de l'Acadamie des Sciences 61 (8), 309–11.Google Scholar
Leakey, M. 1983. Africa's Vanishing Art. The Rock Paintings of Tanzania. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1988. The Rock Paintings of Arnhem Land, Australia. Social, Ecological and Material Culture Change in the Post-glacial Period. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, I.S. no. 415.Google Scholar
Linares Malaga, E. 1988. Arte mobiliar con tradition rupestre en el sur del Peru. Rock Art Research 5 (1), 54–66.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M. 1988. De l'art parietal des chasseurs de rennes a l'art rupestre des chasseurs de kangourous. L'Anthropologie 92, 271–316.Google Scholar
Loy, T. H., Jones, R., Nelson, D.E., Meehan, B., Vogel, J., Southon, J. and Cosgrove, R. 1990. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of human blood protein pigments from Late Pleistocene art sites in Australia. Antiquity 64, 110–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshack, A. 1972. Aq Kupruk: art and symbol. In Dupree, L. et al. (eds), Prehistoric Research in Afghanistan (1959–66). Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 62 (4), 66–72.Google Scholar
McNickle, H. P. 1985. An introduction to the Spear Hill rock art complex, Northwestern Australia. Rock Art Research 2 (1), 48–64.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D. 1990. In search of a mammoth fraud. New Scientist 127, no. 1725, 14 July, 51–55.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D. J. and Sturtevant, W. C. 1983. The Holly Oak shell game: an historic archaeological fraud. In Lulu Linear Punctuated: Essays in Honor of George Irving Quimby, 325–52. Ann Arbor: Anthropological Papers no. 72, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Messmacher, M. 1981. El arte paleolitico en Mexico. In Arte Paleolitico, 82–110. Mexico City: Comision XI, Xth Congress UISPP.Google Scholar
Mori, F. 1974. The earliest Saharan rock-engravings. Antiquity 48, 87–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, P. and Chaloupka, G. 1983/1984. The Dreamtime animals: extinct megafauna in Arnhem Land rock art. Archaeology in Oceania 18/19, 105–16.Google Scholar
Muzzolini, A. 1986. L'Art Rupestre Prehistorique des Massifs Centraux Sahariens. Oxford: British Arch. Reports, I.S. no. 318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nobbs, M. F. and Dorn, R. I. 1988. Age determinations for rock varnish formation within petroglyphs: cation-ratio dating of 24 motifs from the Olary region, South Australia. Rock Art Research 5 (2), 108–46.Google Scholar
Ronen, A. and Barton, G. M. 1981. Rock engravings on western Mount Carmel, Israel. Quartdr 31/32, 121–37.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A., Horton, D. and Winter, J. 1981. Early Man in North Queensland. Canberra: Terra Australis 6, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Saxon, E. C. 1976. Pre-Neolithic pottery: new evidence from North Africa. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 42, 327–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, R. and Wymer, J. 1982. The Middle Stone Age at Klasies River Mouth in South Africa. Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Pow-Key, Sohn 1974. Palaeolithic culture of Korea. Korea Journal, April, 4–11.Google Scholar
Pow-Key, Sohn 1981. Inception of art mobilier in the Middle Palaeolithic period at Chommal Cave, Korea. In Resumenes de Comunicaciones, Paleolitico Medio, 31–32. Mexico City: Xth Congress UISPP.Google Scholar
Van Noten, F. 1977. Excavations at Matupi Cave. Antiquity 51, 35–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderwal, R. and Fullagar, R. 1989. Engraved Diprotodon tooth from the Spring Creek locality, Victoria. Archaeology in Oceania 24, 13–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wakankar, V. S. 1984. Bhimbetka and dating of Indian rock paintings. In Chakravarti, K. K. (ed.), Rock Art of India, 44–56. New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Wakankar, V. S. 1985. Bhimbetka: the stone tool industries and rock paintings. In Misra, V. N. and Bellwood, P. (eds), Recent Advances in Indo-Pacific Prehistory, 175–76. New Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, N. J. 1987. The dating of Zimbabwean rock art. Rock Art Research 4, 137–49.Google Scholar
Walsh, G. L. 1988. Australia's Greatest Rock Art. Bathurst: Brill-Brown.Google Scholar
Wendt, W. E. 1974. ‘Art mobilier’ aus der Apollo II-Grotte in Südwest Afrika. Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 5 1–42.Google Scholar
Wendt, W. E. 1976. ‘Art mobilier‘ from the Apollo II cave, South West Africa: Africa's oldest dated works of art. South African Archaeological Bulletin 31, 5–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitney, D. S. and Dorn, R. I. 1987. Rock art chronology in eastern California. World Archaeology 19, 150–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, R. V. S. (ed.). 1971. Archaeology of the Gallus Site Koonalda Cave. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Yuzhu, You 1982. Preliminary study on paleolithic bone engraving in Shiyu, Shanxi Province. In Quaternary Geology and Environment of China, 199–201. China Ocean Press.Google Scholar
Yuzhu, You 1984. Preliminary study of a Palaeolithic bone engraving. Kexue Tongbao 29 (1), 80–82.Google Scholar