Kenneth L. Feder

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C H A P T E R

Expanding Intellectual Horizons: Art and Ideas in the Upper Paleolithic and New Stone Age

7The Past in Perspective

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Art and Ideas in the Upper Paleolithic• Chronicle• The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art• Issues and Debase• Case Study Close-up• Summary

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Chronicle

• Chronicle– Depicting images that are intended to symbolize

something, either concrete or abstract appears to be a practice that is unique to anatomically modern human beings.

• Incised ochre fragments recovered at Blombos Cave and dated to 77,000 years ago may represent some of the earliest evidence of this behavior.

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Chronicle

• Chronicle . . . (continued) – Blombos cave overlooks the Indian Ocean at

South Africa’s southern tip.• Two of the larger chunks of the ochre recovered at

Blombos, and possible several more, had regularly spaced incised markings in the form of crosshatching across their lengths.

– The authors of the study suggest that the markings follow convention, are abstract, unrelated to any real or natural images, and may be symbolic.

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The Upper PaleolithicGreat Leap Forward• The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward

– We can examine the following cultural evolutionary “disconformities,” or breaks, between the Middle and Upper Paleolithic:

• Dramatic shift in stone-tool technology.• Broadening of the subsistence base.• Much larger sites.• Dramatic increase in the production of bone, antler,

ivory, and shell tools.

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The Upper PaleolithicGreat Leap Forward• The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward

– We can examine . . . (continued) • Shift from very few nonutilitarian items to an

abundance of them.• Greater use of imported, “exotic” goods.• Much more elaborate burials.• A shift from virtually no works of art to the highly

characteristic use of symbol and the production of art.

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Stone Blades of the Upper Paleolithic

– Stone tool technology based on the production of blades is seen as more advanced.

– The blade technologies of the Upper Paleolithic are short-lived, and change is greatly accelerated.

• In western Europe the Aurignacian tradition consisted of specific set of tools that included retouched blades, engraving tools called burins, and stone scrapers, and is dated to between 34,000 B.P. and 27,000 B.P.

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Stone Blades of the Upper Paleolithic

– Blade technologies . . . (continued)• From 27,000 B.P. to 21,000 B.P., the Gravettian

tradition developed with its emphasis on smaller blades and denticulate knives.

• The Solutrean tradition, dated from 21,000 B.P. to 16,000 B.P., is characterized by finely made, bifacially flaked, symmetrical, leaf-shaped projectile points.

• The Magdelanian, from 16,000 B.P. to 11,000 B.P., emphasized bone and antler, with the attendant production of microblades.

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Stone Blades of the Upper Paleolithic

– Lithic technology became more complex and elaborate with a number of different manufacturing techniques that used stone more efficiently.

– Upper Paleolithic technology was marked by relatively rapid change and an explosion of toolmaking diversity marked by relatively rapid change and far greater geographic variability.

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Broadening the Subsistence Base

– The hunting of big game—megafauna—made a significant contribution to the subsistence of Upper Paleolithic people.

• It is far more likely that the people of the Upper Paleolithic subsistence on a broad spectrum of foods.

• Larger Sites of Aggregation– Middle Paleolithic sites tend to be small.

• Representative of the encampments of nomadic, opportunistic foragers, who took whatever resourced they could wherever they became available, without much planning in advance.

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Larger Sites of Aggregation . . . (continued)

– Though Upper Paleolithic sites include small foraging camps, much larger sites also date to the Upper Paleolithic.

– The settlement pattern of the Middle Paleolithic reflects a strategy of opportunistic foraging within a pattern of unrestricted wandering.

• During the Upper Paleolithic, the settlement pattern seems to indicate a shift to a fixed seasonal round as apart of a strategy of logistical collecting (Binford 1984).

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Branching Out in Raw Materials

– The use of bone, as well as ivory, antler, and shell for the production of tools used in sewing and for hunting equipment is a hallmark of the Upper Paleolithic.

• The spear-thrower was an innovation of the Upper Paleolithic.

• Abundance of Nonutilitarian Objects– Upper Paleolithic sites are replete with objects

of personal adornment.

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The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward• Use of Exotic Raw Materials

– The expansion of the geography of economies can be seen, as raw materials and manufactured goods began traveling far greater distances.

• Implies a greater reliance on trade with distant groups and, perhaps, also implies broader social networks.

• More Elaborate Burials– About 90% of the Upper Paleolithic burials

contained grave foods, and these items were far more elaborate than the material included with the Middle Paleolithic interments.

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The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art• Symbolic expression is a uniquely human

ability.– It is not until after 50,000 years ago that the

archaeological record shows an explosion of artistic and symbolic expression by our anatomically modern human ancestors (Conkey 1978:74; Pfeiffer 1982).

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The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art• The Earliest Art: Australia and Africa

– At Wharton Hill in Australia more than 36,000 years ago, an aborigine etched an oval shape into the abutting rock race (Bednarick 1993:5).

• Petroglyph—literally, “rock-writing.”– The first African art has been dated to as early

as 28,000 B.P. (Phillipson 1993)

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The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art• Upper Paleolithic Art in Europe

– In the cave paintings (parietal art) and in carved statues and inscribed bone, antler, and ivory (mobiliary art), Upper Paleolithic Europeans produced an astounding amount of art.

• Upper Paleolithic artists also depicted themselves, though commonly more schematically and less realistically.

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The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art

Upper Paleolithic sites in Australia, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Insert Figure 7.9 (old figure 8.7)

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The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art• The Venus Figurines

– Most of the figurines, across much of Europe, date to the period between 25,000 and 23,000 years ago.

• Rice (1981:408) propose that the deduced age spread of the Upper Paleolithic female figurines depict women of all shapes and sizes, all ages, and all states of fertility.

– The artists of the Upper Paleolithic were doing something that we recognize as human behavior.

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Issues and Debase

• Is There a Gap Between the Evolution of Anatomically Modern Humans and the Development of Modern Intelligence?– Richard Klein (1989, 1993) suggests that what

amounts to a rewiring of the human brain occurred sometime between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, allowing for great leap to modern intelligence.

– Sally McBreaty and Alison Brooks (2000) argue there was no revolution, no great leap forward in intellect and behavior at the boundary between the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.

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Issues and Debase

• What Does the Art of the Upper Paleolithic Mean?– Some researches have argued that the art of the

Upper Paleolithic is (and was) beautiful and, just like modern art, was produced for the simple joy of creating something of beauty.

– Most researchers, though, eschew such an explanation as no explanation at all and have sought deeper meaning in the art.

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Issues and Debase

• Does the Paleolithic Have a Gender?– Archaeologist Diane Gifford-Gonzalez (1993)

points our that in most popular reconstructions of ancient life, virtually all of the important and exciting behaviors reflected in the archaeological record have been ascribed only to ancient males.

• We don’t know who produced the cave art in the Upper Paleolithic or who performed rituals.

• We must not allow our 21st-century preconceptions about the sexual division of labor to bias our view of the ancient past.

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Case Study Close-up

• Nine burials have been excavated at the 28,000-year-old Sungir' site, located about 150 km (100 miles) northeast of Moscow.– The Sungir' graves are loaded with with grave

goods, primarily items of adornment.– An enormous amount of time must have been

invested in preparing these items for burial.– The children’s burials at Sungir' took more time

and effort than did those of the adults.

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Summary

• The cultures of the period are characterized by:– The production of blade tools.– A broadening of the subsistence base.– An increase in the size of some sites.– The use of bone, antler, ivory, and shell in

toolmaking.– The manufacture of nonutilititarian items.– The extensive use of nonlocal exotic raw

materials.– The regular placement of grave goods in burials.– The first appearance of artwork.

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Summary

• In their use of symbol, the artists of the Upper Paleolithic and Late Stone Age were practicing a behavior that is one of the hallmarks of the modern human intellect.