When were the oldest rock paintings made? Six masterpieces of rock art

Interesting and picturesque messages from the past - drawings on the walls of caves, which are up to 40 thousand years old - fascinate modern people with its brevity.

What were they for the people of ancient times? If they served only to decorate the walls, then why were they performed in remote corners of caves, in places where, most likely, they did not live?

The oldest of the found drawings were made about 40 thousand years ago, others are several tens of thousands of years younger. It is interesting that in different parts of the world the images on the walls of caves are very similar - in those days people depicted mainly ungulates and other animals that were common in their area.

The image of hands was also popular: community members put their palms to the wall and outlined them. Such pictures are truly inspiring: by pressing your palm against such an image, a person can feel as if he has formed a bridge between modern civilization and antiquity!

Below we bring to your attention interesting images made by ancient people from different corners light on the walls of the caves.

Pettaker Lime Cave, Indonesia

Pettaker Cave 12 kilometers from the town of Maros. At the entrance to the cave, there are white and red outlines of hands on the ceiling - 26 images in total. The age of the drawings is about 35 thousand years. Photo: Cahyo Ramadhani/wikipedia.org

Chauvet Cave, south of France

The images, which are about 32-34 thousand years old, are placed on the walls of a limestone cave near the city of Valon-pont-d'Arc. In total, in the cave, which was discovered only in 1994, there are 300 drawings that amaze with their picturesqueness.

One of the most famous images from the Chauvet Cave. Photo: JEFF PACHOUD/AFP/Getty Images

Photo: JEFF PACHOUD/AFP/Getty Images

El Castillo Cave, Spain

El Castillo contains some of the oldest examples of cave painting in the world. The age of the images is at least 40,800 years.

Photo: cuevas.culturadecantabria.com

Covalanas Cave, Spain

The unique Kovalanas cave was inhabited by people less than 45 thousand years ago!

Photo: cuevas.culturadecantabria.com

The walls of the caves located near Covalanas and El Castillo are also decorated with numerous paintings made by people thousands of years ago. However, these caves are not so famous. Among them are Las Monedas, El Pendo, Chufin, Hornos de la Pena, Culalvera.

Lascaux Cave, France

The Lascaux cave complex in southwestern France was accidentally discovered in 1940 by a local resident, an 18-year-old boy named Marcel Ravid. Great amount The paintings on the walls, which are surprisingly well preserved, give this cave complex the right to claim the title of one of the largest galleries ancient world. The age of the images is about 17.3 thousand years.

On December 18, 1994, the famous French speleologist Jean Marie Chauvet discovered a cave gallery with ancient images of animals. The find was named in honor of its discoverer - Chauvet Cave. We decided to talk about the most beautiful caves with rock paintings.

Chauvet Cave

The discovery of the Chauvet Cave in the south of France near the town of Pont d'Arc became a scientific sensation that forced us to reconsider the existing understanding of the art of ancient people: it was previously believed that primitive painting developed in stages. At first, the images were very primitive, and more than one thousand years had to pass for the drawings on the walls of the caves to reach their perfection. Chauvet's find suggests the opposite: the age of some images is 30–33 thousand years, which means that our ancestors learned to draw even before moving to Europe. The discovered rock art represents one of the oldest examples of cave art in the world, in particular, the drawing of black rhinoceroses from Chauvet is still considered the most ancient. The south of France is rich in such caves, but none of them can compare with the Chauvet Cave either in size, or in the preservation and skill of the drawings. Mostly animals are depicted on the walls of the cave: panthers, horses, deer, as well as woolly rhinoceros, tarpan, cave lion and other animals ice age. In total, 13 images were found in the cave. various types animals.

Now the cave is closed to tourists, as changes in air humidity can damage the images. Archaeologists can only work in a cave for a few hours a day. Today the Chauvet Cave is national treasure France.

Caves of Nerja

The Caves of Nerja are an amazingly beautiful series of huge caves near the city of Nerja in Andalusia, Spain. They received the nickname "Prehistoric Cathedral". They were discovered by accident in 1959. They are one of the main attractions of Spain. Some of their galleries are open to the public, and one of them, which forms a natural amphitheater and has excellent acoustics, even hosts concerts. In addition to the world's largest stalagmite, several mysterious drawings were discovered in the cave. Experts believe that seals or fur seals are depicted on the walls. Fragments of charcoal were found near the drawings, the radiocarbon dating of which gave an age between 43,500 and 42,300 years. If experts prove that the images were made with this charcoal, the seals of the Nerja Cave will turn out to be significantly older than the cave paintings from the Chauvet Cave. This will once again confirm the assumption that Neanderthals had the ability to creative imagination no less than that of Homo sapiens.

Photo: iDip/flickr.com, scitechdaily.com

Kapova Cave (Shulgan-Tash)

This karst cave was found in Bashkiria, on the Belaya River, in the area of which the Shulgan-Tash nature reserve is now located. This is one of the longest caves in the Urals. Rock paintings of ancient people of the era Late Paleolithic, the likes of which can only be found in very limited places in Europe, were discovered in Kapova Cave in 1959. Images of mammoths, horses and other animals are made mainly with ocher, a natural pigment based on animal fat, their age is about 18 thousand years. There are several charcoal drawings. In addition to animals, there are images of triangles, stairs, and oblique lines. The most ancient drawings dating back to early paleolithic, are located in the upper tier. On lower tier Kapova Cave contains later images of the Ice Age. The drawings are also notable for the fact that human figures shown without the realism inherent in the depicted animals. Researchers suggest that the images were made in order to appease the “gods of the hunt.” In addition, cave paintings are designed to be perceived not from one specific point, but from several angles of view. To preserve the drawings, the cave was closed to the public in 2012, but an interactive kiosk was installed in the museum on the territory of the reserve for everyone to look at the drawings virtually.

Cueva de las Manos cave

Cueva de las Manos (“Cave of Many Hands”) is located in Argentina, in the province of Santa Cruz. Cueva de las Manos became world famous in 1964 thanks to the research of archeology professor Carlos Gradin, who discovered many wall paintings and human handprints in the cave, the oldest of which date back to the 9th millennium BC. e. More than 800 prints, overlapping each other, form a multi-colored mosaic. So far, scientists have not come to a consensus about the meaning of the images of hands, from which the cave got its name. Mostly left hands were captured: out of 829 prints, only 36 were right hands. Moreover, according to some researchers, the hands belong to teenage boys. Most likely, drawing an image of one’s hand was part of the initiation rite. In addition, scientists have built a theory about how such clear and clear handprints were obtained: apparently, a special composition was taken into the mouth and forcefully blown through a tube onto a hand attached to the wall. In addition to handprints, on the walls of the cave there are depictions of people, rhea ostriches, guanacos, cats, geometric figures with ornaments, hunting processes (the pictures show the use of bolas - a traditional throwing weapon of the Indians South America) and observations of the sun. In 1999, the cave was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Lascaux Cave

The cave received the nickname " Sistine Chapel primitive painting", it has no equal in terms of quantity, quality and preservation of rock art. It was discovered in 1940 by four teenagers near the city of Montignac, France. The paintings and engraved drawings that are located here do not have an exact dating: they appeared around the 18th-15th millennium BC. e. and depict horses, cows, bulls, deer, bears. In total, there are about six hundred drawings of animals and almost one and a half thousand images carved on the walls. The drawings are made on a light background with shades of yellow, red, brown and black. Scientists claim that ancient people did not live in this cave, but used it exclusively for drawing, or the cave was something of a cult place. The Lascaux Cave was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Andrey Matveev worked on the article

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Rock paintings and engravings began tens of thousands of years before the birth of civilizations such as Greece and Mesopotamia. Although most of these works remain a mystery, they provide modern scholars with insight into daily life prehistoric people, understand their religious beliefs and culture. It is truly a miracle that these ancient drawings survived for such a long time in the face of natural erosion, wars and destructive human activities.

1. El Castillo

Spain
Some of the oldest known cave paintings in the world, depicting horses, bison and warriors, are located in the El Castillo cave, in Cantabria in northern Spain. There is a hole leading into the cave, so narrow that you have to crawl through it. In the cave itself you can find many drawings that are at least 40,800 years old.

They were made shortly after people began migrating from Africa to Europe, where they met Neanderthals. In fact, the age of the cave paintings suggests the possibility that they were made by Neanderthals, who lived in this region, although the evidence for this is not at all convincing.

2.Sulawesi

Indonesia
For a long time, El Castillo Cave was believed to contain the oldest known cave paintings. But in 2014, archaeologists made a stunning discovery. In seven caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, handprints and primitive drawings of local pigs were found on the walls.

These images were already known to local residents, but no one even knew how old they were. Scientists estimate the age of the rock paintings at 40,000 years. Such a discovery cast doubt on the long-held belief that human art first appeared in Europe.

3. Arnhem Land Plateau

Australia
Recent research has shown that some places in Australia may rival the world's oldest art in age. Rock art dating back 28,000 years was found at the Nawarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in the north of the country. However, scientists believe that some of the drawings may be much older, as one of them depicts a giant bird that went extinct about 40,000 years ago.

Therefore, either the rock art is older than expected, or the bird lived longer than expected modern science. In Nawarla Gabarnmang you can also find drawings of fish, crocodiles, wallabies, lizards, turtles and other animals made tens of thousands of years ago.

4. Apollo 11

Namibia
This cave has received so much unusual name, because it was discovered by a German archaeologist in 1969, when the first spaceship(Apollo 11) landed on the moon. Drawings made with charcoal, ocher and white paint were found on the stone slabs of a cave in southwestern Namibia.

The images of creatures that resemble cats, zebras, ostriches and giraffes are between 26,000 and 28,000 years old and are the oldest fine arts, found in Africa.

5. Pech Merle Cave

France
Scientists believed that paintings of two spotted horses on the walls of the Pech-Merle cave in south-central France, which were made 25,000 years ago, were the figment of the imagination of an ancient artist. But recent DNA research has shown that similar spotted horses actually existed in the region at that time. Also in the cave you can find 5,000-year-old images of bison, mammoths, horses and other animals, painted with black manganese oxide and red ocher.

6. Tadrart-Akakus

Libya
Deep in the Sahara Desert in southwestern Libya, in the Tadrart-Akakus mountain range, thousands of paintings and rock carvings have been found that show that these arid lands once contained water and lush vegetation. Also on the territory of what is now the Sahara lived giraffes, rhinoceroses, and crocodiles. Oldest drawing was made here 12,000 years ago. But, after Tadrart-Akakus began to be swallowed up by the desert, people finally left this place around 100 AD.

7. Bhimbetka

India
There are about 600 caves in Madhya Pradesh and rock dwellings, in which they found rock paintings made between 1,000 and 12,000 years ago.
These prehistoric images are painted with red and white paint. In the paintings you can find scenes of hunting buffaloes, tigers, giraffes, moose, lions, leopards, elephants and rhinoceroses. Other drawings show the collection of fruits and honey and the domestication of animals. You can also find images of animals that have long been extinct in India.

8. Laas Gaal

Somalia
A complex of eight caves in Somaliland contains some of the oldest and best-preserved rock paintings in Africa. They are estimated to be between 5,000 and 11,000 years old and are painted in red, orange and cream colors of cows, people, dogs and giraffes. Almost nothing is known about the people who lived here at that time, but many local residents The caves are still considered sacred.

9. Cueva de las Manos

Argentina
This unusual cave in Patagonia is overflowing with 9,000-year-old red and black handprints on the walls. Since there are mainly images of the left hands of teenage boys, scientists have suggested that drawing an image of one’s hand was part of the initiation rite for young men. In addition, scenes of hunting guanacos and flightless rhea birds can also be found in the cave.

10. Cave of Swimmers

Egypt
In 1933, a cave with Neolithic rock paintings was found in the Libyan Desert. The images of people swimming (from which the cave gets its name), as well as the handprints that adorn the walls, were made between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago.

Most scientists believe that ancient people appeared over two million years ago. Archaeologists found traces of their existence in East Africa. The conditions here were favorable for primitive man: hot climate, plenty of edible roots and fruits, places to hide from bad weather and predators. Life ancient man hung from nature. Primitive history lasted hundreds of thousands of years. During this time, people populated all continents except Antarctica. They appeared on the territory of our country about half a million years ago.

The emergence of primitive art

Even then, ancient art existed. The oldest images were discovered in Spain, in the south of France, in Russia in the Urals.

Primitive art has been known since time immemorial. TO ancient images on the walls of the caves there are images-imprints of a human hand. Almost 150 years ago, a cave was discovered in Spain with drawings on the walls and ceiling. Later, more than 100 similar caves were discovered in France and Spain.

There are several periods in the development of cave art:

First period (XXX thousand years BC). When the surface inside the outline of the design was filled with black or red paint.

The second period (up to X thousand years BC) is marked by a transition to oblique parallel strokes. This is how fur began to be depicted on animal skins. Were introduced additional colors (various shades yellow and red) for stains on the skins of bulls, horses, bison.

In the third period (from the 10th millennium BC) - cave art became very voluminous with the use of multi-colored paints

First paints.

What are paints? IN explanatory dictionary S.I. Ozhigova gives the following definition:

Paint is a homogeneous colored substance that gives a particular color to objects. Widely used in the national economy, everyday life, as well as in painting.

Of course, there are colors in modern understanding Ancient people did not have this word. He used natural materials for his drawings.

The first paint was clay. It can be different: yellow, red, white, blue, greenish. The ancient artist carved a design into the rock, and then rubbed clay mixed with animal fat into the recess. Often ancient artists used ocher - a paint of red, yellow and Brown, found in nature in the form of clay or crumbly small lumps. The cave paintings were made with coal, which was always at hand, as well as black soot and soot.

Paints from minerals, plants and animals.

Our ancestors also painted with paints obtained from rocks. blue paint were mined from the mineral lapis lazuli, green from malachite, and red from a mineral called cinnabar.

Over time, people learned to mine and make a lot various colors. The purple crimson color was especially valued. IN Ancient Rome Only the emperor wore clothes of purple and crimson colors. This paint was very expensive, it was extracted from the shells of snails living in the Mediterranean Sea. To obtain 1 gram of such paint, 10 thousand shells had to be processed. They even made paints from insects. Tropical insects called cachinelles were the source of a red dye called carmine.

Bright and long-lasting colors were obtained from plants. In ancient times, plant paints were used by humans to decorate weapons, clothing, and homes. At first it was the juices of bright petals, leaves, and fruits of plants, then people learned to prepare special dyes from plants.

For example, yellow paint was obtained from the bark of barberry, alder, and milkweed.

Onion peels, oak bark and henna leaves from this Lawsonia plant produced brown dye.

A lot of different colors extracted from plants in Ancient Rus'. Blue dye was obtained from the root of the knotweed, yellow from the roots of horse sorrel, cherry dye from the lichen of the steppe goldenrod, and with the help of blackberries and blueberries they dyed fabrics purple.

During excavations Egyptian pyramids fabrics found of blue color, dyed indigo, dye from the leaves of the indigofera plant.

Plants have been found from which paint of several colors could be obtained. So, for example, red, yellow and orange paint. And from the cuff plant they obtained yellow, green and black paint. Especially wide color palette produced a plant such as madder. Famous for the brightness of colors and multicolored Dagestan carpets, they were woven from wool dyed with a substance obtained from madder roots.

Conclusion.

Observation results.

I conducted an observation.

Many times I saw how my grandmother and mother painted with onion skins Easter eggs. They produced a very rich burgundy color.

For the holiday, my mother often bakes a cake and decorates it with cream, to which she adds beet and carrot juice. She produces red roses and orange flowers.

Experiment results.

I conducted an experiment myself and tried to first draw a picture with charcoal, and then color it with beet and carrot juice. I added a decoction of the yarrow plant to my new paints. I made a color drawing “Flowers”.

Thus, of all the paints discussed above that I used ancient artist we can conclude:

1) Of course, ancient man did not have colors in the modern sense of the word. He used natural materials for his drawings.

2) The color was used for coloring, although it was not very different from natural. He wore conditional character, to highlight more important items in the drawing.

3) Painting was carried out with mineral paints, paints from the flora and fauna

4) Paints made from natural materials, were accessible and harmless.

5) Recipes for making some paints from natural materials have survived to this day, such as: brown from onion peels, burgundy from beets and orange from carrots and many others.

From my research I concluded: the hypothesis I put forward that ancient people found colors in nature was completely confirmed.

The oldest rock paintings primitive people were amazing images that were mainly painted on stone walls. It is worth noting that in general, cave painting is unique. Today, perhaps, every person has identified from a video or photo that the rock paintings are deer, people with arrows, mammoths and much more. At that time, artists did not know such a thing as composition. Experts say that the animals that are depicted on rocks or other foundations are sacred animals, the ancestors of a clan, or one of the objects of veneration of a particular tribe.

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There is an opinion that the cave paintings of primitive people are animals that were hunted by people of that time. IN in this case These drawings served as magical rituals, with the help of which hunters wanted to attract real animals during the hunt.

The main part of such paintings is located in the depths of caves - places that were considered a kind of sanctuary. If we talk about the Madeleine era, then this period became quite bright in the development of Paleolithic art. Most of Such finds are found in the southwestern part of France, in the regions of the Pyrenees, as well as in the northwestern part of Spain.

Changes in the life of primitive people

After the disappearance of certain species of animals, as well as due to climate change, the nature of the activities of people of that time changed significantly. For example, people
They stopped hunting and collecting food in the area less; they began to pay more attention to agriculture and cattle breeding. Changes also affected magical images, that is, the cave paintings of primitive people became different. People began to make rock paintings not in the depths of caves, but, on the contrary, closer to the exits and, in some cases, outside.

If we talk about the Paleolithic era, then it was almost impossible to find images of people here. Now the person is the main thing actor in the depicted space. The domestication of animals led to the fact that they began to be depicted next to people. For example, they were used to depict hunting scenes. In addition, people began to use a completely different technique of painting on rocks.

Basically, figures were depicted schematically using triangles and also straight lines. In addition, the images were monochrome. For example, artists of that time used black, red, orange, or white mineral paint. In addition to scenes of hunting, scenes of various ritual dances and battles began to appear on the rocks. And also scenes of grazing cattle. Murals of this type can be seen throughout Spain.

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The first examples of sculpture

If we talk about the first examples of Neolithic sculpture, they were associated with the funeral cult: skulls, both human and animal, and much more. Images of naked women with big breasts and hips. Rarely, pregnant women were also depicted.

First monumental sculptures appeared in southern Europe. Also at that time, ceramic products appeared. The first products were wicker bottles, as well as baskets, which were decorated with various ornaments.

It should be noted that historians, as well as archaeologists, are still actively searching for rock art, of which, according to experts, there are still many. The most common rock carvings are images of deer, tigers, mammoths, and horses. It is no secret that today the cave paintings of primitive people evoke a large number of controversial issues among a large number of historians and archaeologists.

Video: Cave paintings of ancient people

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