The ancient world
Prehistoric art
c. 40,000–3000 BCE
The earliest images and objects people made, from cave paintings to carved figures and standing stones.
Overview
Long before writing, people painted animals on cave walls, carved small figures from stone, bone and ivory, and raised monuments from enormous stones. The oldest known figurative works are at least 40,000 years old, and comparable traditions appear independently in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.
Because no written records survive, what these works meant has to be inferred from where they were found and what they show. Many scholars connect them with ritual, storytelling or the marking of territory, but the interpretations remain open.
What defines it
- Animals and human figures drawn with mineral pigments such as ochre and charcoal
- Small portable carvings in stone, bone and ivory
- Monuments built from massive stones during the Neolithic
Works to know
- Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel
- Chauvet Cave paintings
- Venus of Willendorf
- Lascaux cave paintings
- Stonehenge