Mousterian Symbols? A handful of representational or "symbolic" objects (i.e., images that stand for ideas) have been proposed for the Mousterian (Marshack 1990), but almost all of them either come from older excavations where there is a strong possibility of mixture of deposits of different ages, or are the result of natural processes rather than human activity (Chase and Dibble 1987). An example of the latter is a series of cave bear teeth thought by some archaeologists to have been purposely altered in order to be suspended as pendants. The alteration, which takes the form of a channel around the circumference of each tooth, has now been shown to be a natural product of the chewing and digestive processes of living bears.
The near absence of symbolic objects in the Mousterian has been taken by many anthropologists as evidence that language as we might recognize it was probably absent in the Mousterian (White 1985). This remains a contentious issue in Paleolithic studies (see discussion in Davidson and Noble 1989, for example).
Middle Stone Age of Africa. Like the European Mousterian, the contemporary Middle Stone Age of Africa shows so little evidence for symbolic objects that we should be suspicious of those that have been claimed (Klein 1990). There are several ochre "crayons" from sites in southern Africa (Singer and Wymer 1982), that may have served in decorating the human body or other perishable materials, or that may merely have served a functional purpose in working animal skins; ochre is known to prevent putrification. There are two serrated fragments of mammal rib and a grooved bone from Klasies River Mouth Cave (Singer and Wymer 1982), and a notched rib fragment and a perforated shell from Border Cave (Beaumont et al. 1978); both sites are in South Africa.
The Aurignacian of Europe. Throughout Europe, in levels dating to 40-28,000 years ago (the Aurignacian culture) we see the first unmistakable representations of human and animal figures. We also see a variety of as yet uninterpreted markings or signs that are repeated from site to site. Aurignacians produced a surprising diversity of images. There are fragments of bird bone with carefully spaced incisions. There are engravings and sculptures in the form of sexual organs, most often female. There are limestone blocks with simple, often fragmentary animal forms. There are bone and ivory plaques with series of dots. Surprisingly, however, some of the earliest surviving art objects are tiny three dimensional animal and human sculptures in mammoth ivory (Hahn 1972). These are most numerous in Germany, but at least one example is known from France. In some instances, limestone blocks retain traces of paint.
Perhaps the most unexpected object that has survived from the Aurignacian is a multi-holed wind instrument, frequently described as a flute, from the cave of Isturitz in Southwestern France. This flute is contemporary with some of the earliest figurative art and indicates quite clearly that music was part of the artistic and symbolic environment that people had created for themselves.
Chronology Building. Dating individual Paleolithic images, especially wall paintings, is difficult, as these images do not necessarily relate to the objects in the ground below them. Theoretically, the situation is less tricky for portable objects found in datable deposits, such as small stone slabs and engraved bone and antler objects. However, the majority of art discoveries occurred before 1930 at a time when radiocarbon dating did not exist and little precision was employed in recording the stratigraphic level from which a given piece was recovered. The lack of detailed information means that we have solid dates for only perhaps 10-20% of known portable art objects, although the number grows each year.
The need for a reliable chronology has resulted in several efforts to create an evolutionary chronology for the images based upon stylistic similarities and differences in the paintings, engravings, and sculptures themselves. The most recent and widely used attempt to provide a developmental chronology was that of the French anthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan (1967), whose work superceded the earlier framework of the Abbé Henri Breuil (1952), a pioneer in examining, documenting, and analyzing Ice Age art. Leroi-Gourhan used the small sample of dated portable art objects as a basis for describing the evolution of art styles. He then dated images painted or engraved on cave walls according to their stylistic similarity to the dated objects. There is controversy over the accuracy of this approach, in part because Leroi-Gourhan barely considered objects and images from outside of France. Moreover, from the moment it appeared Leroi-Gourhan's scheme has been amended and revised in the light of new discoveries and better dating techniques (e.g., Clottes 1990).
The Gravettian Period in Europe. In Europe, the period from 28-22,000 years ago brought an increase in diversity of art forms. In Czechoslovakia, at the 27,000 year old sites of Predmosti and Dolni Vestonice (Klima 1990), numerous fired clay figurines, many in the form of humans and animals, are the earliest evidence for ceramic art. These were fired in kilns, and it has even been suggested that they were purposely broken by thermal shock in some form of ritual (Vandiver et al. 1989).
An important theme at some Gravettian sites is the negative human handprint, produced by blowing liquified pigment around a hand held flat against a rock surface. These are especially numerous at the Southern French cave of Gargas, where many of the handprints appear to have missing digits. This led some specialists to conclude that Upper Paleolithic people may have practised ritual mutilation of the hands, or that they may have suffered digit loss due to disease or frostbite. However, in his analysis of the 159 painted handprints at Gargas, Leroi-Gourhan (1986) suggested that fingers only appeared to be missing, having been purposely held back against the palm of the hand. He supported this argument by demonstrating that there was a descending frequency in handprints from the most easily formed configuration (the entire hand) to the least easily formed configurations (e.g, the palm with only the third finger showing). He proposed that a kind of sign language or code was a better explanation.
By far the most distinctive representations in the Gravettian are the female statuettes. Although they are found throughout Europe, they show regional differences in style (Gamble 1982). They are sculpted from a variety of materials, including ivory, limestone, steatite, and calcite. Certain examples from Czechoslovakia were even modeled in clay and kiln-fired. The figurines range in style from anatomically robust, such as the magnificent "Venus" of Lespugue, to more moderately proportioned, such as the ivory statuettes of Brassempouy. Most appear pregnant; some do not. Facial features are seldom represented; nor are lower legs, which most often end in points. Henri Delporte (1979) has suggested that these pointed legs may have allowed the figurines to be stood upright in the ground. Breasts are most often large and pendulous and buttocks are generally pronounced. In some cases, the pubic triangle is indicated.
Two-dimensional examples of female forms, engraved or sculpted on large limestone blocks, are also known. Such is the case with the well known "Femme a la corne" (woman with horn) from the French site of Laussel. Sculpted in bas-relief, the figure was also covered with red ochre. This relief figure was associated with several others in what was apparently a purposeful arrangement (White 1986).
The past few decades have seen an enormous increase in the sample of female statuettes, especially in the USSR. For example, Soviet archaeologist Maria Gvozdover (1987) has spent more than forty years excavating the 26,000 year-old Russian site of Avdeevo. This extraordinary site has yielded nearly as many of the so-called "venus figurines" as all of the sites of this age in Western Europe combined. Gvozdover's careful analysis concludes that most of these statuettes, carefully sculpted from the tusks of 10,000 pound woolly mammoths, depict women in the terminal stages of pregnancy and frequently in birthing postures.
Beyond Europe at 28,000 Years Ago. As early as 28,000 years ago, the first known wall art from Africa was executed at Apollo 11 Cave in South Africa (Wendt 1976). It is composed of black painted animal figures on stone slabs fallen from the cave wall. Apparently, the first Australian rock art dates to about this same period, or perhaps somewhat earlier (Jones 1989). Although dating of both the African and Australian rock paintings remains controversial, if the present estimates hold they are older than some European ones.
The Solutrean of Western Europe. From 22-18,000 years ago, the cultural period known as the Solutrean, a new and dramatic art form, large-scale bas-reliefs, came to dominate. The most spectacular example is the SW French site of Roc de Sers in which a series of massive sculpted limestone blocks lined the back wall of a rock shelter. More such blocks were found on the slope in front of the shelter. The blocks were decorated with horses, bison, reindeer, mountain goats, and at least one human figure all executed in relief that exceeded six inches in some instances. These magnificent works seem to have decorated the very place where people slept, ate, and cooked. In other words, this was not an art isolated from day to day existence.
By 20,000 years ago, in some areas of Europe, the practice of deep cave painting seems to have become significant. The cave of Tête du Lion, which is the oldest dated painted cave, was found during road construction in the Ardeche region of France in 1963. Along with a dot and some traces of red paint, it yielded a group of animals painted in red: a deer, an aurochs, and the heads of two ibex associated with a series of yellow dots. Careful excavations at the base of the paintings by Jean Combier yielded four smears of red pigment and a number of fragments of charcoal, apparently from a torch used by the painters to light their way. The charcoal gave a radiocarbon date of 20,650+-800 BP. No stone tools or animal bones were found indicating clearly that Solutrean people did not live in the cave but merely visited it, perhaps only once.
The Magdalenian. In Europe, About 80% of all the known Upper Paleolithic art dates from 18-11,000 years ago. This period, the Magdalenian, exhibits an unprecedented richness and diversity of art forms. In addition, change over time in the media employed and the locations chosen for artistic production occurred throughout the Magdalenian. The early phases of this period witnessed some of the most remarkable deep cave painting, most notably that of Lascaux Cave, executed about 17,500 years ago. Curiously, the people responsible for the spectacular paintings of Lascaux seem not to have produced much in the way of portable art. In the early Magdalenian, we see a few engravings on stone slabs and bone fragments, but for the most part decoration was applied to functional implements, particularly spear points; and then, in contrast to the cave art, it is most often schematic or geometric in subject matter.
The middle and late Magdalenian period, from 15-11,000 years ago, saw the deepest penetration of the underground, especially in the French Pyrenees (Vialou 1986). There is also strong evidence for the continuation of large-scale bas-reliefs that are not deep underground. For example, the rock shelter of Angles-sur-Anglin is decorated with a frieze of deeply sculpted animals along its entire length. Like the earlier bas-reliefs, this remarkable work seems to have adorned the scene of everyday activities. People of this period also created a rich and spectacular body of smaller portable art objects. Elaborately decorated spear-throwers are quite abundant during this period as are finely sculpted bone pendants, often in the form of horses' heads.
The old notion that humans were infrequently represented in Upper Paleolithic art has been overturned by the painstaking work of Léon Pales (Pales and de St. Péreuse 1976) on engraved limestone slabs from the cave of la Marche. He clearly documented 110 more or less realistic human representations.
After about 13,000 years ago, animal representations often exhibit what Leroi-Gourhan calls hyper-realism. The images were executed with such attention to detail that it is often possible to determine age, sex and season of the represented animal by analyzing characteristics of the animals' coat, horns, antlers and behavior.