Paleolithic Changes

Immense changes took place between the Paleolithic and Neolithic time eras. One major change was the evolution of art. During the paleolithic time period, “…humans began making the first consciously manufactured pictorial images” (Kleiner, 16). The art they began creating came in a large variety. “During the Paleolithic period, humankind went beyond the recognition of human and animal forms in the natural environment to the representation of humans and animals (Kleiner, 16). They created portable paintings, sculptures, and figurines. “Art historians are certain, however, that these sculpture were important to those who created them, because manufacturing an ivory figure, especially one a foot tall, was a complicated process (Kleiner, 17). As

The first permanent stone fortifications was built in Jericho. They constructed the building using roughly shaped stones laid without mortar (Kleiner, 24). Once Jericho’s inhabitants left their site, a different group of people came to settle there. They used different techniques, “…established a farming community of rectangular mud-brick houses on stone foundations with plastered and painted floors and walls” (Kleiner, 25). The megalithic tomb in Ireland was built in the form of a passage grave. “At Newgrandge, the huge megaliths forming the vaulted passage and the dome are held in place by their own weight without mortar, each stone countering the thrust o neighboring stones. Decorating some of the megaliths are incised spirals and other motifs” (Kleiner, 27). The main chamber used early examples of corralled vaulting and in addition the Newgrandge tomb illuminates sunlight through the passage and the burial chamber during the winter solstice. Nearing the end of the fourth millennium BCE, Neolithic civilization had spread in every diffraction even to small remote areas. “…Hagar Quim is one of many constructed on Malta between 3200 and 2500 BCE” (Kleiner, 27).The builders of Malta constructed the temple by pilling cut stone blocks very carefully in stacked horizontal rows. “To construct the doorways at Hagar Qim, the builders employed the post-and-lintel system in which two upright stones

Some say it is because the people believed by painting or engraving the animals on the cave walls put the beast under their control. “Some scholars have even hypothesized that rituals or dances were performed in front of the images and that these rites served to improve the luck the community’s hunters (Kleiner,21). Another explanation is that the animals served as a teaching tool. It allowed them to teach new hunters about the different characteristics each species had that they would encounter. At the other end of the spectrum some experts believe the art in the caves was created in hopes of the species survival. The people in this time period relied on their survival because they depended on them for their food supply and clothes. There are many different theories, but almost all of them have been discredited. To this day, the meaning behind the art work on the cave walls remains a mystery. One may not know exactly why they made the images, but one does know how they created them in the dark caves. “To illuminate the cave walls and ceilings while working, Paleolithic painters lit fires on cave floors and used stone lamps filled with marrow or fat, with a wick, perhaps of moss, as well as simple torches” (Kleiner, 20). In order to draw the paintings, they used many different types of minerals and they used large flat stones as palettes. As for brushes, they used a wide array of objects.