Art of primitive men

Any work of art is inseparable from its author and is a reflection of his "inner" world.Primitive art is no exception. A man of the Stone Age, applying drawings or sculptures to stones, tools, cave walls, did this for reasons that were quite understandable to him.Millennia have passed.Civilization has changed a person's way of life, his religion, philosophy, worldview, logic.From the height of modern society, the prehistoric hunter's train of thought seems strange, vague, illogical, and "wild."But if we want to see the meaning of the drawings and sculptures of the Stone Age, we must "tune in" with primitive man, and look at the world around him through his eyes.

The drawings of this period on the walls of the Altamira, Lascaux, and Font-de-Gom caves are recognized as true masterpieces of ancient art.
This raises questions about why this particular period saw the flourishing of prehistoric art. What messages did the artists of the Stone Age convey in their works?
It is unlikely that we will be able to fully understand the meaning of most of the cave paintings. But if you dig deep enough, the "fog of time" sometimes clears, and the contours of the past emerge from the depths of the ages, allowing us to read the stories of long-gone years captured by primitive artists in their creations.

The mammoth drawing is made on the vertical stone wall of the cave. The image is a contour of the animal standing in profile. The silhouette is painted with red ochre, except for the tusks, for which the artist used the natural relief of the wall, in shape very much resembling this fragment of the animal. In the central part of the picture, a round spot is applied, made with a darker shade of ochre.
To understand the motivation of the author of the image, the sources of his creativity and inspiration, it is only possible to study the features of life of prehistoric man in the period of time called by experts "late Magdalen".

A study of the skeleton's bones revealed that the man had a very athletic build. He was 178 cm tall. The "Sungir man" had very well-developed muscles in his arms and shoulder girdle. His collarbone was very long, measuring 19 cm. This means that despite his relatively tall stature for a primitive human, this mammoth hunter was 6-10 cm wider in the shoulders than modern men. The "Sungir man" often lifted heavy objects, walked a lot, and ate mostly meat, and he did not experience hunger during his childhood and adolescence.
In Photo 3 (reconstruction of the appearance of a mammoth hunter), we see the bust of a strong, muscular man: broad shoulders, huge trapezius muscles, a large chest, and well-defined neck muscles. In modern times, the "Sungir man" could confidently participate in a bodybuilding competition.
It should be noted that this type of body constitution (powerful and muscular) is completely uncharacteristic for representatives of the Stone Age. In semi-starved conditions, a small amount of muscle mass always gave a person a better chance of survival. All travelers from the 16th to the 20th century noted the "weakness" of the primitive human body compared to the average members of the civilized world. Mammoth hunters were an exception to this rule. They were big, tall, muscular, and strong: the Rambo and Schwarzenegger of the Ice Age."

And what did the "feminine half" of mammoth hunters look like? The primitive artists of the Ice Age have left us many drawings and sculptures of the beautiful half of humanity of their era - these are the so-called "Paleolithic Venuses". Let's take a closer look at them (Photos 4 and 5).
What can we say about these women? A common feature of all "Paleolithic Venuses" is that they depict very well-fed women. In the tundra-steppe conditions, the "beautiful half of humanity" clearly suffered from obesity and excess weight, rather than from hunger or malnutrition!
The "Paleolithic Venuses" do not have facial features or other distinctive personality traits. Therefore, these are not images of specific individuals from that era, but rather symbolic representations of feminine spirits. However, the primitive artist accurately captures the anatomical features of the "beautiful half of humanity," including women who had given birth, were well-fed, and suffered from obesity. This suggests that these images are not mere fantasies, but rather a reflection of the voluptuous forms and bodies that the artist observed in real life.

The first surprise is that, contrary to all the ideas and stereotypes about Stone Age aborigines, the male inhabitants of the glacial tundra were tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, and strong. On the other hand, the "feminine" half of the population was quite plump and obese.
This fact, combined with other evidence (such as the condition of their teeth), clearly indicates that the primitive mammoth hunters had no trouble obtaining food. Stone Age tools, combined with collective skills, were enough for primitive humans to successfully hunt in the glacial tundra. Men ran and walked a lot, brought back their catch, and ate a large amount of high-calorie meat. Children and teenagers did not go hungry. Women kept the fire going, cooked food, raised children, did not move much, and gradually gained weight (see photos 4 and 5).

But only a professional artist can create drawings that can be considered works of art. This means that the artist must have both talent and training under the guidance of experienced teachers. This raises the question: "What kind of art schools were available in the Stone Age in Ice Age Europe?" The quality of the artworks from the Magdalenian period provides a clear answer: these drawings were created by talented and trained artists. Their works are characterized by grace and dynamism, as well as elegance and emotion.

The drawing was made without any mistakes, with a confident and precise movement of an experienced hand. Why was it done here?
The cave that the artist chose to create the drawing was undoubtedly a sacred and culturally significant place during the prehistoric period. It was a place where primitive hunters performed their religious rituals. The artist could only create a drawing in such a place with the approval and consent of the local community. The choice of the specific area on the wall for the drawing was not made randomly. There must have been a reason for it.

But it is known that in the primitive worldview, one of the main properties of a stone, piece of wood or bone is the ability to be a container of the soul. The presence of a spirit inside provides the object with certain magical properties. Primitive man always looked for such objects in the surrounding nature and actively used them. With the help of such religious objects, prehistoric man tried to influence the world around him.
During the Ice Age, Pindal Cave was one of the sacred places of primitive man. The mammoth hunter firmly believed that spirits inhabited the walls of the cave. Including the souls of animals.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruption, meteorite fall periodically generate natural disasters on earth with serious consequences. But all of them do not pass without a trace. Material evidence remains: craters, volcanic ash, pebbles, etc., which allow you to reconstruct the course of events. There is no evidence of any similar events in northern Spain at the end of the Ice Age. But at this time, another epoch-making event takes place, which could not but affect the life of primitive man in the most dramatic way.
During the Ice Age, the tundra steppe was located in northern Spain, where mammoths and other large herbivores roamed. With the warming of the climate, the taiga began to attack the glacial tundra, buying up grass. Spain's territory in the north is bounded by the waters of the Bay of Biscay and the Pyrenees Mountains. The wildlife of the glacial tundra steppe of northern Spain could not migrate north beyond the retreating glacier and became trapped. Left without a food supply, large herbivores began to die out, putting the primitive hunter on the verge of starvation.

What to do in such a situation when the animals that primitive man used to hunt disappear? Hunters of the end of the Ice Age could not but use all means to restore the endangered fauna.
In medieval Europe, the Christian world actively used religion to get rid of invasions, epidemics, diseases, and crop failures: prayer services, processions, offering and kissing icons, Masses, vigils, and other techniques that, within the framework of the worldview of that era, helped to get rid of adversity. Primitive man also could not help but use the religion of his time to solve the problem. And the ancient hunter, faced with the disappearance of large herbivorous animals, in accordance with his worldview, made an attempt ... to recreate the mammoth!
To most modern people, such an idea would seem ridiculous. But primitive man doesn't have to think the same way we do. He also thinks differently, because he grew up within a different religious concept, with a logical mindset and a primitive worldview..

The hunters of the Ice Age imagined two main steps in the process of creating the living from the inanimate: first, it was necessary to create an image of an animal and, secondly, it was necessary to somehow "breathe" the spirit of the mammoth into it. Making the first step – creating a sculpture or drawing of an animal - is more than a feasible task for a primitive artist. But to take the second step – to breathe the soul into the created image - is beyond the power of man.
There is a problem. How would a dear reader solve it?
The mammoth hunter found a very interesting, and surprisingly, quite scientific approach to solving the problem: "Let's do the opposite! We'll find a stone that already has a mammoth soul in it and make an animal drawing on it!" As a result, the mammoth soul will be inside the animal image, and the drawing will certainly come to life!

At the end of the Ice Age, the climate was warmer. The tundra steppe in northern Spain is overgrown with forests. Large herbivores, except for those that were able to go north along the coast, died. Primitive magic couldn't make extinct animals come back. The primitive mammoth hunters had no chance of survival. These "Atlanteans" of the Ice Age, their women, their talented artists and their children died at the end of the Ice Age.
"A holy place is never empty." Some time later, prehistoric man settled in the north of Spain again. He came from the south and differed from mammoth hunters in his physique and hunting techniques. His life was a harsh struggle for survival. Primitive man continued to paint on the walls of rocks and caves. But he no longer had time to develop his visual techniques. The artistic level of the images has dropped dramatically. The drawings have become more primitive and symbolic. The emotions and dynamics of animal movement have disappeared in the paintings. The heyday of primitive art in Europe is over.
This story was told to us by a drawing of a mammoth in the Pindal cave on the shores of the Bay of Biscay.