Category: Paleolithic
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Modern Cave Art
I’m wondering why we have stopped making cave art and I’m not the only one thinking along those lines. This is a painting by the very versatile Gustave Baumann.
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Primitive Technology
Primitive Technology is a popular YouTube channel about making things from scratch without any modern tools or materials. It’s not just what it’s about that I like, but, to quote Roger Ebert, how it’s about what it’s about. There is no talking. Context is provided in terse subtitles that remind…
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Shaman
Nothing remains of the millions of brilliant men and women who lived before we invented writing. A few cave paintings and some carved figurines are the only exception. But what about their music, their science and their worldview? We know next to nothing, and this is likely to remain the…
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The Lion-man Toy
The Löwenmensch (German for lion-person) is a figurine of a man with a lion’s head, carved from a mammoth’s tusk at least 35,000 years ago. Most interpretations assume that it was carved for ritualistic and shamanic purposes, but I think it may simply have been a toy. It’d have taken…
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The Best of Billions
Why is paleolithic cave art so good? The artistic standard of the painting in Chauvet, created 35,000 years ago, is outstanding. My preferred explanation is that the paintings were created by unusually gifted artists, equivalent in their talent to the very best contemporary painter. Assuming that modern humans appeared 190,000…
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Chauvet Virtual Tour
The French National Museum of Archeology has a good virtual tour of the Chauvet cave here. They also have a good gallery of the cave’s art here. Don Hitchcock’s frequently updated website is another great starting point for exploring paleolithic art. Related posts:
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Avoiding the Paleolithic
Why are there no movies, TV series or even novels set in the paleolithic? After all, it’s the epoch that made us who we are, and genetically we haven’t changed much in the 11,700 years since. Some of us eat a “paleo diet” with the kinds of food we think…
Nehaveigur 