Early man and Art

[paleolithic]

What do you think the purpose of cave paintings, artistic figurine carvings, and other forms of art in early hominid societies were?

 

Personally, I think the origins of cave paintings were probably for some kind of plan, like a hunting plan, or for teaching (maybe less likely for teaching because it would have been more educational to actually see the animal, which was easily feasable). But this can't really explain carved figurines of animals, made from ivory, bone, wood, and rock (not sure of rock). Also, carved objects on weapons. Maybe the figurines were toys?

 

The first picture is of replicas of actual artifacts. The second, is images of the actual artifacts and where they were found. The weapon is an Alatl.

http://users.skynet.be/fa057790/IMG_5496.JPG

http://users.skynet.be/fa057790/carteprop.jpg

Oops, bad image on the second. The thread on the forums is saw it on is here: http://p081.ezboard.com/fpaleoplanet69529frm16.showMessage?topicID=209.topic

 

I'd like to hear everybody's thoughts, pretty interesting stuff.

[nomadd22]

Since when has any artist needed a practical purpose for their art? Anthropologists are always trying to come up with some logical explanation for everything people did. They were people, you know. They were as smart as any of us, wondered at the stars and had and probably had the same love of creating beautiful things as any artist.

[admiral_ju00]

Since when has any artist needed a practical purpose for their art? Anthropologists are always trying to come up with some logical explanation for everything people did. They were people, you know. They were as smart as any of us, wondered at the stars and had and probably had the same love of creating beautiful things as any artist.

 

Doh. I guess I'll need to change my educational path then.

 

On a side note, it's just interesting how there was a great nothing for a very long time and all of a sudden, a KaBOOM around 28kya and all sorts of arstistic and ritualistic items started coming up.

[gib65]

Yeah, I think that's the point he's getting at. When was it? About 65 thousand years ago? Suddenly, homosapiens started becoming imaginative and artistic! Sure, they had their reasons: artistic inspiration, wonder, ideas, theories about the cosmos, you name it... but I think what paleolithic was asking was why did evolution decide it was necessary to endow homosapiens with this gift?