we've already spent a lot of time in alaska caves but i want to return to our big four analytical categories and use them to look at this work briefly once again so what do we know about the function of this work not a whole lot in the end though we have intriguing clues its function does not appear to be hunting instruction these weren't the animals these people hunted the dark narrow spaces where the paintings are found suggest secret rituals for a few selected individuals not group gatherings the most recent theories that the paintings represented or may even have induced shamanistic trances but really we don't know just for a point of contrast what would you guess about the function of this famous work of prehistoric and historic art which i'm betting many of you recognize from near canyonlands national park this huge slab of rock stands next to the one water source in the area indian creek so a lot of people would have passed this way here's a close-up of one section notice anything that seems out of place in this panel how about the guy in horseback holding a bow and reigns we know in fact that people from several cultures the anasazi the fremont the union maybe the navajo carved images into this panel over the past 1500 years it seems likely given the prominent convenient location that this did indeed function as a kind of public bulletin board bring home some elk bones dear i'm making soup the content on the other hand seems strikingly similar to what we see in the european paleolithic caves an admixture of animals and people feet geometric forms and what looks like a shaman figure leaving aside the much later fellow on a horse whatever its function this was much more public art back to lasko we talked briefly about technique the use of animal fat to bind paints and scaffolding to paint high in the caves archaeologists have determined that the lasco artist did not use paint brushes the broad black outlines of the figures were probably created with mats pads or swabs of moss or hair and even blobs of raw color sprayed through hollow bones in other words the lasko artist likely used three graphic techniques painting drawing and engraving sometimes independently sometimes in combination for the great black bull for example archaeologists think that the head and most of the body was sprayed while a pad of some sort acting like a brush was used to paint the upper part and the tail contours were drawn in with edge chunks of manganese or iron oxide in addition thicker engraved lines were sometimes used to give added volume and relief to the outlines of animal figures again these were amazingly sophisticated artists we will talk a lot more about all of these techniques consider this another trailer let's turn to form what kind of lines do you observe in the lasco images well the bowl on the upper right shows clear contour lines the line of the equines by contrast is created by color there is no explicit contour line what about shapes the reindeer's horns seem organic if not extraterrestrial while the dots below it are much more geometric and we talked about this last time is there a focal point not really again partly because images were painted over a long period of time dramatic as these works are they do not display much formal composition and now we bid farewell to the paleolithic era and enter the neolithic era when more settled agricultural communities began to appear here is our next required work again write down the identifiers and then take a few moments to offer up a visual analysis with this work we face the same interpretive problems we encountered with alaska caves our running horn woman is surrounded by other images but many do not date from the same period note that some of the smaller figures are superimposed over her body this too is a cave painting while not created in the dark like the lasco paintings in this particular figure was found in a difficult to access cave that was more likely a sanctuary than a dwelling this again suggests some kind of ritual function like the regions of southern utah where so much rock art has been discovered this region of algeria was once much wetter during the neolithic era enough rainfall fell to allow a pastoral lifestyle that is the herding of domesticated animals over time the climate changed and the area dried intriguingly the subjects of the art change with the climate as well camels replace cows let's watch this short video which introduces the region and its art so here is our running horn woman again juxtaposed with some of the other rock from tassiely what you notice about the content of these works as compared say with the paintings at lesco well we see a lot more people and a lot more scenes of daily life note the hunters in the upper right and the women and children in the lower left however the painting in the right bottom corner which you saw in the video seems to have a more supernatural content so where does our running horned woman fit into this cast of characters she could be a regular woman performing a ritual dance but that seems to be the leading hypothesis especially since she appears to be decorated with paint or scars decorations still found in the traditions of people in this area but she might be a goddess or she might be imitating a goddess horns are often associated with gods here are some of the horned deities we'll encounter in this course from a wide variety of cultures why would you guess our horns so often associated with deities all around the world well there's no way this isn't going to sound sexist sorry horns are found primarily on large male animals and they are used primarily to fight usually the most dominant bulls that is male cattle bison elk etc had the biggest and most impressive horns this made horns a logical symbol of strength virility and triumph over lesser foes consider it a kind of iconographic chest thumping although the khan academy article doesn't mention this at least one scholar has speculated that the running horn woman was performing a dance associated with rain note the speckles surrounding her face on what looks like a rainbow held by the woman below her it's an intriguing theory and quite possible in a pastoral culture where the rain ensured more abundant grass for cattle note that one theory that's been thoroughly discredited is the theory that these figures were influenced by egyptian culture we'll encounter this particular form of bias again western archaeologists or art historians who simply cannot believe that supposedly primitive and unsophisticated people could produce such great art we have talked about content and context what do you think was the function of this and other rock art maybe the artists were making magic and maybe they were just capturing their daily lives obeying that human impulse to create art that we will be exploring all year so do you have any observations about form i see strong contour lines notice the white lines contrasting with black interiors the draped material on her sleeves overlapping her arms creates a sense of volume shape the lines are likewise vertical emphasizing strength and power as well as diagonal creating a sense of movement i did not create this helpful graphic some other art history teacher did but i want to use it to make a very important point we are looking for and finding similarities across very disparate cultures but please don't leap to the assumption that these cultures directly influenced each other they did not have contact with each other instead think about what common human experiences might produce commonalities in art on to our next required work i won't keep repeating this instruction and we need to keep moving through a lot of works but if you have time offer up a quick visual analysis how is the content that is the subject matter of these works similar well both the pottery bushel container from neolithic sousa iran and the much earlier paleolithic cave paintings from lesko depict animals what are the most striking differences between these images so here's a hint how would you describe the difference between the two elephants and the two donkeys obviously the animals on top are used iconographically that is these animals are traditional symbols of two political parties the animals on top are also highly stylized while the animals below are much more naturalistic here are more examples of pottery from sousa iran again we see highly geometric forms the ibex's body is composed of two connected triangles with an almost perfect semi-circle below the snake's head is shaped as a diamond the work also the works also rely heavily on rhythm i especially like the repeated greyhounds that chase around the top of the ibex bushel how is this pottery made art historians and archaeologists still debate this the pots are remarkably smooth but not quite smooth enough to suggest a pottery wheel although some scholars do think that the artist may have used an early slow hand wheel certainly it is much easier to paint on a smooth surface which is why pottery wheel pottery and papyrus vellum and finely paper all represented huge technological breakthroughs for art what about context pottery first appeared during the paleolithic era in east asia before spreading to the middle east and the mediterranean basin during the neolithic period thousands of years later you see some examples here these are not required images pottery emerged in persia around 8000 bce probably thanks to growing trade with the east this was also where two very important developments seem to have taken place east asian potters fired or heated their ceramics but the persians developed pit kilns and then stone line kills which allowed firing at much higher temperatures this improved the reliability and the durability of the pots in addition the potter's wheel was probably invented and developed in mesopotamia between 6000 and 4000 bce this led to a surge in production of ceramic vessels of all types and sizes the pot was found in a cemetery at the foot of the sousa acropolis a collection of public buildings on a hill because archaeologists have not found any dwellings in susa they don't really know if these were special ceremonial objects or examples of pottery used in ordinary life the content of the vase may however offer some hints about context the louvre museum website notes that the bushels visual motifs seem to represent the environment and social structure of this early river-based society which was moving into the age of agriculture and settled communities what's important here is that the artists seem to be capturing aspects of daily life much like the algerian cave artists but rendering them in a stylized abstracted geometric form moving on to our next required work would you call the form of this sculpture card from boom stylized or naturalistic and of course as always if you have time let's have a visual analysis well i think it's remarkably naturalistic and here's my evidence the dog on the right is tori one of my two quesads note especially the resemblance around the snouts warning my dogs will show up in slides again and you will sometimes hear them join in on a lecture back before khan academy had written an article about this work i used to assign an article by an archaeologist who argued that the camelot sacrum was a ceremonial mask quite possibly used in shamanistic rituals he presented some interesting theory evidence to support this theory first is the sacrum bone itself name this because many cultures hold it sacred this bone is associated with procreation and resurrection in a number of cultures around the globe the author also relates the use of the sacrum to later mythology from the same geographical area of mexico in mesoamerican cosmology spirits move back and forth between the spirit and earth worlds through openings that i can iconographically are depicted as a mouth and an anus the skull and the sacrum again please remember that without written records all of this is conjecture maybe the artist just really really liked her dog next work if you have time how would you describe the work what i find extraordinary is to think that this smooth highly stylized stone sculpture was carved with stone tools what was its function we think we know that it was probably a mortar and pestle a simple tool used to grind grain or roots to make them easier to cook and digest the mortar and pestle on the left is from the mayan civilization of mesoamerica other mortars and pestles have been found in papua new guinea and they date from this time what animal are we seeing the leading theory is that this is the embryo of a now extinct form of anteater an animal that had lots of yummy fat on its body and therefore is an excellent food source but again we don't know for sure the photo is the echidna's modern day ancestor the spiny anteater doesn't look that yummy to me but on the other hand i try to cut out on fat the metropolitan museum of art website notes the wall we really don't know the function or meaning of this prehistoric work it may have been a totemic symbol used in rituals so here comes another term totemic refers to a natural object or animate being such as an animal or bird that is used as an emblem of a clan a family or a group remember that archaeologists thought that some of the motifs on the ibex beaker might have represent a clan especially since it was found at a grave site what i find most interesting about this description is that modern-day people of new guinea assumed that these images were made by the gods and used them as sacred objects in rituals it's a terrific example of art changing its meaning over time which is a big college board theme as your reading noted there's also a huge controversy about whether this work will be returned to papua new guinea okay last required work for today there is actually some dispute about the origins of the lupita people but here's the most widely accepted theory around 1500 bc a culture known as lupita appeared in oceania and then moved into more remote corners of the south pacific recent dna analysis suggests that they came from the islands of southeast asia these migrants had already learned how to explore the open sea and survive they brought neolithic technologies including pottery they also carried with them domesticated plants including the yam and coconut and domesticated animals including pigs and dogs the lupita are the ancestors of the polynesians which includes the maori of new zealand archaeologists have mostly just found pottery shards but the photo on the right shows a partly reconstructed lapida pot the pottery may have had ceremonial uses but based on the shapes and where the shards were found archaeologists guess that the lupita pottery was used primarily for cooking or storing food again remember the context people who are often on the move they were migrating but who also had the beginnings of established agriculture pottery was terrific for storage keep in mind too that not all highly decorated items have ritual or ceremonial uses these photos also give us a glimpse of the technique that ceramic artists used the patterns were incised into wet clay with a sharp comb-like tool in elaborate patterns and the clay was then fired with a red slip to give the color so what is the content of the ceramic art mostly we see repeated geometric patterns with a very defined rhythm but we also see a recognizable although very stylized human head was it a person an ancestor a god we don't know the geometric patterns themselves are fascinating let's just watch the first minute or so of a video analyzing some of these patterns remember that when exploring the meaning of prehistoric art art historians and ethnographers often look to historic works by people who later inhabit the area who may be ancestors of the original creators it's a little tricky with lupita because this elaborate pottery died out and was replaced with much simpler ceramic art some scholars however have suggested that the patterns live on in one of the most iconic forms of pacific art the tattoo here is a 19th century engraving of a polynesian warrior from the marquesa islands i tried to blow up a portion of the tattoos and you get a better look the image on the right comes from another lupita pottery fragment again we see the use of geometric patterns rhythm and a combination of symbols and stylized human faces we will return to faces some very odd faces in our last prehistoric