What is prehistoric art?

Prehistoric art constitutes all forms of art and communication in pre-literature eras and the pre-historic period, roughly from 40000 to 5000 BC. In layman terms, much before there was papers or pens, leave alone mobile phones, computers or the Internet! This meant that people had to communicate with each other in person.

Prehistoric art is among the earliest forms of sculpting and painting. Whether this art took shape to express one’s creativity is unknown but what is clear is that humans wanted to leave their legacy behind. Either that, or they were just really good at Pictionary!

So, early human chose what they could find and began to draw. Sometimes it would be a cave. If that didn’t get the message across, they would make sculptures (the most popular being the Lion Man, said to be about 40,000 years old). Geoglyphs (a large design made on the ground, mostly using rocks or other materials) and megaliths (a large stone sculpted into a monument) probably helped as well.

These forms of art were a way of recording history and culture until humans began to develop some kind of written language to keep records better. Therefore, the age at which prehistoric art transitions into ancient art is blurry and varies it different parts of the world. You know earlier, not everyone caught on that fast!

 

Picture Credit : Google