This is one of the 5 pre-historic Europe prescribed sites for Secion B of the Religion and Ritual paper in the AQA AS Archaeology exams (post 2009 ones). There will be one question from pre-history, one from Ancient Egypt and one from Roman Europe and you pick one of the questions. Many schools only teach one of these periods. This may psiibly change after June 2011.
The Pre-historic Europe sites are: Lascaux Cave, Stonehenge, Newgrange, Wetwang Slack and Flag Fen
The Ancient Egyptian sites are: Karnak, Tomb of Ramesses VI (KV9) in the Valley of the Kings, Medinet Habu, Abydos and The Great Pyramid at Giza
The Roman Europe sites are: Temple of Vesta in Rome, Temple of Mithras at Carrawburgh, Water Newton, Lullingstone Villa and The Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii
To answer these questions you are expected to "focus on detailed site evidence of specific structures and locations and to relate this to the beliefs that underpin it" (from mark sceme).
Description:
- are Upper Paleaolithic painted caves in France
- murals dated to Solutrean-Magdalenian persiod
- earliest art from 17,000BC
- prehistoric paintings at Lascaux so different from others across France and Spain due to huge scale of some of the animal pictures and their exceptionally realistic portrayal
- about 2000 figurative pictures
- including 900 animal forms (about 600 identified)
- horses most popular (about 360)
- then stags (90)
- then cattle and bison (including aurochs)
- mammoths, ibex, lions, bears, wolves also
- no reindeer, the most commonly hunted animal
- hunted animals and predators
- predators usually in remotst parts of cave
- typically painted in an energetic stance with a bold outline and filled with areas of soft colour in a combination of frontal and side views.
- as is the case in most Upper Paleolithic painted caves, there are almost no images of human figures
- only 1: a prone stick-like figure in the Shaft of the Dead Man
- many abstract images and symbls
- simple shapes composed of dots and linework
- 1 theory is that these are maps of the night sky and constellations
- more elaborate drawings of quadrangles, triangles, circles and pentagons
- affinities with cave art in Gabillou cave
- most of paintings situated at quite a distance away from the entrance. There would have been a lack of natural light.
Religious Significance
- inaccessible places so social function unlikely
- only 15% of depictions were animals that played a role in the hunt so hunting scenes / paint the animal to make it easier to kill theories not work as illogical
- Lewis-Williams theory: sequence of enigmatic lines, followed by strange patterns, followed by animals is what anyone today still seeea in their own hallucinogenic experiences.
- such patterns are known from anthropological studies of shamanic cultures who often used hallucinogenic substances to enter the Otherworld.
- many anthropologists have identified that the shaman, in his voyage to the Otherworld is either transformed into or aided by an animal, often totemic in nature. The animal acts as his spirit guide
- walls of the cave were a portal into another dimension. The Otherworld was located behind or inside the rocks
- the figures painted on the wall were mediators between reality and the Otherowrld, the home of the gods who had been identified as responsible for the creation of the world.
- caves were the first temples
- the Otherworld was closer to reality further into the caves, and the darkness created a silence and solitude that everyday reality did not offer.
