Primitive man and his art

Most scientists are convinced that Charles Darwin was right in his inference about the origin of man. This is confirmed by the results of many years of archaeological research, excavations and finds that prove that the primitive caveman really existed and gradually evolved.

This can be seen with the naked eye, considering the fruits of the "cave art", the earliest "works" of which are very primitive and somewhere even schematic. This indicates that even the primitive people did not feel the sense of beauty, even if they depicted the images of animals, whether they are rock carvings or figures carved from bone. This is not surprising, because primitive man attached great importance to animals, because they provided him with food, skins for clothes and the same bones, which were used not only as material for carving figurines, but also as tools of work.

It should be noted that the animals were depicted in completely different ways: they could be actually contour drawings, and they were bright, colorful and detailed, which showed the appearance of the beast in all details, and its nuances in habits and behavior. According to scientists, this art of primitive man is connected not so much with his artistic talents, but rather with the special purpose of each figure. So, for example, schematic images could well have been created with some magical purpose, such as a ritual that provides a successful hunt, or forcing a conceived animal to come closer to the place where people live. More colorful and detailed drawings were supposedly created in order to emphasize some kind of mystical connection between animal and man: it was a kind of tribute and respect to the depicted being.

However, not only animals, primitive man paid his attention. It is proved that the honor to be depicted on a rock or carved from bone and stone was also awarded to women. To be more precise, they were not so much women as their images, which had a cult character. The most ancient figurines of such a plan are 40-45 thousand years old. There are also more ancient finds, which are more than 70 thousand years old, but in this case the experts do not have confidence that these are indeed the fruits of the creativity of ancient people. It is possible that this is just a bizarre formation of natural origin. But anyway, the found figures, called by scientists "Paleolithic Venus", have quite distinct female forms. Most likely, the cause of their creation was the first incipient concept of the Mother Goddess, fertile and giving life.

However, in ancient art there is practically no such genre as landscape. But this does not mean at all that the primitive man had no idea of the reality surrounding him. Had, but in the images it was symbolic and even abstract. This is evidenced by all sorts of geometric shapes, combinations of points, wavy lines, spirals, zigzags and other symbols. Probably some of them carried a certain meaning or had a magical meaning, which increased with the appearance of ceramics. As for the latter, it can be attributed to a completely separate kind of art, for the ceramic products of primitive man liked to cover with various ornaments. They, in the opinion of experts, created a fairly clear image of the world, divided into three parts: the first - the lower underground; The second - the middle, the terrestrial; The third is the upper, the heavenly, the airy, the supernatural. In addition, all these symbols and ornaments pointed to phenomena occurring in the world: the movement of the moon and the sun, the flow of rivers, stars, plants and much more.