CAVE ART DBQ

WHY WAS PREHISTORIC

CAVE ART CREATED?

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? We are going to do our first DBQ, but

a partial one. At the same time we will be doing

historical analysis as a class and try to figure out why prehistoric humans did cave art.

We will do this by following the steps that historians take: pondering a question, looking at and evaluating primary and secondary documents and submitting our theories for examination by other historians.

HOW WILL WE BE GRADED?On your partial essay on the topic

following the partial-DBQ format: Use all docs Support thesis persuasively with

appropriate evidence from docs Understand meaning of documents – be

insightful and careful Group documents in 1-3 ways

(comparing or synthesizing)

HOW TO START A DBQ

First read the question and understand it. Second read the documents and try to

synthesize them. Third begin grouping the documents while

considering your thesis. Fourth formulate your thesis using the

groupings as arguments to support your thesis.

How would you group these shoes?

Possible groupings and groups

Color: white, black, brown Purpose: exercise, work, relaxation Type: sandals, tennis shoes, flip flops,

pumps Material: leather, fake leather, plastic Owner: Mrs. Bond-Lamberty, Mr. Bond-

Lamberty Other ideas: age, cleanliness, size, comfort

DOCUMENT #1

LASCAUX CAVE

Lascaux Cave #1

Lascaux Cave #2

Lascaux Cave #3

DOCUMENT #2

LASCAUX CAVE 2

Lascaux Cave #4

Lascaux Cave #5

DOCUMENT #3

CHAUVET CAVE

Chauvet Cave #1

Chauvet Cave #2

Chauvet Cave #3

Chauvet Cave #4

Chauvet Cave #5

DOCUMENT #4

CHAUVET CAVE

Chauvet Cave #6

Chauvet Cave #6

Chauvet Cave #7

DOCUMENT #5

CHAUVET CAVE

Chauvet Cave #8

Chauvet Cave #9

DOCUMENT #6

COSQUER CAVE

Cosquer Cave - Side View

Cosquer Cave #1

Cosquer Cave #2

Cosquer Cave #3

Cosquer Cave #4

DOCUMENT #7

COSQUER CAVE

Cosquer Cave #5

Cosquer Cave #6

DOCUMENT #8

CUSSAC CAVE

Cussac Cave #1

Cussac Cave #2

Cussac Cave #3

DOCUMENT #9 - Secrets of the Cave’s Art by Sharon Begley with

Dana Thomas in Newsweek May 24, 1999

"Out of these people's whole bestiary, the artists chose predatory, dangerous animals," says archeologist Margaret Conkey of the University of California, Berkeley. By painting species that virtually never wound up on the Paleolithic menu but which "symbolized danger, strength and power," says Clottes, the artists may have been attempting "to capture the essence of" the animals.

DOCUMENT #9 (continued)

A program superimposed arrays of hands onto the dots [found on one of the walls]. The best fit to an array of 48 dots is a sequence of handprints made by an adolescent or a short woman. A panel of 92 dots was probably the handiwork of a tall man. The presence of people of different ages and sexes suggests either a communal experience or masters passing their secrets on to apprentices. Even 32,000 years ago, art was created for more than art's sake.

DOCUMENT #10 - BEHOLD THE STONE AGE by Robert Hughes in

TIME February 13, 1995Some animals have more than four legs, or grotesquely exaggerated horns; is that just style, or does it argue a state of ritual trance or hallucination in the artists? No answer, though some naturally occurring manganese oxides, the base of some of the blacks used in cave paintings, are known to be toxic and to act on the central nervous system.

DOCUMENT #10 (continued)

And the main technique of Cro-Magnon art, according to prehistorian Michel Lorblanchet, director of France's National Center of Scientific Research, involved not brushes but a kind of oral spray-painting - blowing pigment dissolved in saliva on the wall. Lorblanchet, who has re-created cave paintings with uncanny accuracy, suggests that the technique may have had a spiritual dimension.

Cave Art DBQ Possible Groupings

Types of images: dangerous animals, harmless animals, edible animals, inedible animals, land animals, sea animals, hand prints, humans, action scenes, still lifes, individual animals, groups of animals

Types of art: paintings, drawings, engravings, handprints

Cave Art DBQ Possible Groupings

Purpose: journal, education, prayer, communication

Theories: to get animals’ power, for art, spiritual aspect/hallucination, communal activity

Cave Art DBQ Possible Theses

There are many reasons why early humans did cave art, the most plausible are for spiritual motives, as a communal activity, and for art. [Spiritual – hallucination (4, 7, 10), power (2, 3, 9); Communal – 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9; Art – painting (1, 2), carving (5, 8), drawing (1, 2, 3, 6), and spray painting (4, 7, 10)].

Early humans created cave art for various reasons including as a means of communication, education and spirituality. [Communication – I was here; education – beware, eat these; spirituality – power, prayer, hope].

Cave art was done by early humans as a means of recording their environment, expressing their hopes; and to pass the time. [Recording – what seen, time, events; expressing – hopes, fears; passing - boredom].