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The Paleolithic period (40,000 BCE-10,000 BCE) was the first known era of human art. The era consists mostly of two major types of art. Cave paintings depicting hunter-gatherer lifestyles and small statues, totems, or other 3-D objects.
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The Lion-Man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel was a 12-inch human-animal hybrid. The sculpture includes a lion's head and forelimbs reminiscent of a big cat, but the remainder is human, it appears. The sculpture was found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany in 1939. -
The Panel of Horses is a cave painting found in France that depicts a variety of different animals. The right side of the painting portrays a herd of horses. The left side consists of rhinoceroses, deer, and bull. The painting shows a good insight into what animal life existed in prehistoric France. -
The Venus of Wilendorf was a small statue with exaggerated female features, such as breasts, hips, and a pubic region. The statue was small enough to be portable and transported almost like a good luck charm. The piece was found in Austria in 1908, along with many other similar figures found in European caves. -
The Venus of Lassel was an 18-inch bas-relief carving featuring another exaggerated female figure. It features exaggerated breasts and hips, but also has the figure holding a horn that the head is glaring at. The carving was found in the Laussel Cave in the Dordogne Valley of France in 1911. -
The Bird Man painting is one of the more enigmatic paintings of the Paleolithic era. With many questionable features, such as a disemboweled bison, what seems to be a septor of some kind, with a bird on the top. The strangest of them all, though, is the bird man himself. A man in what may be a bird mask or a shaman mid-transformation is seen in a lean back pose with what some have speculated as an erect penis. -
The Hand Stencils portrayed a cluster of hands on a cave wall. They were made by placing a hand against the rock and blowing paint on it through a tube made of bone. In total, 829 hands can be spotted, most being male, and only 31 are of right hands. -
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, was the next evolution past the Paleolithic. The biggest innovation was the switch from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to settled communities and permanent residences. The first step toward civilized society was the Neolithic. Laws and agriculture started as well.
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The Jericho plastered skull was a human skull encased in plaster, with shells used to recreate the eyes. Heads were missing from tombs in Jericho, most likely being used for the same practice of encasing the skulls in plaster. -
The Seated Woman is another female sculpture with exaggerated proportions, this time sitting in what almost appears to be a thorne. The throne adorns two feline heads on the armrest, along with, of course, the sitting nude woman. The sculpture was originally found in Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic city in modern day Turkey. -
Stonehenge was a stone monument always surrounded by mystery, with its circular arrangement of stones and ambiguous purpose. Its first purpose was initially a cremation center. The second purpose of the site was most likely a temple to align with the sun's movement..