that art had a transforming power—that the act of painting
made whatever was depicted actually happen. Th us, paintings
that show hunting are thought to have been created to make
a successful hunt become reality. In some of the caves, paint-
ings of animals show signs of having been struck repeatedly,
as if by the points of spears, suggesting a ritual in which the
hunt is made real by attacking the paintings.
On the other hand, the paintings may have had other
purposes, and the paintings deep in caverns may have been
the only ones found because they were out of the way of ero-
sion by nature and humans. Paintings on rocks outside caves
and paintings near the entrances of caves could have been de-
stroyed by wind, rain, and vandalism. Th ose that have been
found are fragile; even exhaled human breath damages them,
so others may have existed in profusion only to be worn away
over 15,000 to 30,000 years. Th e paintings could have served
as lists of game available in a region or as part of initiation
rites for young people, like many works by the San (or Bush-
men) in southern Africa.
Th e paintings of human beings in the caves also are puz-
zling to archaeologists. Among the brilliantly detailed animal
fi gures are ones of men who are graceless stick fi gures. On
occasion they appear to be hunting; on other occasions they
may be dancing. In the Lascaux Cave in France is a paint-
ing from 15,000 to 13,000 b.c.e. of an apparently wounded or
dead man, placed between a rhinoceros and a disemboweled
bison. He seems to be wearing a mask of a bird. Th e only way
to know he is male is from his prominent penis. Why are the
men portrayed so badly, while the animals are portrayed so
beautifully? Th e answer is as yet unknown.
Th e problem becomes more complicated when the por-
traits of women are considered. Many small stone carvings
of women from the same era as the early paintings have been
found. Th ey have been dubbed Venuses by archaeologists, in
humorous reference to the Roman goddess of love and beau-
ty. Th e Venus of Willendorf from Austria, dating from 28,000
to 23,000 b.c.e., is the most famous of these fi gures. She is
carved from limestone and is only a little more than four
inches high. Her stomach, breasts, and thighs are huge, but
her arms are small, with her hands resting atop her breasts.
Her head is covered by a cap or elaborately curled hair, so
that her face does not show. Th is sculpture may be a fertility
symbol, with the breasts and stomach representing a woman’s
ability to create new life.
Th ere are other depictions of women, and many, like the
Venus of Willendorf, are artistically superior to the depic-
tions of men. In the Musée d’Aquitaine in Bordeaux, France,
is a relief carving (with the fi gure projecting out from a fl at
background) of a woman from 23,000 to 20,000 b.c.e. She is
about 18 inches tall and is depicted from the front. Like the
Venus of Willendorf, her face is obscured by what may be
locks of hair, and her breasts, stomach, and thighs are large.
Unlike the Venus of Willendorf, she has well-proportioned
arms. In her right hand she holds aloft a bison’s horn. She is
better detailed than the depictions of men from her era. Th ese
Venuses suggest that their sculptors may have been from a
matriarchal society or perhaps that women controlled the re-
ligious practices.
In addition to creating the earliest-known paintings and
rock sculptures, the ice age peoples of Europe appear to have
created the earliest clay sculpture. In a cave at Ariège, France,
are two clay bison, modeled in relief. Th ey each are about two
feet in length and date from about 12,000 b.c.e. Like their
painted counterparts, they are in profi le and in the same
graceful style.MESOLITHIC: 9000–4000 B.C.E.
By about 9000 b.c.e. Europe was warming, and the glacier
over Britain had disappeared; Scandinavia, however, was still
under a glacier, and Britain was still attached by land to the
rest of Europe. Mammoths and rhinoceroses no longer lived
in Europe, and reindeer had moved northward, followed by
the ancestors of the Lapps, who eventually would populate
northern Finland. Some of the major cultural groups thatBird bone engraved with animal heads, Late Magdalenian, dating to about 10,500 c.e., from the cave of Courbet, Penne-Tarn, France (© Th e
Trustees of the British Museum)
106 art: Europe