1.2 Materials, Processes, and Techniques in Prehistoric Art

When there is no writing, the material is one of the best pieces of evidence you have. Hard materials like jade and greywacke took enormous time to shape, so they point to valued, high-status objects. Fired clay points to settled communities. Paint on open rock points to places people returned to. Learn each work's material exactly as the CED gives it, because materials are identifiers on the exam.

Two terms help across this topic. Terra cotta is fired clay, usually reddish-brown. Stylization means simplifying or exaggerating natural forms into a pattern, as when an animal's horns become a perfect curve.

Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine (Tequixquiac, central Mexico, 14,000–7000 BCE, bone). The sacrum is the triangular bone at the base of the spine. This one came from an extinct camelid, a relative of the llama. The carver cut and shaped it so it looks like the head of a dog, coyote or similar canine, with holes for nostrils. The artist noticed a resemblance in a natural object and sharpened it, which is a good example of art that works with its material instead of against it. The huge date range reflects how hard it is to date the find: it was dug up in 1870 during drainage work, without the careful records that modern excavations keep.

Running horned woman (Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria, 6000–4000 BCE, pigment on rock). This painting is on a rock face in a mountain range in the Sahara. When it was made, the region was much wetter, with grassland, lakes and animals, which helps explain why people lived and painted there. The figure runs or dances in a lively pose. She wears horns, has her body covered with dots and has fringes hanging from her arms and waist, which may show body paint and a ritual costume. Above her, a field of small white dots may represent falling grain or something else; scholars disagree. Pigments came from minerals such as ochre (a natural iron-rich earth) ground and mixed with a liquid.

Beaker with ibex motifs (Susa, Iran, 4200–3500 BCE, painted terra cotta). This tall, thin-walled drinking vessel was found in a cemetery at Susa, buried with the dead. Its painted decoration is highly stylized. The main band shows an ibex, a wild mountain goat, whose horns are enlarged into two huge half circles that enclose a round motif. Above it runs a band of dogs stretched out as if racing, and at the top is a row of long-necked wading birds reduced to vertical lines. The shapes repeat around the pot, so the decoration reads as pattern as much as picture. The thin walls and even painting show the skill of specialist potters.

Anthropomorphic stele (Arabian Peninsula, fourth millennium BCE, sandstone). Anthropomorphic means having a human form, and a stele is an upright stone slab. This one shows a person with a simple face, a robe or cloak over the shoulders, a belt and a double-bladed dagger at the waist. The details of the clothing and weapon suggest the figure was an important man, perhaps a leader or ancestor. Stelae like this may have marked graves or sacred places. It is one of the oldest known human images from the Arabian Peninsula.

Jade cong (Liangzhu, China, 3300–2200 BCE, carved jade). A cong is a tube that is square on the outside and round on the inside. The Liangzhu culture, near the lower Yangzi River, carved its corners with small mask-like faces. Jade is too hard to cut with a knife. Workers ground it slowly with sand and water as an abrasive, using tools like cords and drills, so a single cong could take a very long time. Congs were buried with elite people, which tells you jade signaled status and ritual power. What they were used for is unknown (see topic 1.3).

Terra cotta fragment (Lapita, Reef Islands, Solomon Islands, 1000 BCE, incised terra cotta). The Lapita people were seafarers who settled islands across the western Pacific, as far as Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. They decorated their pottery with fine geometric designs pressed or cut into the wet clay, often filled with white lime so the lines stood out. The required piece is incised, meaning cut. Some Lapita designs form stylized faces. Because the same style of pottery turns up across thousands of miles of ocean, archaeologists use it to trace how these voyagers spread.