Prehistoric visual communications

From the early Paleolithic until the Neolithic periods (35,000 B.C. to 4000 B.C.), early people in Africa and Europe left paintings in caves, including the famous Lascaux caves in southern France. A black made from charcoal an a range of warm tones, from light yellows through red-browns, made from red and yellow ochers formed the palette of pigments, mixed with fat as a medium. Images of animals were drawn and painted upon the walls of these former subterranean water channels occupied as a refuge by prehistoric men and women. Perhaps the pigment was smeared onto the walls with a finger, or a brush was fabricated from bristles or reeds. This was not the beginning of art as we know it. Rather, it was the dawning of visual communications, because these early picture were created for survival and were created for utilitarian and ritualistic purposes. The presence of what appears to be spear marks in the sides of some of these animal images indicates that they might have been used in magical rites designed to gain power over animals and success in the hunt. Or perhaps they were teaching aids to instruct the young on process of hunting as a cooperative group effort. Abstract geometric signs including dots, squares, and other configurations are intermingled with the animals in many cave paintings. Whether they represent man-made objects or are protowriting is not known. It will never be known with any certainty, because they were made before the beginning of history—the 5,000-year period during which people have recorded in writing a chronicle of their knowledge of facts and events. The animals painted on the caves are pictographs—elementary pictures or sketches to represent the things depicted.

Throughout the world, from Africa to North America to the islands of New Zealand, prehistoric man has left numerous petroglyphs, which are carved or scratched signs or simple figure of rock. Many of petroglyphs are pictographs, and some may be ideographs, or symbol to represent ideas or concepts.

A high level of observation and memory is evidenced in many prehistoric drawings. In an engraved reindeer antler found in the cave of Lorthet in southern France, the scratched drawings of deer and salmon are remarkably accurate. Even more fascinating, however, are two diamonds-shaped forms with interior marks. The early pictographs evolved in two ways. First, they were the beginning of pictorial art. The objects and events of the world were recorded with increasing fidelity and exactitude as the centuries passed. Second, pictographs also evolved into writing. The images, whether the original pictorial form was retained or not, ultimately became symbols for spoken-language sounds.

The Paleolithic artist developed a tendency toward simplification and stylization. Figures became increasingly abbreviated and were expressed with a minimum number of lines. By the late Paleolithic period, some petroglyphs and pictographs had been reduced to the point of almost resembling letters.