|
|
 |
|
|
|
Humans have been doing paintings since long before there were such things as buildings. In fact, the earliest cave paintings, which were made about 30,000 years ago, were done in parts of caves that were very hard to get to. In many of the caves, the ceilings are so low archaeologists (the scientists who study ancient history) have to crawl on their hands and knees to get to the paintings. The people didn't have paintbrushes and paints to work with either. Instead, they used animal fat, clay and charcoal as paints and feathers, sticks and their fingers to paint with.
There are two kinds of cave art. There are petroglyphs, which are pictures carved in stone and there are pictographs, which are pictures painted on stone. These kinds of cave art have been found all around the world. Scientists can tell how old the pictographs are, but not the petroglyphs.
|
|
The earliest cave paintings were found in France. They are about 30,000 years old. There are many caves with hundreds of pictographs with animals. At Lascaux, a cave that is in southwestern France, people found many pictographs of deer. |
|
In Cosquer Grotto, there are many paintings of horses, deer, bison, penguins and ibex. These paintings were well drawn compared to some of the other paintings in France. |
 |
|
The paintings of Vallon-pont d' Arc are mostly of horses, mammoths, hyenas, rhinos, lions, panthers, and bison. |
|
|
|
In South Africa, there are many sites where the San people painted cave paintings. The oldest of these are about 27,000 years old. Unlike the French, the San people had many human figures in their paintings.
|
|
|
|
Cave paintings can be found all over North America and appear to be up to 12,000 years old. They show people and animals as well as sea creatures. There is also a painting of the sun and the moon.
These are just a few of the places in the world that have cave paintings, and all of these are painted as huge murals. We don't know exactly why people have been painting on cave walls for the last 30,000 years, but we are glad that they have shared their lives with us.
Check out the quiz on cave paintings
Check out these pictures of cave paintings.
