Prehistoric Designs

Originally, I chose the class Intro to Archaeology simply to fulfill my General Education credits, and also because it sounded interesting considering I had taken AP Art History back in high school. However, after a few classes, I realized how artifacts left behind by prehistoric humans could provide modern humans with clues to their past. Past human designs managed to build a bridge for us to rediscover a world long forgotten.

Archaeology, put simply, is the study of human history. Thus, archaeologists appropriate a large portion of their time excavating for and interpreting artifacts, which are objects modified by humans. A few examples of artifacts archaeologists may find are arrowheads, potsherds (broken pottery pieces), and stone tools. These objects are all designed by prehistoric humans, and archaeologists note that the designs for these tools become more complex and intricate over time. As a result, archaeologists are often interested in studying everything design-related in order to establish an overall picture of past human history.

A site that most fascinates me is the Lascaux Cave located in France. At first glance, once sees paintings of animals such as bulls and horses on the ceilings of the cave, not very impressive. I’m sure we’ve all been able to draw animals since Kindergarten. Most archaeologists reacted the same way when these paintings were first discovered, ignorant of the origins of these paintings. A few years later, other archaeologists took interest in these cave paintings, and after scrutinizing and testing the accumulated dirt on the walls, they realized that the animals were painted about 17,000 years ago! This is one of the earliest paintings ever discovered so far!

http://www.frenchfriends.info/g2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=708&g2_serialNumber=2

The desire for humans to create and design has been imprinted into our genes since the beginning of time. Despite the hassle and extra effort to simply mix the paints by scavenging different colored materials to grind up, prehistoric humans put aside the time to hunt for food in order to express and draw what they see. It is amazing to see how even thousands of years ago, humans had the ability to scrutinize the make-up of particular animals and understand enough of its structure to recreate a three dimensional animal into a two dimensional painting. In the modern world, design has truly taken a step further every century since the paintings in the Lascaux Cave. Now, we have created a world overwhelmed by human designs.

Sources:
Kelly, Robert L., and David Hurst Thomas. Archaeology: Down to Earth. Fourth ed. Davis: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2007. Print.