Paleolithic Paint Job - Essay Example

Insert Paleolithic paint job Roger Lewin in his article of Paleolithic paint job, he describes thetasks of archaeologists. He writes about two French archaeologists, Michel Lorblanchet and his colleague. Lorblanchet describes his efforts in studying the ancient paintings in the Lot Valley caves, in Southwest France. He describes the Quercy region as being covered with rugged gray limestone plateaus that are separated by fertile valleys and farmland. He describes the area as being a centre of discussion by the locals and also being rich and robust.

The locals find beauty in the Quercy region. He states that cave art archaeologists have used objective inquiry to understand the meaning of the paintings and have also used statistical analysis in testing their hypothesis of the art. He describes Lorblanchets approach as subjective and experimental who thinks that preliminary theory is not essential when experimenting. Lorblanchet does not know what he will by becoming a paleolithic painter but believes that there is something to learn from it.

He states that Lorblanchet wants to understand how early artists did their paintings and his work fits a new trend of the cave art archaeology. He describes the paintings of both Lorblanchet and another French archaeologist as having little variations from each other. French prehistorian Abbé Henri Breuil started the scholarly study of the Ice Age art in the 1920s. Abbé Henri Breuil saw the Ice Age as a way of hunting magic and his conclusions were inspired by the Arunta aborigines in central Australia.

The Arunta painted images kangaroos and other prey on rock faces as a symbol of plenty supply of prey. He states that archaeologists slowly began doubting the credibility of the hunting magic theory in explaining prehistoric cave art and the hypothesis was later thrown in the 1960s André Leroi-Gourhan who was a French prehistorian. Leroi-Gourhan saw that the distribution of the images showed a division of the world and separated males from females. The distribution of images included Stags appearing in doorways, ibex on the cave periphery and bison, horses, oxen, and mammoths appeared in the main chambers.

Leroi-Gourhan saw the male-female duality as suffusing the myth of the upper Paleolithic people. Roger lewin states that archaeologists use diverse approaches and are paying attention to the context of the art. He quotes Margaret Conkey, an archaeologist from the University of California in Berkeley who argues that one has to understand the social context of art for them to understand its meaning. Lewin states that even when one has a diversity of approaches, there are barriers that limit the possibilities of bridging the gap between the paleolithic mind and the modern mind.

Lorblanchet believes his approach is the key to the elimination of the barriers and the answer as to having a similar view as the Upper Paleolithic people. Lorblanchet approach was influenced by his research trip to Australia where the aboriginal people still create the rock art. Lewin states that the experimental approach becomes valid when rock art studying is not done as an intellectual game but as understanding humanity. Archaeologists rely on the stylistic technology to determine the dating of paintings.

The technology depends on the assessment of painting styles that belong to specific periods.Works cited"May 2014." Discover Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. .