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Some 40, 000 years ago, in a virtual explosion of creativity, symbolic representation spread throughout a recent hominid population. Chauvet cave with the oldest known prehistoric cave paintings in Europe indicates that art was probably first created in the early part of the Paleolithic (Stone Age) Aurignacian period (Clottes, 2010). In the Lascaux cave, decorated torches and stone lamps were found, which the cave artists would have required for light and heat. Controlled light (lamps fueled with animal fat and moss) and heat indicated the incipient development of science with art. Both art and advanced language are based on the capacity for mental and symbolic representation, abstraction, integration, and probably affect recognition and regulation. The capacity for symbolic representation, allowing for symbolic communication, is a unique landmark in human evolution. The art of the late Aurignacian period (40,000–28,000 BCE) and of the Magdalenian period (18,000–11,000 BCE) required symbolic processes, social communication, learning, and honing of skills (Gibeault & Uhl,1998). Most theories of art consider issues of pleasure and unpleasure, and mastery of trauma, as well as illusion, imagination, and creativity. Whether language preceded art, art preceded language, or they developed simultaneously in human evolution is still debated. Later, written language appeared, long after spoken language and derived from pictorial script such as, hieroglyphics. The precision of observation and memory of the animals in the world outside the cave is evident in the mastery of line, form, and color of the painted polychrome figures. A painted ceiling of the Altamira and Lascaux caves, with its beautifully engraved and painted ceiling indicated intense study, as well as exceptional endowment and talent. Most of the paintings are not at or near the entrances to the cave. The passage into the caves and tunnels and the difficult return through the near total darkness indicate that the art was often produced under arduous conditions. The artists needed to be or have expert guides and guidance systems, within internal memory and perhaps external maps of the caves. Memories and internal images of animals were matched with cave wall contours, with cracks and fissures serving as lines shaping animal bodies: Perhaps a beginning of a conflict, which recurs throughout the history of art, especially in paining, where the artist has to reduce three dimensions into two. The painted and engraved animal species were recognizable, whether drawn in part or whole, usually with identifiable features such as age, sex, attitude, and movement (Clottes, 2010). ‘Abbreviated representations’ (unfinished but recognizable) and ‘twisted perspective’ (identifying characteristic features – ears, hooves, etc. – are presented frontally, while curvature of the back and movement may be presented sideways, to present them to the viewer in their most complete and recognizable guise) demonstrate the capacity to represent using both imaginative symbolic play and rudimentary abstract, mental operational thought, with the viewer in mind (Myers & Copplestone 1985). Homo sapiens projected their attitudes and feelings onto or into the animals on the wall, imbued with human qualities. The animals could have safely represented different characteristics of humans with the safety and neutrality of non-human representation. The artist's capacity for empathy with their animals (and to some degree with the viewer) implies empathic responses in their personal human relationships.
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