The figures depicted throughout the
world via pictographs or petroglyphs include those of animals, humans,
geometrics, tools used for hunting, abstracts, etc. The most common figure are
those of animals, both life size and pictorial. They include animals that were
hunted and animals that were common to the culture.
Much rock art depicted shamans. The
shamans went into
hallucinogenic states in order to talk to the spirit world. In conversations
with the spirits the shaman would ask these spirits to save a sick child or
tell the bad spirits to leave the sick. Many people, even the shamans
themselves, would paint or carve what they saw on the "canvas" of the limestone
or rock.
"Prehistoric art was created over so long a period by so many different humans in so many parts of the world, and presumably for so many reasons, that it may never fit into a tidy catalog. These ancient masterpieces are telling us that our prehistoric forebears had modes of expression more varied than we once imagined. We may never truly understand just how rich their lives must have been." (David Bjerklie & Andrea Doffman & et.al./New York).
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Written by Kathy Roetzel, 2000