Europe

by Stephen Alvarez|April 2, 2021April 2, 2022|1400BP, Altamira, cave art, Europe, How Old Is It?, Magdalenian, Painting, Paleolithic, pictograph, Rock Art, Spain, Virtual Reality

Altamira cave is Spain is one of the most pristine examples of paleolithic cave art, but the pictographs discovery is rooted in controversy

Chauvet Cave the discovery of 36,000-year-old art

by Gregory Crouch|March 14, 2021May 6, 2024|36000 BP, age, Aurignacian, cave art, Chauvet, Europe, France, Painting, Paleolithic, petroglyph, pictograph, Rock Art

almost 30 years ago explorers forced their way into Chauvet cave in France, what they found astounded the world.

Grotte Pair-non-Pair, Aquitaine France

by Stephen Alvarez|October 1, 2018April 3, 2022|age, Aurignacian, cave art, France, Paleolithic, petroglyph, Rock Art

The paleolithic cave Pair-non-Pair was found when a farmer went looking for a lost cow who had fallen in a hole, the cave he discovered

Oldest Paintings in the World now over 65,000 years old

by Stephen Alvarez|March 1, 2018January 4, 2022|Europe, news

Gallery C of La Pasiega cave in Monte Castillo. The big news this week in Anthropology is that a species besides humans seems to have painted. Dirk Hoffman and Allistair Pike have published an article in the journal Science that dates the paintings to well over 65,000 years ago. That is 25,000 years older than previously dated art from Spain and Indonesia. 65,000 years ago the only known species that could have made the paintings are Neanderthals. The dates come from three caves widely separated in Spain. This is a stunning development in the world of art history. Hoffman and Pike explain their results in the video below. You can reach the Science article here. In this video from National Geographic shot in 2014 Allistair Pike discusses his belief that Neanderthals could have made art.

Limited Edition Chauvet Portfolio to support the Ancient Art Archive

by Stephen Alvarez|September 2, 2017May 6, 2024|36000 BP, cave art, Chauvet, Europe, France, Rock Art

I have selected 12 images from Chauvet Pont d'Arc Cave for a portfolio of prints to help support the Ancient Art Archive. Each image is limited to 12 prints each. Once they are sold there will be no more. The images are approximately 21" x 33" on 2 x 4-foot paper. Go here to see all the images and purchase. I'll be showing six of these prints in Oxford next month as part of a lecture at the Saïd Oxford Business School on September 13. The talk is free but registration is required. Go here for details. -Stephen Alvarez

Dating the cave paintings of Spain

by Stephen Alvarez|March 11, 2017February 9, 2022|36000 BP, cave art, Europe, pictograph, Rock Art, Spain

Alistair Pike discusses the work he has done with Dirk Hoffmann in dating the cave paintings of Northern Spain in this short video that I shot for National Geographic. The open question that Pike is trying to answer in his research is are all the cave paintings of Europe Human or are some of them Neanderthal? Its an interesting question. Neanderthals certainly could have produced some art, but there is not overwhelming evidence that they did. Refined dating techniques have pushed the age of the first paintings in Europe back. The oldest paintings are now known to be older than 40,000 years. But by the same token refinements in tracing migration by looking at the human genome indicate that homo sapiens sapiens first entered Europe 55,000 years ago. So the current oldest painting in El Castillo in Spain is well within the date range that modern humans occupied Europe. Proving that...