Location: Arnhem Land, Australia's Northern Territory

Time Period: 2000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: A woman and cutoff fish.

Aboriginal X-ray rock painting,

shows their understanding of internal human structure that depicts bones, ribs, and internal organs

Location: Chaco Canyon, South West North America

Time Period: Around 1000 CE

Meaning/Significance: Casa Grande pueblo -

largest in the area,

basically a motel for chaco culture and pilgrammages

Location: Chaco Canyon, South West North America

Time Period: Around 1000 CE

Meaning/Significance: Open Entrances -

It's oriented towards sunrise and sunset to be able to tell the summer and winter solistice.

Very well made, perfect geometric straight line, and

all the material is brought from 50km, none from the canyon.

Shows understanding of the sun and seasons (astronomy) and that they would travel long distances.

Location: North American Arctic 

Time Period: 1950's Onward

Meaning/Significance: All about telling stories of women and caring for them throughout the whole community.

The various costumes represent different types of people, but shows the central caring for women in society.

Location: Southwest North America

Time Period: Around 1000 CE

Meaning/Significance: Pueblo in a mountainous area as an example of architecture as art,

shows how people incorporated the landscape into art

Location: Chaco Canyon, Southwest North America

Time Period: Around 1000 CE

Meaning/Significance: Chetro Ketl -

Only circular great house in the area with kivas in the middle and 2nd largest.

It is a ceremonial space.

Location: Vogelherd Cave, Germany.

Time Period: Aurignacian, 37,000 y

Meaning/Significance: Bird bone flute.

The ability to fashion and use musical intstruments (along with figurines and ornaments) is considered a sign of having reached a stage of fully developed cultural modernity.

Location: North American Arctic

Time Period: 1950's Onward

Meaning/Significance: Animism, they think of themselves as coexisting with animals,

ravens are important spiritual figures,

prints are a collaborative space between men and women

Location: Catalhoyuk, Turkey

Time Period: 7000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Excavation site with bullhorns and underground burials that shows the transition from hunter-gathering to domestication

Location: Arnhem Land, Australia's Northern Territory

Time Period: 2000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: "The Lightning Brothers"

a mixed style signature of the Wardaman people with some X-ray influence,

represents rock art as story-telling and lore preservation, they're holding flint.

Jabirringgi (right) sings the clouds, brings the sheet lightning, heavy rain and works together with his older brother Yagjagula (left) to make the fork lightning and brings the bushfires to clean the land and keep the rivers clean.

Location: North-West Kimberley Region of Western Australia

Time Period: 4,000 y ago 

Meaning/Significance: Wandjina and snakes - an example of art as storytelling,

the central figure circled with red ochre signifies the narrator,

gives insight into the Aboriginal view of life that two serpents, the Earth and Milky Way, dreamed into creation all earthly life,

snakes commonly indicated rain and fertility and they would paint and repaint snakes and wandjina for good rains

Location: Arnhem Land, Australia's Northern Territory

Time Period: 2000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Kangaroo with underlying hand prints - X-ray style of important prey animal that holds cultural, spiritual, and religious meaning,

painted and engraved on soft sandstone that preserves pigments for more permanence,

the underlying handprints similar to ones found in European caves shows recurring prehistoric artistic technique/innovation separated by space (Australia to Europe) and the Aboriginal tendency to reuse space, all about the narrative between what's in the center of it and what's behind it

Location: Brassempouy Caves, France

Time Period: Gravettian Period, 23,000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Venus of Brassempouy - 

earliest known depiction of human face, with clear forehead, chin and eyebrows, eyes, and nose, but no mouth,

Considered a European "Venus" figure broken before discovery in 1892,

some say woman, experts argue today that it may be a young man,

Head covering or braided hair shows signs of later repair, indicating it may be an object of some value,

possible example of personal art made to be carried around, Ivory and 1.3inches tall

Location: Vogelherd Cave, Germany

Time Period: Aurignacian Period, 31,000-32,000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Vogelherd Horse Figurine - 

earliest known horse sculpture,

very small (2.2 inches), detailed, and highly polished,

early example of personalized art made to be carried around,

has many engraved symbols on the horse's neck, back, and left chest that indicate it may have been used to show kill spots for hunters on horses,

the ability to create figurines, which requires manipulation of complex tools, together with the fashioning and use of musical instruments and ornaments, is considered a sign of having reached a stage of fully developed cultural modernity

Location: Southern UK

Time Period: 3000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Earliest stage of Stonehenge - 

contains hole with creamation remains indicating it was a burial site, but also a ritual site

Location: Phaistos Palace, Crete, Greece

Time Period: Middle Minoan, 1700 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Minoan Phaistos Disc - 

242 inscribed symbols thought to be Minoan Linear-A symbols, a currently lost language and undeciphered writing system,

since it is undeciphered most knowledge of Minoan culture relies on probable visual interpretation and third party accounts

Location: Knossos Palace, Crete, Greece

Time Period: Middle Minoan, 1400 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Minoan Bull Leaping Fresco - 

an example of art used to show theocratic wealth,

the prominence of bull imagery makes one suspect that its dissemination reflects an institutionalized source, like the elite of Knossos Palace,

Bulls were a religious and cultural symbol, but bull-leaping was found only in Knossos,

an example of gender depiction in Minoan art that shows women's skin as usually much lighter than men's

Location: Catalhoyuk, Turkey

Time Period: 7,000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: rare plastered skull painted with red ochre death mask - 

discovered tenderly cradled in the arms of an older adult female in 2004,

skull had been repainted on several occassions and bears other indications of long term curation before it was re-buried with the primary skeleton,

indicates possible ritual and postmortem attendance to ancestral bodies

Location: Nunavut, Canada, North America

Time Period: 1986

Meaning/Significance: Inuit Circle of Transformation - 

explores strong themes of Inuit spiritual animism, life and death (dying man becoming a wolf), and the interwoven worlds of humans and animals with the hybrid human-animal drawings

Location: Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa 

Time Period: 10,000-200 y ago

Meaning/Significance: San rock Art -

possible reference to ritualistic drug use with people bleeding and having to walk with sticks, also might be entering animal/spiritual realms with them looking like animals,

shamanic ritual

Location: Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Time Period: 10,000-200 y ago

Meaning/Significance: Large "antelope-headed" snake -

Snakes, a common S. African rock art motif, are associated with water, gender, and sexuality,

painted depictions found near bodies of water

most depictions are not realistic-looking snakes, creating a supernatural element in the painting, like something related to rain,

demonstrates the artist's ability to incorporate landscape's natural features into art

Location: Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa

Time Period: 10,000-200 y ago

Meaning/Significance: San hunters holding bows and hunting eland antelopes - 

tall, adult, figures shown separate from the antelopes, whereas other paintings show them as hybrids with animals, commentary on women's social roles by showing men hunting

Location: Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

Time Period: 1200-1500 CE

Meaning/Significance: Great Zimbabwe - 

Tall granite walls were an impressive feat,

stones were laid one on top of the other, each layer slightly more recessed to produce a stabilizing inward slope, 

shows the importance of architecture and architecture as art,

trade center

Location: Northwest Kimberley Region of Western Australia

Time Period: 4,000 BP

Meaning/Significance: Wandjina-style figures - 

frequently depcited alongside animals (animal in the center), showing the interconnectedness of the living beings and the spiritual realm (Aboriginal animisim),

red ochre halos indicate narrators and recur in Wandjina rock art, 

example of art as storytelling

Location: Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

Time Period: 1,200 - 1,500 CE

Meaning/Significance: Zimbabwe Bird - 

Bird of prey hybrid soapstone carved statues,

Were stood proudly on guard atop the walls of great zimbabwe, 

zoomorphic representation,

persistent national symbol depicted on coins, postage, and flags,

possibly represents a good omen, protection, and a messenger to the gods,

each and every one is different

Location: Nunavut, Canada, North America

Time Period: 1960

Meaning/Significance: The Enchanted Owl Inuit Print - 

Owls are an important spiritual animal that possess powers of observation and symbolize the importance of sight,

combined the usually separate artistic gender roles with both men and women making prints in a collaborative space,

the stamp is important which shows the designer, carver, and co-op.

Location: Central Australia

Time Period: Less than 50 years old

Meaning/Significance: Australian acrylic art of snake - 

very recent and lucrative aboriginal art form,

draws on the tradition of ancient aboriginal art, 

depicts the rainbow serpent, a common Aboriginal deity and motif (giver and taker of life and water)

Location: Crete, Greece

Time Period: Middle Minoan, 1500 BCE

Meaning/Significance: The Fisherman Fresco - 

Young man carrying fish Minoan Fresco,

shows the importance of the sea,

significant because it depicts a man and not many men were depicted in Minoan culture,

evidence of the fishing industry

Location: Northern England, Orkney Islands

Time Period: 5000 BCE 

Meaning/Significance: Ness of Brogdar Excavation site - 

earlier site than Stonehenge and 

shows migration from Scandinavia downwards,

Stonehenge is less impressive when you see that this came first

Location: Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave, Germany

Time Period: Aurignacian, 40,000 y ago

Meaning/Significance: Lowenmensch or Lion Man figurine - 

12 inch tall ivory statuette,

earliest known example of zoomorphism and therianthropy and figurative art,

human-animal hybrid, 

the ability to create figurines, which requires manipulation of complex tools, together with the fashioning and use of musical instruments and ornaments, is considered a sign of having reached a stage of fully developed cultural modernity

Location: 

Time Period: 

Meaning/Significance: 

Pray to god it's not on the exam

(and check back tomorrow)

(and ask the teacher before the exam)

Location: Blombos Cave, South Africa

Time Period: 75,000 y old

Meaning/Significance: Engraved Ochre with engraved elaborate design - 

One of the earliest pieces of art,

deliberate representational intent that strongly suggests they functioned as artifacts within a society where behavior was mediated by symbols

Location: Chaco Canyon, Southwest North America

Time Period: 1000 CE

Meaning/Significance: Entrance to Chaco Cave - 

Rock art at the top and we have no idea how it got there, we can barely get up there today with modern tools

Location: St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, United States

Time Period: 250 BCE - 100 CE

Meaning/Significance: Okvik Figurine of woman holding a child or small animal - 

one of the earliest known examples of Inuit art,

style focused on reproducing human heads, facial features, and expressions, rather than on more common animal figurines,

notable for the fine detailing in the face and expression

Location: Catalhoyuk, Turkey

Time Period: 7,000 BCE

Meaning/Significance: Mural of Hunters taking down a larger than life wild Auroch - 

the size and amount of people shows the sheer power of the auroch and their respect for its power, possibly saw it as sacred, shown by its size and the gathering around it

Location: Central Australia

Time Period: 10,000 BP - Present

Meaning/Significance: Australian sand art about making art and the process of art showing that the process of creation is more important than the final results, which is left to disintegrate and blow away,

used techniques from the local Panaramitee style

Location: Nunavut, Canada, North American Arctic

Time Period: 1997

Meaning/Significance: Inuit Print Bear with Cubs - 

We and animals are very similar, but we are not always a part of their world; we're just watching them,

indicates the limits of the Inuit idea of animal-human interconnectedness

Location: Nunavut, Canada, North American Arctic

Time Period: 1970

Meaning/Significance: Inuit Print Shaman's Helping Spirits - 

shows a horned female shaman, her spirit helper, and her animal spirits, ready to deliver (birth) her subjects into the world if the need arises,

shows the interconnectedness of the female shaman and her animal helpers

Location: Arnhem Land, Australia's Northern Territory

Time Period: post 1788 (British colonization date)

Meaning/Significance: X-ray of European man riding a horse - 

Likely a colonial encounter showing a European man riding a horse, 

Shows that rock art is not just a demonstration of indigenous culture, it's a historical record of a real event (this one being a commentary on the colonialism of Australia)

Location: Northwest Kimberley region of Western Australia

Time Period: 20,000-15,000 y ago

Meaning/Significance: Stick figures moving and dancing + they have headdresses,

Gwion gwion style + Wandina figures + Xray style,

it is a controversial style claimed by no aboriginal groups that may be foreign, extinct, or migratory in origin