| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| astronomical cycles | Regular celestial phenomena such as equinoxes and solstices that prehistoric peoples observed and incorporated into their artistic and cultural practices. |
| belief systems | Organized sets of religious, spiritual, or philosophical ideas that guide how a culture understands the world and conducts itself. |
| burial | The practice of disposing of the dead, often accompanied by ritual objects and artistic expression that reflected cultural beliefs about the afterlife. |
| cultural practices | The customs, rituals, and traditional activities of a society that are reflected in and inform artistic and architectural creation. |
| equinoxes | Times of year when day and night are approximately equal length, observed and marked by many prehistoric cultures. |
| food production | Activities such as hunting, gathering, agriculture, and animal husbandry that provided sustenance for prehistoric communities and influenced their artistic expression. |
| hunter-gatherers | Small groups of prehistoric peoples who survived by hunting animals and gathering wild plants from their environment. |
| Mesolithic | The Middle Stone Age, a transitional prehistoric period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic characterized by environmental changes and adaptation. |
| Neolithic | The New Stone Age, a prehistoric period marked by the development of agriculture, animal husbandry, and settled communities. |
| Paleolithic | The Old Stone Age, the earliest period of human prehistory characterized by hunter-gatherer societies and the use of stone tools. |
| physical setting | The geographic location, environment, and landscape that influences the creation and function of art. |
| prehistoric | The period of human history before the development of written records. |
| ritual | Ceremonial or symbolic practices performed by a culture, often reflected in art objects created for spiritual or religious purposes. |
| settlement | The establishment of communities in specific locations, which influenced patterns of art making and the decoration of gathering places. |
| solstices | Times of year marking the longest and shortest days, observed and marked by many prehistoric cultures. |
| status | Social rank or position within a community, often demonstrated through the creation and possession of particular art objects. |
| symbolic works | Art objects created to represent or communicate abstract ideas, beliefs, or spiritual concepts rather than serve practical purposes. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| abstraction | An artistic approach that simplifies or stylizes forms rather than representing them realistically, found throughout prehistoric art history. |
| cave paintings | Artworks created on the interior walls of caves, typically featuring animal and human imagery from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. |
| ceramic | Objects made from clay and hardened by heat, representing one of humanity's earliest and most significant artistic media. |
| figurine | Small three-dimensional representations of human and animal forms, commonly created in prehistoric cultures. |
| funerary arts | Artworks created for burial contexts and memorializing purposes, including ritual objects and tomb sculptures. |
| geometric patterns | Two-dimensional artistic designs composed of regular shapes and mathematical forms, common in prehistoric art. |
| incised graphic designs | Two-dimensional artworks created by carving or cutting lines into surfaces such as rock, bone, or pottery. |
| jade | A precious stone worked by ancient artisans, particularly in prehistoric China, establishing a 5,000-year tradition of ritual and decorative objects. |
| Lapita pottery | Ceramic vessels created by the Lapita peoples with incised geometric designs that spread across the Pacific region beginning about 4,000 years ago. |
| material | The physical substances used by artists to create artworks, such as stone, bronze, or paint. |
| megalithic installations | Large-scale stone structures and assemblages constructed in prehistoric times, often serving ritual or monumental purposes. |
| naturalism | An artistic approach that aims to depict subjects as they appear in nature with accurate representation of form, light, and detail. |
| ocher | A natural pigment ranging in color from yellow to red to brown, used in early rock paintings and carved designs. |
| potter's wheel | A rotating tool adopted in the fourth millennium BCE that allowed artisans to create refined and symmetrical ceramic vessel forms. |
| pottery | Ceramic vessels and objects created from clay, including early examples from the Jomon culture and later refined forms using the potter's wheel. |
| process | The methods and steps artists use to create artworks, including planning, construction, and execution techniques. |
| ritual object | Artworks created for ceremonial or religious purposes, reflecting the spiritual beliefs and practices of prehistoric communities. |
| rock paintings | Two-dimensional artworks created by applying pigment to rock surfaces, among the earliest forms of human artistic expression. |
| sculpture | Three-dimensional artworks created by carving or shaping materials such as stone, bone, clay, and jade. |
| stele | Upright stone slabs or pillars, often carved with designs or inscriptions, used in prehistoric cultures for ritual and memorializing purposes. |
| technique | The specific skills and methods artists employ to manipulate materials and create desired effects in their work. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| archaeological excavation | Systematic investigations of historical sites that uncover physical evidence and artifacts to inform understanding of past art and cultures. |
| carbon-14 dating | A scientific method used to determine the age of organic materials by measuring the decay of radioactive carbon isotopes. |
| ethnographic analogy | A methodological approach that uses observations of modern traditional cultural practices as models to interpret and understand ancient societies and their art. |
| iconography | The study of symbols, images, and their meanings in artworks, particularly how they convey cultural and religious significance. |
| interdisciplinary collaboration | The cooperative work of scholars from different academic fields, such as art history, archaeology, and physical sciences, to develop understanding of art and culture. |
| shamanism | A spiritual practice and belief system involving shamans who serve as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual worlds, considered the earliest widespread worldwide spiritual approach. |
| stratigraphic archaeology | An archaeological method that precisely records the location and sequence of layers and objects at a site to establish chronology and context. |
| transformational animal-human iconography | Symbolic imagery in prehistoric art depicting the transformation or merging of animal and human forms, often interpreted as shamanic in nature. |
| visionary aesthetic | An artistic approach or style that expresses spiritual visions or altered states of consciousness, often associated with shamanic practices in prehistoric cultures. |
| visual analysis | The systematic examination and interpretation of a work of art's formal elements, such as color, composition, form, and technique, to understand its meaning and significance. |