Paleolithic art, an introduction
Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank
The Old Stone Age
The earliest prehistoric artworks can teach us about what it means to be human. Prehistoric art spans a long time, but one of the most important periods is the Paleolithic era, or Old Stone Age. It lasted from about 2.5 million years ago to around 10,000 BCE, when humans lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. This video is an overview of Paleolithic art, focusing on a range of images and objects from bifaces/handaxes and portable sculpture to cave paintings at places like Lascaux and Chauvet.
Lascaux II cave painting
Video chapters
0:00 Introduction to the prehistoric period and Paleolithic era
1:08 Handaxes and early technology
2:29 Portable art and lion man
3:05 Cave paintings
Learn more
Find more resources about prehistoric art of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.
