Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) Art – Evolutionary and a Predecessor to Modern Neolithic Art
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Middle Stone (Mesolithic) Age is considered the most significant phase of human evolutions. The era brought about a transition in the culture, art, and the overall lifestyle of the Stone Age. Mesolithic Age, though lasted for a brief period of 2000 years, but was a definite bridge between Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages. Innovations in day-to-day activities and the adaptation of the human race to altered environmental conditions were the defining ranges of Mesolithic Age. People began hunting, pottery making, and started living in settlements. The phase also marked the starting point of human expression in the form of art. The genre of art belonging to this age was mostly cave or rock paintings. These works differed from the rudimentary Paleolithic Art in a way that they were centered more on human subjects, rather than portraying only the animals of those times.
The people of this period were mostly vagabonds. They painted walls of caves, while wandering from place to place. These paintings carried mundane themes, portraying the objects of daily utility, such as bows, spears, and arrows. Most of these art works delineated the fauna, mostly bison, horses, aurochs, and deer. These paintings, predominantly red and yellow in colors, employed natural products, like manganese & charcoal. The Mesolithic Era mostly relates to the human existence in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Most of the famous rock paintings still exist in Lascaux (France), La Marche (near Lussac-les-Chateaux, France), Chauvet Cave (near Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France), Altamira (near Santillana del Mar), Cantabria (Spain), Cosquer Cave (Marseille, France), and Font de Gaume (Dordogne Valley, France). One of the most detailed artworks was discovered at Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire, England, which consists of engraved drawings of as many as 80 animals.
As mentioned above, the Mesolithic Art was far more mature and stylized, since it carried human emotions and colors, as opposed to the stick-like figures of the Paleolithic Art. In the Mesolithic period, people were far more interactive and held various social events, a fact that was meticulously captured in their cave paintings, like those at the Rock Shelter, in Gasulla Gorge, Spain. These drawings represent some people with arrows, in some sort of rhythm, perhaps performing a daily ritual of dance.
The Mesolithic Art therefore, paved way for the most refined Stone Age Art known as Neolithic Art. Neolithic Art was much more creative and intelligent, which stands as an eyewitness of the evolution of human race through the ages. There is a whole lot of cave paintings dating back to the Neolithic Age, but only a handful of paintings exist from the Mesolithic Age. Art historians are still grappling for more evidence from Mesolithic Art.
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