MANIFESTATIONS OF NEOLITISATION IN PREHISTORIC ART

• Authors: Gediga Bogusłw
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The transition to an economy based on the production in the New Stone Age (Neolithic) was the event with far-reaching consequences in different fields of culture. The changes that took place in social consciousness in the Neolithic Period were, however, extremely important. People became conscious that the success of their economic activity depended on a large number of environmental factors, which people felt to be dependent on, among others forces of nature having not a specific shape in reality, such as reproductiveness and fertility. That resulted in directing the religious imagination to symbolism. We find this in art of Neolithic societies. For this sphere of culture, which we regard as manifestation of artistic activity of Neolithic societies that underwent a process known as neolithisation, there were two events of major importance for the culture of that time: the beginning of a sedentary way of life and appearance of pottery. The first of these events involved the development of building and architecture, while pottery created new space for artistic activity. The figurative art of the Neolithic is very richly represented, mainly by female representations. It seems that there is a kind of a renaissance of female figurative art in the Neolithic, after a long interval since the Palaeolithic. However, it would be too far-reaching to say that this is tantamount to a renaissance of analogical symbolism of these representations. Among few male representations, a preserved fragment of a figurine from Kraków-Pleszów. Among figural representations from the Neolithic, there is also quite an impressive set of zoomorphic figures, most of them of four-legged mammals (Jordanów Śląski), i.e. cattle. Short remarks about manifestations of the process of neolithisation in prehistoric art, presented above, only outline the role of appearance of pottery. This is not the complete picture, though cognitively very attractive, as it offers a special opportunity to research on the difficult sphere of symbolic culture in general and religion in particular.

Keywords

EN

NEOLITHISATION; PREHISTORIC ART; FIGURATIVE ART; POTTERY; POLAND

• Publisher: Slovak Academy of Sciences, Archaeological Institute
• Journal: Slovenská archeológia (Slovak Archaeology)
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 64
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 183 – 192

Contributors

author

Gediga Bogusłw

• Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN, ul. Więzienna 6, Wrocław, PL – 50 118, Poland