Mark D Bishop
For hundreds of thousands of years, Stone Age lithics & the artefacts that the ancestors created with them were their survival, but the same stones also provided a means of artistic expression. Far, far longer than the Age of Metals has been with us, stone was the force to be reckoned with. Hard sarsen sandstone, granite, obsidian glass & flint were but some of the natural rock materials used for hunting, slicing meat, preparing skins & for everyday chores. These visceral stones, microliths & megaliths alike, provided the cold, hard facts of physical, temporal existence for the ancestors, yet the very same rocks, on an even broader scale, were sourced & modified to express their moods, feelings, loves & heart-felt beliefs, for time immemorial.Long ignored for far too long, Stone Age rock art needs to be recognised for its cultural & aesthetic value, to help remove the stigma of the Stone Age as being inhabited by club-wielding brutes without wit or fantasy. Our ancestors were artists who expressed themselves through the medium of stone. They used expressionism, cubism, art nouveau & art deco, long before it was reinvented & they used all these artforms & more to express their beliefs in a universal deity represented by reverence toward the mammoth & the giant forest elephant. While outlining Stone Age Rock art as a whole, this work delves into the lives, loves & fantasies of our forebears, lighting up the night sky in the world of mysteries as they interpreted the heavens.
