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Cueva
Pintada (Baja California in Mexico). The cave, included in the
UNESCO World Heritage List, is the figurative synthesis of the
hunter-gatherers' knowledge and rituals in the Palaeolithic age.
The enhancement of the artistic skills was an astonishing element
of affirmation, creating places of social cohesion and identity
and leading to the elaboration of symbols and rituals essential
to the memorisation and transmission of knowledge.
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Cueva
Pintada (Baja California), pictures of condors. These paintings
recur in Meso-American wall art and result from shamanistic experiences
and concrete benefits. The flight of the birds is an important
signal indicating prey and pools of water during migrations.
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| Tassili
n'Ajjer (Algeria). Paintings of concentric circles, meanders and
labyrinths recur in Saharan prehistoric art: above (the site of
Tin Tegherghent) a graffito of an ox decorated on the inside and
all around with concentric circles and meanders; below (the site
of Sefar) painting of a labyrinth. |
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Tassili
n'Ajjer (Algeria), the site of Tin Tazarift. Figures of the Saharan
wall art, dating back to the archaic period called 'the age of
the Round Heads', appear to be hovering in the air. They are probably
swimming in water coursers and are recurrent in the humid period
of the Sahara.
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Tassili
n'Ajjer (Algeria), the site of Sefar, the so-called painting of
'the Sowers'. Female figures with short skirts and ornaments made
of vegetable fibres appear to be busy harvesting, sowing and arranging
dams and channels.
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Tassili
n'Ajjer (Algeria), emblematic Neolithic Saharan drawing. The circle
surrounded by oxen and probably made from the hide of the same
animal, recalls the building of a circular hut of animal skins
and the organisation of a settlement around a common centre which
is the symbol of sedentary life.
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Tassili
n'Ajjer (Algeria), scenes of Saharan Neolithic breeding. The attitude,
the coat and the swollen udders of the animal suggest domestication.
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Saharan
painting of a cart pulled by a pair of horses. These representations
of light chariots driven by audacious warriors have been found
in the most inland areas of the Sahara.
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Saharan
Neolithic paintings seem to come to life in usual scenes of Eritrean
pastoral life
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The
Jordan desert, the graffito of a hunting scene dating back to
the Metal Age. A character of high rank with an impressive hairstyle
and armed with a long javelin is hunting on horseback a gazelle.
Below, stylised characters and an enigmatic symbolic representation.
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Tassili
n'Ajjer (Algerian Sahara). The Neolithic painting represents a
scene of the ancient technique of sowing by means of a perforated
stick, which has remained unchanged until the present day
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