Motion and Gesture: Analysing Artistic Skills in Palaeolithic Art
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Motion and Gesture: Analysing Artistic Skills in Palaeolithic Art Olivia Rivero 1
& Diego
Garate 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The development of artistic abilities in Upper Palaeolithic societies has been analysed in recent years from the perspective of learning and transmission of artistic know-how, from both technical and formal points of view. Recent analyses, based on the study of the operational chains involved in engraving, have shown different levels of acquisition of technical knowledge among Magdalenian artists in Western Europe. This study presents the results of an experimental programme based on the analysis of the physical actions performed while executing artistic motifs. Different patterns of movement and orientation were analysed within a large group of engravers with different levels of technical ability in order to determine the gestural parameters that characterize the different stages of artistic learning. The results, which have been processed with statistical analysis tools, make it possible to differentiate with greater precision the different actions required to engrave on hard materials with lithic implements, as well as the different stages of acquisition of technical knowledge linked to the production of artistic motifs by engraving. Keywords Artist . Learning . Upper Palaeolithic . Portable art . Technology . Knowledge .
Engraving
Introduction The study of technical actions and the learning process associated with their acquisition and assimilation were originally approached mainly by Mauss (1997[1950]) and Leroi* Olivia Rivero [email protected]
1
Dpto. de Prehistoria, Historia Antigua y Arqueología, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Universidad de Salamanca, C/Cervantes s/n., 37008 Salamanca, Spain
2
Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria, Gobierno de Cantabria, Santander, Universidad de Cantabria, Edificio Interfacultativo Avda. De Los Castros s/n., 39005 Santander, Spain
Rivero and Garate
Gourhan (1964, 1965). In the case of prehistoric research in the francophone literature, this approach has been utilized to understand the development of human motor and cognitive skills, along with the sociocultural determinants to which they correspond. Following the introduction of the chaîne opératoire concept to prehistoric research (Pelegrin et al. 1988), technical learning by Palaeolithic knappers was first proposed by Pigeot (1988). Numerous studies have since continued that line of research to understand the mental processes involved in the creation of lithic implements, and which of these may be related to the cognitive development of Palaeolithic humans (Karlin 1991a, b; Ellen 2009; Mesoudi and Aoki 2015; Klaric 2018; Roux and Bril 2005; Stout 2002). These studies have been based on ethnological, ethnoarchaeological, neurobiological, and anthropological data in attempts to understand aspects of the development of cognitive skills and how technical innovations occurred and were perpetuated durin
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