ABSTRACT
Paleolithic art is an inclusive term that is applied to a wide range of visual images and material culture made by humans during the Upper Paleolithic period of 35,000–10,000 years ago: Media categories include engraved and carved bone, antler, and ivory, animal and human figurines, painted imagery on cave walls, bas-reliefs, and clay modeling. The makers and users of these images appear to have been fully modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens. Although there is important evidence for both rock art and engravings on bone or other objects and surfaces from other parts of the world at ca. 20,000 years ago (e.g., Wendt 1976) and from even earlier archaeological sites in southwestern Europe (e.g., the “incised” bone from Pech de l’Azé; see Bordes 1969), the bulk of this ancient artistic activity has left its mark in archaeological contexts of southwestern Europe and, more sporadically, across southern Germany, central Europe, and the Russian plain.
