The oldest surviving art dates back 30,000-33,000 years ago and includes sculptures made from bone, ivory, stone, and antlers. Many of these sculptures are assumed to be fertility figures. Cave paintings from 15,000 years ago often depict animals pierced with arrows, possibly representing hunting rituals. Megalithic structures from 4,000-6,000 years ago, like Stonehenge and Newgrange, had astronomical alignments and were likely used for spiritual ceremonies. Prehistoric peoples transported huge stones by leveraging them onto wooden sledges pulled by large groups of people.

1. Prehistoric Art The oldest surviving art dates back between 30,000 and 33,000 years. To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?" Cicero

2. Prehistoric Sculpture

3. The oldest surviving art objects are sculptures made of bone, ivory, stone, or antlers: engraved, carved in deep relief, or fully 3-D. Frequently these are assumed to be fertility figures.

6. Bison c 13,000 BCE (Spain)

7. Woman from Brassempouy, France, c 22,000 BCE (ivory, 1¼ “)

8. Prehistoric Painting

9. The first paintings go back about 15,000 years; many are portrayed pierced with arrows, and gouges in the rock indicate that cave dwellers may have flung spears at the painted game as part of a hunting or initiation ritual.

14. Cave Painting in MEXICO Baja California, Mexico

15. Burial Mounds Architecture

19. Architecture Megalithic Structures

20. Megalithic burial chamber

21. Stonehenge was believed in the middle ages to be either the creation of an ancient race of giants or conjured by Merlin the magician. The heel-stone marks where the sun rises at the summer solstice. This kind of circular arrangement of stones is called a cromlech .

23. Newgrange, in Ireland, is believed to be the oldest extant building, dated to about 3200 BCE. At sunrise on the winter solstice the sun’s rays penetrate the deepest recesses of the structure.

25. All concentrated mostly in Europe Remains of prehistoric traces