Art of Prehistoric Europe
hey I'm Rick Steves back with more of the best of Europe in this episode rather than a particular place we're going thematic and traveling wherever that theme takes us and this time it's the art of prehistoric Europe the age Stone Age they were prehistoric because nobody could write about it back then but they were dang good with massive Stone calendars thanks for joining [Music] us [Music] a lot was going on in Europe in prehistoric times from painted caves in France five times as old as the pyramids to Stone circles in England that still line up with the sun on special days and plenty survives we'll start as if going to an art gallery in the caves of those earliest Europeans after finding meaning in mysterious Stone circles we'll explore massive burial mounds in Ireland and Venture North to Stony underground villages in orchy a visit to a site that shows how prehistoric people may have lived humanizes Those Distant relatives fire we'll look into the long gone eyes of remarkably preserved bog people and Ponder how prehistoric Europeans were fascinated with fertility determined to pack smart for the afterlife and made finely crafted ornamented horns that still play to this day while venturing all over Europe we'll see Stone Age cave paintings in France megalithic wonders in England Ireland and distant orne prehistoric artifacts in Denmark and fertility figurines in the Greek Isles Once Upon a Time some 30,000 years ago when the ice age glaciers melted people had time to do more than just survive Stone aged people assembled rocks like these with a purpose eventually civilization in Europe was born and with that so was Art prehistoric Europeans because they were human were driven to create even before there was architecture there were caves in the south of France with its honeycombed Limestone Cliffs early humans painted surprisingly realistic scenes on the walls of [Music] caves from about 18,000 until 10,000 BC long before Stonehenge and the pyramids back when mammoths and saber-tooth cats still roam the Earth prehistoric people painted deep inside caves in this part of Europe these weren't just crude Doodles but huge and sophisticated projects executed by artists and supported by an impressive culture the most famous cave let go now has a precisely copied replica next door built to help conserve the original it's easy to underestimate the sophistication of people 10 or 20,000 years ago these long ago societies cap ured the world they knew with extraordinary skills wild animals are impressively realistic cut in full motion running jumping facing off the canvas for these early artists was enormous this Cavern alone is a football field long with over 600 animals life-size or larger by torch light they'd flicker to life we h in The Oxen room the most spectacular room of Lasco it's a sacred place we don't live in a church they never Liv in a Cav and it's a huge composition it's a calculated composition because they have taken advantage of the strip of rock to relate in a circle two groups of BS facing each other and in the center of this composition they have un The three principal animals of letco horse oxs and deer is this a hunting scene no it's not a hunting scene because on the walls the hunter doesn't exist they never tell the everyday life the meaning is more complex what is the biggest animal in the is this uh bull is the largest painting in the cave 16 ft from the top of the horn to the tip of the tail while over 15,000 years old this was not the work of crude cavemen but of a complex society that produced skilled artists Flames from these oil lamps flickered in those art covered Caverns think of how impressive the challenges must have been hauling in materials grinding paints erecting scaffolding all before that first prehistoric Michelangelo could reach up and paint the first stroke surviving artifacts give insight into these people MERS draped delicate jewelry on the corpses of loved ones necklaces of stag teeth and Tiny shells strung together these Barbed spearheads and Fish Hooks would work well today finely carved spear throwers show impressive naturalism for something three times as old as the oldest pyramids art is part of Being Human we communicate and Tackle problems we imagine and evolve what did the paintings mean what emotions did they trigger did they worship these animals or capture them in paint to magically capture them in the hunt we just don't know but we do know that the people who painted these are like our close cousins compared to the beginning of humanity born in Africa 3 million years ago less go was like [Music] yesterday since early nomadic hunter gatherers were prehistoric with no written histories we only know them from the mysterious Clues they left us and none or more mysterious than their huge Stone monuments found all over Europe this is from the megalithic age characterized literally by big stones at Stonehenge in England huge carved Stones Some Over 20 ft tall and weighing 25 tons stand in a circle the stones were erected with Stone Age Technology before the Advent of metal tools as we look at the Museum simple artifacts and replica thatched Hut Hamlet it's hard to imagine how these humble early people Managed IT huge Stones like this replica were quarried carved and then moved for many miles some of them from as far away as whales 200 mil to the West they barged them down Rivers they may have rolled them on logs like this nobody knows for sure marveling at these Stones we Ponder the purpose of these Stone circles perhaps sacred centers of ritual and worship we know they functioned as Celestial calendars as this 360° theater demonstrates the structure is aligned with the heavens marking both the longest and the shortest days of the year 4,000 years ago locals could tell when to plant and when to party according to where the sun rose and where the sun set and even today as the sun rises on the longest day of the year in just the right spot it casts a powerful spell of [Music] Wonder nearby at Asbury visitors wander through a cohesive Ensemble of ditches mounds and megaliths the work of people clearly on a mission the huge circle while now cut in two by a busy road and so big it contains a village retains its Allure of the hundreds of Neolithic ruins that dot the English landscape the score Hillstone Circle in dartmore is a favorite of mine tranquil and nearly forgotten erected some 4,000 Years Ago by mysterious people for mysterious reasons it's yours alone the way a stone circle should be it's just you and your imagination enjoy the quiet Ponder the 40 centuries of PE people who've made this enchanting landscape their home and the wisdom of today's English to protect it and keep it pristine hundreds of these Stone Age calendars are scattered over the aisle of Britain each built by people working together people doing more than merely surviving my favorites are the ones that are tranquil all alone in a field where you can reflect on the mysteries of who built them and why these earliest man-made stone structures were for the living and for the dead most of what survives were tombs designed in a way that lined up with the heavens that seemed to indicate a kind of religion and a concern for the afterlife long before the pyramids of Egypt the powerful had Stone tombs built to protect their bodies the soil that buried this structure has long since eroded away these ancient people's lives were dictated by the seasons and the natural world around them again the greatest tombs aligned with the Rising Sun this is a necropolis a city of the Dead built in Ireland with several grassy Mounds around one grand tomb being a Passage Tomb it tracked the sun with one tunnel Facing East and one facing west aligned so that on both the spring and fall equinoxes rais from the rising and setting sun shine down the passageways Illuminating its Central chamber to give you an idea of the sweep of the history here these sites were built approximately 5,300 years ago approximately 3,300 BC which puts them 500 years older than the oldest pyramids in Egypt 1,000 years older than Stonehenge in wilchar in England so these people put a huge amount of energy and resources and uh basically a huge amount of their wealth into constructing these monuments they were probably thinking not just about uh survival but issues around Life Death the story of their tribe their ancestors issues like rebirth where did they come from where were they going to nearby is an even older sacred Mound also built for some kind of ritual of the Sun an impressively large structure faced with white quartz and decorated with abstract Engravings it's a testament to the engineering abilities and desire to ornament of people from over 5,000 years ago a narrow passageway leads to the central chamber under a 20ft high stone Dome bones and Ashes were placed here under a massive mound of stone and dirt to wait for that special moment when as the sun rises on the shortest day of the year a ray of light shines into the passageway and for 17 minutes it lights the center of the Sacred chamber perhaps this was the moment when the souls of the Dead would be transported to the afterlife via that mysterious Ray of life-giving and life-taking sunlight long before the earliest pyramids of Egypt across Europe the last part of the Stone Age was marked by tribes settling down shifting from hunter gatherers to Farmers this was called the late Stone Age also called the Neolithic Age still before the Advent of metal working you'll find wonders from our distant past both Stone and the later metal ages far and wide about as far south as you can go in Europe on the Mediterranean island of Malta the landscape seems Timeless and is dotted with Prehistoric r RS dating back in astounding 5,000 years megalithic sites like hayar Keim are evidence that in roughly 3,000 BC settlers from Sicily arrived here in search of aable land while the humble mud brick Village that once surrounded this Temple is long gone stones from the Temple still stand archaeologists believe this was a temple to a fertility goddess and that it functioned as a Celestial calendar but it seems most of Europe's oldest wonders are in Britain and Ireland Scotland is littered with reminders of prehistoric people at clavar three Bronze Age burial Chambers date from about 4,000 years ago each was once buried under Turf covered mounds and surrounded by a stone circle the central ring Karen has an open base in its middle the two passage carons each have an entrance shaft that on the winter solstice lines up with the Setting [Music] Sun visitors are caught up in the peaceful Wonder of this ancient and sacred site enjoy the mystery of this place were these Stone circles part of a Celestial calendar was the soul of the deceased transported into the next life when the sun was just right nobody really knows on the remote Aaron islands off the west coast of Ireland a main attraction is the 2,000-year-old Fortress of dun Angus which hangs precariously on the edge of a cliff 300 ft above the Atlantic the concentric walls of this mysterious Celtic Fort are 13 ft thick and 10 ft high as an added defense effective even today the fort is ringed with a commotion of spiky stones called frian soldiers sticking up like lances they're named after the ancient soldiers who used a wall of Spears to stop a charging Cavalry little by little as the cliff erodes the walls of this circular Fort fall into the sea below dun Angus can be mobbed by day Trippers I make a point to be all Al alone here where the crashing waves below seem to say you've come to the very edge of [Music] Europe and on Scotland's dramatic aisle of Sky if you know where to look you can also find the scant remains of past civilizations just a short hike from a handy parking lot is Sky's best preserved Iron Age fort dunbeg exploring this prehistoric Stone Tower connects us with Sky's distant past judging from these Stones the tower once stood much taller I love scrambling through ruined castles and this one is particularly evocative well people have been living on the is of sky for thousands of years and this place if you imagine it probably had a timber frame inside three stories high they would get in here under times of attack they could gather in here the community men women children and their domesticated animals and we we think this was built around about 2,000 years ago on the aisle of ory at the far north of Scotland in what seems like just another field is a remarkable barrial Mound or chambered tomb for 5,000 years people have lowered their heads to enter this Sacred [Music] Space wow this is great tell me about this place this is a bual chamber and to our right and our left and behind you are three tombs on winter solstice at Sunset the sun streams through this position here and illuminates the back chamber wow the stone is sandstone and it's been handcarved and coral voted into position to make this beautiful chamber and how Neolithic man managed to build this structure no one really [Music] knows orne is dotted with monuments recalling when it was a center of civilization back in the Stone Age with more people then than there are on the island today imagine a community here hunkered down in Subterranean homes connected by tunnels there's a big Community 150 people living here at one stage a third of the village remains 2/3 were taken away by the North Atlantic people lived under the ground in stone type Igloo buildings with Turf roofs and they lived under the ground to keep the weather out to keep them warm they were powered by oil lamps uh with whale oil and well bone basins um and a very nice looking [Music] Community well little remains from these prehistoric people it seems clear that Timeless mysteries of Life birth death and what lies Beyond were on their minds from the very earliest times the most common art created was small statues of women they have long been called Venus figurines across many ages whether lean or Bountiful these have similar features arms folded generic faces and style ized breasts and pubic area by emphasizing a woman's lifegiving traits they were likely fertility symbols perhaps worshiped as a way to gain Mother Nature's favor for having a child a good harvest or rebirth amazingly early people created such art before writing and before metal tools the prehistoric era is divided into ages defined by ever more sophisticated technology from the Stone Age to early metal working in the Bronze Age to Stronger objects of the Iron Age it's by their tools and weapons that we know how advanced a society was and as prehistory progressed from Stone to metal art also took a step forward the so-called bog people whose bodies weapons and treasures were preserved in Pete bogs give us an intimate Peak at prehistoric lives as early people believed the gods lived in the bogs that's where they Tau their sacrificial offerings after defeating your enemy logically you'd sacrifice him and toss his weapons to the bog Gods because of the oxygen-free environment this 2300 yearold bog man looks like a fellow half his age archaeologists think he looked like this in happier times he sprawls out in his glass tomb as if to welcome visitors young and old to Marvel at his skin name nails and even the slit throat he was given back at his sacrificial banquet this elderly woman from Denmark whose coffin carved out of an oak tree was preserved in a py bog must have believed in an afterlife imagine her loved ones tenderly placing these precious possessions with her still wearing her original wool blouse she packed a finely carved horn comb bronze jewelry and a dagger back in Britain we're driving deep into Scotland to learn how some of the original Highlanders lived across Scotland little round Islands on lakes are the remains of prehistoric fortified homes these are called chronog and date back centuries before Christ here at the chronog center on LTE one's been rebuilt using mostly traditional methods and now welcomes visitors this is a Scottish kog center it's a reproduction of a 2 and half thousand year old crog that the archaeologists are Excavating as we speak in Lo right now was built out in in the lock itself uh for defensive purposes in Scotland then you had Bears you had wolves you had big cats you uh called links other people roaming the countryside and if you're out here in the water there's only one way in and out and that's the walkway so if you can keep that secure you yourself in here are going to feel a lot safer guides demonstrate Iron Age Technology turning a la grinding FL stes against each other with a brain and even starting a fire the really oldfashioned [Music] way that's how you get your fire you can give the tools a try yourself and discover how easy the guy make it look despite their simple technology early people created some richly decorated objects all of these artifacts are unnecessarily beautiful and ornate the creative Spirit of humankind becomes evident very early on these were ritual objects made by Sun worshippers this Chariot of the Sun from Denmark illustrates how the Sun was dragged across the sky by a divine horse these horned helmets were worn by the ancestors of the Vikings as Pagan priests sounded these horns adding atmosphere to this now Eerie ritual while 3,000 years old they still play the ornamental disc is a sun symbol perhaps as if these horns played the magical music of the Sun from Ireland to Greece these are early societies invested in art these precious artifacts from golden jewelry to finely decorated Implements of daily life are more reminders that those earliest Europeans had an eye for beauty and a passion for [Music] art Europe offers a lifetime of artistic treasures and the more you understand its art the more you'll appreciate the people who created it I hope you've enjoyed our sweep through the highlights of pre istoric Europe and prehistoric Europe is just the beginning of a fascinating story I'm Rick Steves until next time keep on [Music] traveling [Music]
2024-04-27 11:08
