The late period of the ancient Stone Age was the time of the birth of art. Actually, here we can talk not about art in general, but about the fine arts. Apparently, some simple forms of dance, singing, and music were known to both Pithecanthropes and Neanderthals. Their rudiments in instinctive forms can be found even in monkeys: and they can sway rhythmically and make sounds, as it were, in time (“whoosh”). But only at the end of the ancient Stone Age did people have the need and the ability to depict, draw, cut.
When the first cave images of animals were found, almost no one believed that people who lived in caves and used stone tools could draw like this. And yet it is so. Amazing in perfection, accuracy of observations, images of animals - bison, horses, mammoths - were applied to the walls and low ceilings of caves in Spain, in the south of France, in the Urals. Parts of the caves with paintings are often located in the depths, in complete darkness. In order to draw these figures here with multi-colored mineral paints, it was necessary to illuminate the walls with torches and stone "lamps" in the form of ladles filled with fat.
Until now, scientists are trying to understand why they painted these animals, with what rituals and myths they are associated. It is safe to say that at that time people became the creators of the "second nature", a world that is similar to the visible, but differs from it because a person sees not only with his eyes, but also with his head, i.e. makes sense of what he sees. The creation of the "second nature" began, of course, even earlier, from the moment when a person did not just take a stick or a stone in his hand, but processed them for his own needs. However, the appearance of fine arts is the most important sign of the progress of mankind.
Rock carvings of hunting and various rituals show that people of the Middle Stone Age no longer depended on nature as much as their predecessors. They became aware of this still relatively weak independence, drawing crowds of hunters capable of killing a large and strong animal. The efforts of one person would not be enough to cope with the difficulties of life, and the relatives helped each other in everything.
It is believed that through the images of animals, people expressed some important ideas about the world for them. On the walls of caves, images of people are very rare. This is understandable: after all, in childhood it is easier for us to comprehend the relationship between living beings, using the images of animals. Let us recall Krylov's fables: animals often act there, but they behave like people. Apparently, the most ancient artists did the same: they did not simply depict bison or horses, behind these images there were some ideas known to them, but, unfortunately, not known to us, perhaps legends, myths. To portray people, a person must learn to understand them, and they seemed to him the same, little different from each other.
