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St. Croix Landmarks Society - Kids Rock
| This activity is all about rocks. You will learn about Cave Paintings, Petroglyphs, and Geoglyphs. After reading all about rocks, we'll teach you how to create your own ROCK ART! |
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What Is Rock Art?
Cave Paintings
Do you know when art began? No one really knows what the first artwork was, or who the first artist was. But we do know that people have been making art for many, many years. How do we know this? We know because some of this art is still around. |
About 40,000 years ago, before people developed a written language, some people in Europe lived near caves. For these Stone Age people, the caves were special places. Some of these people used the rock walls of the caves as their canvases, and painted beautiful pictures on the walls. Many of the wonderful paintings found in caves are of animals, including deer, horses, stags, bison, and wolves, and a few species of animals that are extinct (no longer alive), such as the woolly mammoth and a large, cow-like animal called an aurochs. Anthropologists, scientists who study the history of human beings, wonder whether cave artists painted these pictures to give them better luck in hunting the animals they drew. Other anthropologists wonder whether these artists were honoring the animals that they hunted for food, as a way of showing respect for the animals.
What kinds of paints did cave artists use for their paintings? These artists couldn’t go out to a local paint store and purchase their paints! They had to make their own paints from natural materials. Most cave paintings include the following colors: red, orange, yellow, brown, black, and white. The colors red, orange, yellow, and brown were made from ocher, a rock that was crushed into a powder. The color black was made from powdered charcoal or from manganese dioxide, a naturally occurring gray to black powdery mineral. The color white was usually made from kaolin, a white clay, or from mica. These powdered “paints” were then applied to the rock walls by hand, or they were mixed with water, vegetable oils, or animal fat to make a paste. The paint paste was applied to the rock with crude paintbrushes made out of feathers, animal hair, leaves, or twigs with crushed ends. Sometimes cave artists would place their hands on the walls and blow powdered paints through a hollow bird bone to make a negative print of their hands on the rock. Why do you think they did that?
There are many examples of cave art in Europe, especially in France and Spain. Cave paintings have been found in India, South America, and in North America as well. Unfortunately, some of these beautiful examples of rock art are closed to the public. Why can’t you go to see these paintings? Cave art is very fragile. In one famous cave, people noticed that the cave paintings were fading because they were exposed to light and to the carbon dioxide that people exhale when they breathe. This means that even your breath can damage cave paintings! So now only people with special permits can go into these caves. However, thanks to the Internet, you can see photographs of some of these special paintings at the following links. Click on one of these links and go see some cave paintings for yourself!
Links to Cave Paintings
A Virtual Tour of Cave Paintings
Click here to see more cave paintings. You can click on the names of the differnt animals to see how they were drawn on the caves. This cave is found in France.
The Cave of Lascaux
Click here to take a virtual journey though a cave and see some paintings that are over 20 feet long!These paintings were found in Lascaux Cave, France. Click on any highlighted phrase to see the paintings found in that part of the cave. These images are awesome!
Photographs of Altamira Cave
Cave paintings can be found all over the world. Click here to see some cave paintings in Spain. See photos of the cave paintings found in Altamira Cave, in Spain. Some of the most beautiful paintings in Altamira Cave are on the ceiling!
Okay, now that you have seen some good examples of cave paintings, you know all about rock art, right? Wrong! Cave paintings are only one type of rock art. Here is a fancy word for cave paintings: pictographs. Pictographs are rock art in which pigments (such as paint) are applied to the surface of the rock. The word pictograph comes from two older languages, Latin and Greek. In Latin, the term pictus- means painted, and the Greek term graphein- means to write or record. In other words, a pictograph is a record or writing created by using paint or some other kind of colored pigment.
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Petroglyphs
What other kinds of rock art are there? When rock walls and boulders are exposed to the weather, they often develop a slightly darker surface finish called a varnish. When Stone Age people carved symbols into these surfaces, they exposed the lighter-colored rock below, making the symbols easy to see. The rock art created in this way are called petroglyphs. In Greek, the term petra- means rock, and the term glyphein- means to carve. So petroglyphs are symbols that have been carved or scratched into rocks by ancient peoples. |
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Photo © National Parks Services. This Petroglyph can be found on St.John. |
Petroglyphs have been found in many parts of the world, such as Central and South America and in the Caribbean, including the U.S. Virgin Islands. These rock carvings generally consist of geometric designs, or look somewhat like animals or people. Archaeologists, scientists who study the things made or used by ancient peoples, aren’t always sure what petroglyphs mean. Some archaeologists wonder whether petroglyphs
are symbols representing religious thoughts or practices, whereas others wonder whether petroglyphs show symbols that tell a story about the daily lives of the artists who carved them. Try clicking on these links to find photographs of petroglyphs:
Links to Petroglyphs
Petroglyphs
Go to this Virgin Islands National Park site to see a petroglyph found on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Petroglyph Trail
Want to see more of these awesome petroglyphs on our sister island? Click here!
Petroglyphs or Rock Engravings
Scroll down to see petroglyphs from Guyana, Africa.
http://www.sdnp.org/wrma/petro.htm
TOMOL – An On-Line Archive of Digital Images of Rock Art from the Western United States
Click here to find images in New Mexico. Scroll down to the state pages and click on New Mexico images to see petroglyphs found in that state. You can click on other states to find out more about petroglyphs in the rest of the southwestern U.S.
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Geoglyphs
Suppose you were able to fly an airplane or hot air balloon over the dusty plains near a place called Nazca, Peru, in South America. What would you see when you looked out the window? If you looked very carefully, you might see huge drawings on the ground! Why would ancient people, who didn’t have flying machines, create these pictures that can only be seen from the air? No one really has an answer to this important question about geoglyphs. |
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Geoglyphs are large pictures or images that have been created on the ground surface either by removing large areas of rocks or soil, or by building up areas with rocks and soil to form an image. Many of these images are quite large and can only be seen in their entirety from the air. Archaeologists aren’t sure how ancient peoples knew what their geoglyphs looked like from the air, or why they built them at all. The word geoglyph comes from two Greek words, ge- meaning the earth, and glyphein- meaning to carve. So geoglyphs are images that are carved into the earth.
Just how large are geoglyhs? You find out for yourself by clicking on some of the following links.
Links to Geoglyphs
Nazca – The Enigmatic Lines of the Nazca Pampa
Click here to view the incredible images in peru. Scroll down to see photos of geoglyphs in Nazca, Peru.
Nasca Lines
Click here to see photos of many geoglyphs found outside Nasca, Peru.
Additional Nazca Images
Click here to see more geoglyphs from Nazca, Peru.
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Why Is Rock Art Protected?
Rock art is very fragile. Because of this, many famous cave art locations have now been closed to the public to preserve the paintings. Petroglyphs are exposed to rain, ice, snow, and wind, and can wear away naturally. Geoglyphs were often built in flat, desert-like areas. Because geoglyphs are difficult to see from the ground, people have unknowingly damaged many of them by driving vehicles over the area or building roads or other structures over them. Unfortunately, some humans have deliberately damaged rock art by drawing or carving on top of the artwork, or by cutting slabs of rock away and removing them. This kind of damage leads archaeologists to protect rock art sites by not revealing exactly where they can be found until they have been studied and protected in some way. Many countries now have laws that protect known rock art sites, and prescribe penalties for people who damage rock art in any way.
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Now is your chance to create your own, unique Rock Art. Check out our Kids Rock! Activity.
CREATE YOUR OWN ROCK ART
By now, you have a pretty good idea of what rock art created by humans thousands of years ago looks like. Here are some activities you can do at home to create your own rock art!
Paper Bag Cave Painting
For this activity, you will need:
1 large paper bag (from a store)
1 piece of charcoal
1 each red, orange, yellow, brown, and white crayons
white glue or a gluestick
1 piece of colored construction paper
scissors
What To Do:
1. Crumple up the paper bag as if you were going to throw it away. Be careful not to tear the bag.
2. Smooth out the paper bag on a table or on the floor. If you want, you could tape the bag to a wall (get permission from an adult before you do this).
3. Using the charcoal, draw one line that will form the back of an animal that prehistoric people might have drawn in their cave paintings. Then draw the head and tail of that animal.
4. Using the white crayon, draw one line that will form the stomach of the animal.
5. Using the charcoal again, draw in the legs of the animal.
6. Fill in the rest of the animal by using the red, orange, yellow, and brown crayons.
7. Cut around your cave painting and glue it onto a piece of construction paper.
8. Display your cave painting where everyone can see it.
Making Petroglyphs
For this activity, you will need:
1 empty paper milk carton (or plastic milk jug)
scissors
ruler
marker
Plaster of Paris
1 large nail
brown tempura paint
paintbrush
newspaper
safety goggles
What To Do:
1. Using the ruler and marker, measure and mark a spot about three inches from the bottom of the milk carton or jug. Use the scissors to cut around the carton or jug to make a square container.
2. Ask an adult to help you with this step. Follow the directions on the Plaster of Paris container to make some plaster. Pour the plaster into the milk carton or jug container that you have prepared.
3. Allow the plaster to harden.
4. Once the plaster is hardened, cut and remove the cardboard or plastic container from the solid piece of plaster. Place the plaster square on top of the newspaper.
5. Paint one side of the plaster brown. Allow the paint to dry.
6. For this step, put on the safety goggles. Now use the nail to carve a design in the plaster square. You can make up your own design, or use one similar to the petroglyphs you saw at the web sites. Remember: petroglyphs do not include letters or numbers!
7. Once you have completed your design, use the paintbrush to brush the dust onto the newspaper. Your petroglyph is finished.
8. But wait! If you created your own design, show your petroglyph to another person and see if he or she can guess what your design is.
Can you think of any other activities to create rock art? If you have a sidewalk or cement wall, you can use chalk to make a pictograph as large as some of the drawings in caves. Be sure to get permission from an adult before you draw on walls or sidewalks. Walls and sidewalks make good cave paintings because they have rough surfaces, just like the rock walls inside some caves.
Rock On! |
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| | © 2009, St. Croix Landmarks Society. All rights reserved. |
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