Nomads and rock art

This week in History we have read from SOTW1 chapter 1 about the earliest people (after the flood) and how nomads settled as farmers in the Fertile Crescent between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

We also read briefly of how, if they stayed in caves to shelter, nomads often painted pictures of animals they hunted, and other things. Then we went online and looked at a host of rock art images from Europe (Lascaux, France), Africa (Namibia, courtesy of our friend Rina's blog) and, of course, Australia.

Here are some of the sites we liked:

European cave art
The Cave of Lascaux official website
Some of the images in the Virtual Tour (accessed through the "Discover" option) are quite small, and I can't seem to open them larger in a separate window, unfortunately, but the captions give helpful descriptions.
Other French cave/rock art from the Chauvet Cave,
courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Click on a thumbnail (at left) to see the art in a pop up window. The horse heads are particularly spectacular. This page includes a "themed article" on the artwork. Lower down on the left are links to other Met pages with articles and images of "prehistoric art".

African rock art, paintings and engravings
Rina's pictures from her recent holiday in Namibia
Having spent a year at the same theol college as Jeff went to, Rina is now in the middle of 2 years working in Malawi doing community development work. The pictures she takes are amazing - but she doesn't exactly have a cushy life, as you'll see if you read elsewhere on her blog.

Australian Aboriginal rock art
Oz Outback - images from the north of Australia
Just click on the smaller images to see them larger, and you can also send a picture as an email postcard, as we do sometimes to keep grandparents up-to date with what we are learning.
The Met's Ubirr collection and the Met's X-Ray style rock art collection
These have images of rock art from Arnhem land in the Northern Territory - I am sure my Dad has better photos than some of these, but since his photos are all on his walls back in Darwin and not here in Perth, we had to make do. I also sent the girls off to find examples of Aboriginal art in our house (we have quite a collection, none of it on rock, of course).