Made between 20,000 and 8000 years ago, the Vallon-Pont d'Arc and Lascaux cave paintings in France are among the earliest known art. Vallon-Pont d'Arc inlcudes more than 200 black and red wall paintings using ochre (an iron based mineral varying colour from yellow to red). Pictures include horses, rhinos, lions, bison, wild ox, bears, a panther, an owl, ibex, reindeer, plus now extinct mammoths and megaloceros.

This carving from France, made of reindeer antler, is up to 15,000 years old. The artist shows a bison lying down, with head turned back, grooming itself with its tongue. The mark of a great artist is often knowing when to stop. Here just enough carving has been done, in combination with the natural shape of the antler, to give a very real view of a bison. The artist was also obviously a good observer. Here we see a peaceful view of a bison at rest engaged in a contented activity. Anyone who has grown up in the country and has watched cattle in a field will have seen just this kind of thing many times. To this artist, this bison was not just something to be hunted--a steak on four legs!--but he or she was able to appreciate an animal, that almost always was on the alert against predators, enjoying an all too brief time of pure enjoyment. The ability to give a deeper meaning to the everyday happenings in life is the mark of a true artist. Even 15,000 years later, we today could not have taught this artist anything he did not already know.

The Lepenski Vir site on the Danube River, from 5000 BC, show the Old Stone Age hunter-gatherer people were now living in permanent settlements composed of one or more extended families. These were the forerunner of towns and cities as we would know them. About 200 to 300 people would have lived here. The "houses" resembled tents built from skins stretched over wood uprights. But they were laid out along ordered streets, and this shows some form of centralized planning was used. The Lepenski Vir people also made stone sculptures.

Lepenski Vir