CAVE ART DBQ

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CAVE ART DBQ

• WHY WAS PREHISTORIC CAVE ART CREATED?

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WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?

• We are going to do our first DBQ, but a partial
  one.
• At the same time we will be doing historical
  analysis as a class and try to figure out why
  prehistoric humans did cave art.
• We will do this by following the steps that
  historians take pondering a question, looking
  at and evaluating primary and secondary documents
  and submitting our theories for examination by
  other historians.

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HOW WILL WE BE GRADED?

• On your partial essay on the topic following the
  partial-DBQ format
• Use all docs
• Support thesis persuasively with appropriate
  evidence from docs
• Understand meaning of documents be insightful
  and careful
• Group documents in 1-3 ways (comparing or
  synthesizing)

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HOW TO START A DBQ

• First read the question and understand it.
• Second read the documents and try to synthesize
  them.
• Third begin grouping the documents while
  considering your thesis.
• Fourth formulate your thesis using the groupings
  as arguments to support your thesis.

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How would you group these shoes?
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Possible groupings and groups

• Color white, black, brown
• Purpose exercise, work, relaxation
• Type sandals, tennis shoes, flip flops, pumps
• Material leather, fake leather, plastic
• Owner Mrs. Bond-Lamberty, Mr. Bond-Lamberty
• Other ideas age, cleanliness, size, comfort

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DOCUMENT 1

• LASCAUX CAVE

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Lascaux Cave 1
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Lascaux Cave 2
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Lascaux Cave 3
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DOCUMENT 2

• LASCAUX CAVE 2

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Lascaux Cave 4
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Lascaux Cave 5
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DOCUMENT 3

• CHAUVET CAVE

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Chauvet Cave 1
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Chauvet Cave 2
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Chauvet Cave 3
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Chauvet Cave 4
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Chauvet Cave 5
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DOCUMENT 4

• CHAUVET CAVE

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Chauvet Cave 6
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Chauvet Cave 6
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Chauvet Cave 7
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DOCUMENT 5

• CHAUVET CAVE

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Chauvet Cave 8
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Chauvet Cave 9
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DOCUMENT 6

• COSQUER CAVE

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Cosquer Cave - Side View
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Cosquer Cave 1
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Cosquer Cave 2
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Cosquer Cave 3
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Cosquer Cave 4
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DOCUMENT 7

• COSQUER CAVE

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Cosquer Cave 5
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Cosquer Cave 6
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DOCUMENT 8

• CUSSAC CAVE

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Cussac Cave 1
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Cussac Cave 2
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Cussac Cave 3
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DOCUMENT 9 - Secrets of the Caves Art by Sharon
Begley with Dana Thomas in Newsweek May 24, 1999

• "Out of these people's whole bestiary, the
  artists chose predatory, dangerous animals," says
  archeologist Margaret Conkey of the University of
  California, Berkeley. By painting species that
  virtually never wound up on the Paleolithic menu
  but which "symbolized danger, strength and
  power," says Clottes, the artists may have been
  attempting "to capture the essence of" the
  animals.

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DOCUMENT 9 (continued)

• A program superimposed arrays of hands onto the
  dots found on one of the walls. The best fit to
  an array of 48 dots is a sequence of handprints
  made by an adolescent or a short woman. A panel
  of 92 dots was probably the handiwork of a tall
  man. The presence of people of different ages and
  sexes suggests either a communal experience or
  masters passing their secrets on to apprentices.
  Even 32,000 years ago, art was created for more
  than art's sake.

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DOCUMENT 10 - BEHOLD THE STONE AGE by Robert
Hughes in TIME February 13, 1995

• Some animals have more than four legs, or
  grotesquely exaggerated horns is that just
  style, or does it argue a state of ritual trance
  or hallucination in the artists? No answer,
  though some naturally occurring manganese oxides,
  the base of some of the blacks used in cave
  paintings, are known to be toxic and to act on
  the central nervous system.

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DOCUMENT 10 (continued)

• And the main technique of Cro-Magnon art,
  according to prehistorian Michel Lorblanchet,
  director of France's National Center of
  Scientific Research, involved not brushes but a
  kind of oral spray-painting - blowing pigment
  dissolved in saliva on the wall. Lorblanchet, who
  has re-created cave paintings with uncanny
  accuracy, suggests that the technique may have
  had a spiritual dimension.

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Cave Art DBQ Possible Groupings

• Types of images dangerous animals, harmless
  animals, edible animals, inedible animals, land
  animals, sea animals, hand prints, humans, action
  scenes, still lifes, individual animals, groups
  of animals
• Types of art paintings, drawings, engravings,
  handprints

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Cave Art DBQ Possible Groupings

• Purpose journal, education, prayer,
  communication
• Theories to get animals power, for art,
  spiritual aspect/hallucination, communal activity

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Cave Art DBQ Possible Theses

• There are many reasons why early humans did cave
  art, the most plausible are for spiritual
  motives, as a communal activity, and for art.
  Spiritual hallucination (4, 7, 10), power (2,
  3, 9) Communal 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 Art
  painting (1, 2), carving (5, 8), drawing (1, 2,
  3, 6), and spray painting (4, 7, 10).
• Early humans created cave art for various reasons
  including as a means of communication, education
  and spirituality. Communication I was here
  education beware, eat these spirituality
  power, prayer, hope.
• Cave art was done by early humans as a means of
  recording their environment, expressing their
  hopes and to pass the time. Recording what
  seen, time, events expressing hopes, fears
  passing - boredom.