Bahn Paul G. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art

Cambridge University Press, 1998. — 302 p. — (Cambridge Illustrated Histories). — ISBN: 0-521-45473-5.Skilfully combining insight, humour and analysis with superb illustration, Paul Bahn discusses the nature of prehistoric art, its astonishing quality, how it was made, and why. And in so doing, he also sheds light on the lives of our far-distant ancestors, whose concerns were apparently not so different from ours: sex, sustenance, mortality, religion, society and survival. Fascinating and entertaining, this is as much a glimpse of what makes us human as it is the story of prehistoric art.
Paul Bahn has travelled extensively, photographing art in some of the most remote parts of the world. This, combined with rarely seen reproductions of the very earliest drawings by explorers and surveyors from the 1600s onwards, creates a visually powerful and unique history of our distant past.
- The first authoritative and truly worldwide survey of prehistoric art.
- Stunningly illustrated in colour with over 250 images, many of them rare or never before published.The 'Discovery' of Prehistoric Art.
The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Prehistoric Art Comes into its Own.
Body Art.
Objets d'Art.
Art on Rocks and Walls.
The Appliance of Science.
Matters of the Body: Literal Interpretations of Prehistoric Art.
Matters of the Mind: Symbolic Interpretations of Prehistoric Art.
Current Threats and Future Prospects.
Epilogue.