It is as fascinating to me to look at prehistoric artistry, as it is to look a piece of art from historical times. Time and again we have to revise our understanding of the capabilities of our long dead forefathers, in the direction of "improving" their skills. It is like we see them as stupid, until proven intelligent. Those people back then were able to survive in nearly impossible circumstances, again and again, but nevertheless managed to both overcome them AND be artistic about it. That deserves a lot of credit in my view. Maybe "art" feels like overstretching the term in this context, but you have to consider that the biggest step is always the first one - going from "nothing" to "something". The journey always starts with the first step, and that original idea is the groundbreaking one... not painting the ceiling of the cistine chapel, standing on shoulders of the thousand of incrimental steps towards "perfection"... Just to be blasphemous :-)
Along the coastline of the south african Cape, an old stoneage cave was discovered in 1991. Excavations have been carried out there for two decades and layers indicate uses by humans from very different periods. There were an ochre quarry here, since ochre was used as body decoration among other things presumably. One of these ochre lumps, were found to have engravings on them, that can only originate from hominids, more precisely, homo sapiens ca. 70.000 years ago.
Now, the patterns do not lend themselves to any indication of function. But that is also merely guesswork and less important than enjoying the absolute fact, that humans could conceptualize patterns in their brains and recreate them in physical form on a piece of ochre. It is almost impossible to think of a more basic form of art. It is art that does not even know it is art, or does it? The individual who created the pattern probably lived among a tribe and other individuals would inevitably experience it and couple it with its creator. This connection is my basic understanding of what art is. A physical expression giving other individuals the chance to try another persons life on for size. These simple patterns may have had an as explosive experience for its viewers, as an impressionist masterpiece have for us now. The expression of our conceptualization of reality is as deep as our hunger for food or love.
Looking around the world today I sometimes feel that humans, 70.000 years ago, were better and more artistic beings, than the majority of our present day humanity. Looking at the sad state of kids educations, welfare destruction of personal incentives and adherence to law as the guidance for morality, makes me sick. Art has become a state subsidized monstrosity, infected with snobbery and the emperors new clothes. I long for the personal expression, the chance to put on other peoples life for size.