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Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis, VIII, 2009 ART AND PREHISTORY (Visiting the Gaydarska and Chapman’s Answers to Why were Prehistoric Persons Interested in Rocks, Minerals, Clays and Pigments) Lolita NIKOLOVA International Institute of Anthropology, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA lnikol@iianthropology.org Keywords: aesthetic, aesthetics, aesthetical, art, Balkan prehistory, black pottery, carnelian beads, enculturation, gold, graphite, origin of art, prehistory, socialization. Abstract: This reflection on art and prehistory introduced several author’s anthropological concepts on origin of art and its function in prehistory. Initial conceptual construct is the difference between aesthetic and aesthetical cultural views, respectively of aesthetic as a scientific theory (= aesthetics in singular) and aesthetics (plural) as the pleasing appearance or effect of things. The aesthetic view empowers and liberates culture while aesthetical view may limit it. The aesthetic view can be destructured while the aesthetical view needs to be proved. From the perspectives of prehistory, the socioanthropological power-prestige model does not allow to analyze the aesthetic view in its completeness and connectiveness as an essential enculturational construct. It may better explain the interrelation between socialization and aesthetic/aesthetical view. The cultural relation to rocks, minerals, clays and pigments was in fact relation of artists (understood as creative people) to nature in order to interact and create cultural products that in turn connected the people and nature. The art was invented in particular, to connect the gradually self-developing social world with the nature and in such way to make the world look united and complex. Introduction On 29 August 2009 I attended a jewelry workshop with my anthropology students. It was absolutely exiting, not because the art students, with their creativity, made the workshop an event, but because I tried by memory to make an Ur-like necklace including especially a red colored bone/horn, to look like with a carnelian beads. And as a surprise, next day, reviewing the new publications on Balkan archaeometallurgy online, I saw the question of Gaydarska and Chapman (2008). Just glimpsing such big thing as the problem of the aesthetic and aesthetical views in the prehistoric Balkans made me turn to the publication and forget about 7
Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis, VIII, 2009 everything else. Below I will share my reflection on the Gaydarska and Chapman’s thoughts from the perspectives of my social and academic experience. Aesthetic versus aesthetical First we will make a difference between aesthetic and aesthetical. The former will relate to the pleasing appearance or effect of things, while the latter - as related to aesthetic (or aesthetics in singular), respectively "the science which treats the conditions of sensuous perception" (Maddox, online). On its side, the cultural relation to rocks, minerals, clays and pigments was in fact relation of artists (understood as creative people) to nature in order to interact and create cultural products that in turn connected the people and nature (Nikolova, 2009). The art was invented in particular, to connect the gradually self-developing social world with the nature and in such way to make the world look united and complex. But prehistoric art was always functional. Although the archaeological or archaeological-anthropological view on Balkan prehistory (e.g. Nikolova, 1999; Bailey, 2000, 2005) in many cases do not describe the materially as an art, the artistic, respectively aesthetic function, is embodied in any cultural activity because the culture of people was created upon the model of nature and the nature was a mirror of harmony, beauty, symmetry and balance. So, the tangible question is not about the aesthetic view in Prehistory but how to understand this aesthetic view, while when it comes to the system aesthetical view on the world as a steady and complex system of philosophy and theory of the conditions of sensuous perception, it needs first to be proved before analyzed. In more strictly academic sense, the aesthetics as pleasing appearance or effect characterize not only the material expression but also any human behavior and its results. On its side, the aesthetic relation to rocks, minerals, clays and pigments was in fact relation of artists to nature in order to interact and create cultural products that in turn connected the people and nature (Nikolova, 2009). This understanding shows that my answer to the article’s question generally differs from the Gaydarska and Chapman’s aesthetical approach. Also, I doubt that it is possible an aesthetical approach before providing proofs that such existed as cultural universals, and steady prehistoric philosophy and theory. The art was invented in particular, to connect the gradually self-developing social world with the nature and in such way to make the world look united and complex (Figures 1 & 2). Although the archaeological or archaeological-anthropological view on Balkan prehistory (e.g. Nikolova, 1999; Bailey, 2000) in many cases do not describe the materially as an art, the artistic, respectively the aesthetic function, is embodied in any cultural activity because the culture of people was created upon the model of nature and the nature was a mirror of harmony, beauty, symmetry and balance. So, the question is not about the aesthetic of prehistory but how to understand this aesthetic – as an artistic creativities and connectivities and expression of the liberate function of culture or as a norm and rule expressing the limitation function of culture. 8
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