1. Prehistoric Art The oldest surviving art dates back between 30,000 and 33,000 years. To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?" Cicero
3. The oldest surviving art objects are sculptures made of bone, ivory, stone, or antlers: engraved, carved in deep relief, or fully 3-D. Frequently these are assumed to be fertility figures.
9. The first paintings go back about 15,000 years; many are portrayed pierced with arrows, and gouges in the rock indicate that cave dwellers may have flung spears at the painted game as part of a hunting or initiation ritual.
21. Stonehenge was believed in the middle ages to be either the creation of an ancient race of giants or conjured by Merlin the magician. The heel-stone marks where the sun rises at the summer solstice. This kind of circular arrangement of stones is called a cromlech .
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23. Newgrange, in Ireland, is believed to be the oldest extant building, dated to about 3200 BCE. At sunrise on the winter solstice the sun’s rays penetrate the deepest recesses of the structure.