Page 27 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

EDWARD C. STEWART

control mechanisms consist of manners, accepted modes of expression, shared
values, and virtually all ways of thinking about the self in relation to others in
daily life. The ultimate dimension of culture equips individuals with supreme
beings, beliefs, rituals, codes, and feelings that compose spiritual and religious
systems that transcend the here and now to address the very design and
meaning of life.

Symbolic evidence for the formation of human nature
Prehistoric drawings, paintings, carvings, engravings, and sculptures discovered
in caves used by Paleolithic man provide many insights into human nature
formed during the glacial age. Rowland has summarized the meaning of
pictorial expression found in Paleolithic art between 40,000 and 5000 :

This first dawn of pictorial expression . . . was the art of the hunters
who depended for food and clothing on the great herds of beasts that
roamed Europe . . . This is an art magical, rather than esthetic, in
purpose, intended to give the tribe power over, and possession of, the
animals drawn by artists dedicated to this cult of hunting magic. The
art of the men of the Paleolithic period is located in the depths of
grottoes that were used not so much for habitation as for the ritual
insuring the success of the hunt. These drawings were not made for
public exhibitions, nor for the playful joy of the artist in recording
aspects of his world . . . Their purpose was strictly a utilitarian magical
one, a matter of life and death. The effectiveness of the ritual probably
depended upon the naturalness of the drawing as a veritable counter-
feit of the animal to be conquered. The painted darts and spears are like
the pins the witch sticks in the wax effigy of an intended victim in an
entirely similar exercise of sympathetic magic. Once the ceremony
of ‘killing’ the game in the painted effigy was over and the hunters
sallied forth in quest of the real quarry, the drawing lost all further
effectiveness.
(Rowland 1965: 15–16)

The main preoccupation of prehistoric humans was to secure food and shelter
and to protect their vulnerability. When these vital needs were satisfied, the
will to survive was nourished. This will to live was the main theme of pre-
historic art. The earliest images were linear, formed by delineating contours
and outlines that convincingly isolated a single impression from the confusion
of reality (Rowland 1965: 16). Even very early paintings and engravings of
animals are so realistic that archeologists can identify the species of animals
depicted. Later, sophisticated methods of shading and polychromy were used to
improve the images’ lifelike qualities. Apparently the e ffect sought was to
enhance the potency of the animal depicted. Human figures that inhabit the

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