Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
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24
INTRODUCTION
which are numerous in the lower valleys of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The South African paintings are probably the work of the ancestors of the present Bushmen, and are therefore called "Bushman art."
In Siberia, rock pictures are comparatively common; they are sometimes engravings or chippings, and sometimes paintings. Many rock pictures have been found in India; they contain figures of men and animals, or geometric designs of
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Fig. 3 1, Prehistoric geometric signs frorn Palestine. 2, Prehistoric conventionalized figure and
geometric symbols from Byblos (Syria)
uncertain significance. In Australia (Fig. 6, 4), there are rock paintings belonging to various periods. "Those in the rock shelters of the western part of North Kirnberley are still the objects of religious practice among the natives" (L. Adam). In the vast area of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, "rock drawings, engravings and paintings are a universal feature" (L. Adam). Interesting are the Papuan pictograms published in the "JOURNAL OF THE ROY. ANTHROP. INSTITUTE OF
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Fig. 4
1, Prehistoric geometrie marks on masonry and pottery from Crete. 2. Prehistoric ivory labels with "numerical") indications and 3, Prehistorie geometric signs on pottery from
Egypt. 4, Prehistoric conventionalized figures from North African rock paintings
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND," 1936. Fig. 5 and 6 show conventionalized figures of men, animals, animated objects and geometrical symbols from rock pictures of various American countries.
Every year new discoveries are reported. A number of primitive drawings
