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Stepping-Stones: A Journey through the Ice Age Caves of the Dordogne
by
Christine Desdemaines-Hugon,
Ian Tattersall (Goodreads Author)
The cave art of France’s Dordogne region is world-famous for the mythology and beauty of its remarkable drawings and paintings. These ancient images of lively bison, horses, and mammoths, as well assymbols of all kinds, are fascinating touchstones in the development of human culture, demonstrating how far humankind has come and reminding us of the ties that bind us across...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
April 20th 2010
by Yale University Press
(first published 2010)
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An amazing book that captures her passion regarding the artists who painted in the caves of Dordogne, France. She has classically trained as an artist and an archaeologist, lived there for 25 years, and made innumerable visits to these caves. I walked away with an appreciation that I never would have otherwise had. I was so impressed that I contacted her and she will be taking my wife and I and two other couples on a guided tour of two caves when we visit France later this month.
A sensitive and very intelligent book on the art of the paleolothic, and a very good read. She does a nice job of mixing the latest thinking about the time period and its people from the whole range of experts, along with personal and professional reflections on the caves and the art itself. Fascinating, she keeps it from being too dry though some of the lengthy description could have been cut a little bit...but her love of the subject is palpable, so perhaps not.
Valued reading it as a "companion" to on site visits to caves covered in the book, but the author delivers a rewardingly rich range of informatipn on pre-historic human existence. She doesnt have a specific position to defend, but is very good about making the readwr aware of contemporary and diverging studies. Despite being very "to the point," she brings a very humanistic understanding to her depiction of early man through observations on art, tools, and living conditions. Stylistically, a ple...more
New study of the Cro-Magnon cave paintings of southern Europe--when art historians and archeologists play nicely with animal behaviorists and chemists, we can learn all sort of interesting things about what ice age people might have been thinking as they painted animals, handprints and wild abstractive figures on the walls.
Mar 12, 2013
Ronette
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Jan 01, 2013
Clare
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Dec 13, 2012
Fernando Morales
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Sep 26, 2011
Barry Halpern
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Nov 27, 2010
Amy
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Jun 15, 2010
Susan
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