（机器翻译，未校对）
最早发现的艺术痕迹是珠子和雕刻，然后是绘画，其遗址可追溯到旧石器时代晚期。我们可能会认为早期的艺术努力会很粗糙，但西班牙和法国南部的洞穴壁画显示出明显的技巧。在南部非洲挖掘的石板上的自然主义绘画也是如此。其中一些石板似乎是在 28,000 年前绘制的，这表明非洲的绘画与欧洲的绘画一样古老。但绘画可能比这更古老。早期的澳大利亚人可能至少在 30,000 年前，甚至在 60,000 年前，就已经在岩石避难所的墙壁和悬崖表面上绘画。
研究人员 Peter Ucko 和 Andrée Rosenfeld 确定了西欧洞穴中绘画的三个主要位置：（1）明显有人居住的岩石庇护所和洞穴入口； (2) 紧邻洞穴居住区的廊道内； (3) 在洞穴的内部，一些人将难以进入的地方解释为那里进行了魔法宗教活动的标志。
绘画的主题大多是动物。这些画在光秃秃的墙壁上，没有背景或环境陷阱。或许，像许多当代人一样，旧石器时代晚期的男人和女人相信绘制人物形象可能会导致死亡或受伤，如果这确实是他们的信仰，这或许可以解释为什么洞穴艺术中很少描绘人物形象。对动物的关注的另一种解释可能是这些人试图提高他们打猎的运气。绘画人物中的碎片证据表明了这一理论，可能是由向图纸投掷的长矛制成的。但如果提高他们的狩猎运气是这些画作的主要动机，那么很难解释为什么只有少数人有被刺的迹象。也许这些画的灵感来自增加动物供应的需要。洞穴艺术似乎在旧石器时代晚期末期达到顶峰，当时猎物数量正在减少。
研究人员帕特里夏·赖斯（Patricia Rice）和安·帕特森（Ann Paterson）进行的一项研究结果可能更明确地揭示了法国西南部洞穴壁画的特殊象征意义。他们提供的数据表明，洞穴壁画中描绘的动物大多是画家偏爱用于肉类和兽皮等材料的动物。例如，野牛（牛）和马比我们偶然预期的更频繁地被描绘，可能是因为它们比环境中的其他动物更大更重（肉质）。此外，这些画作大多描绘画家可能最害怕的动物，因为它们的体型、速度、象牙和角等天生武器，以及它们行为的不可预测性。也就是说，猛犸象、牛和马比鹿和驯鹿更常被描绘。因此，这些画与艺术与旧石器时代晚期人类经济中狩猎的重要性有关的观点是一致的。根据调查人员的说法，与这个想法一致的是，上旧石器时代之后的文化时期的艺术似乎也反映了人们如何获得食物。但在那个时期，当获取食物不再依赖于狩猎大型猎物（因为它们正在灭绝）时，艺术不再专注于动物的描绘。
旧石器时代晚期的艺术不仅限于洞穴壁画。许多长矛和类似物体的杆身都装饰着动物的形象。人类学家亚历山大·马沙克对旧石器时代晚期制作的一些版画有一个有趣的解释。他认为，早在公元前 30,000 年，猎人就可能使用一种刻在骨头和石头上的符号系统来标记月相。如果这是真的，那就意味着旧石器时代晚期的人们能够进行复杂的思考，并且有意识地意识到他们所处的环境。除其他艺术品外，在旧石器时代晚期遗址还发现了以夸张形式代表人类女性的雕像。有人认为这些小雕像是理想的类型或表达了对生育的渴望。
原文
Cave Art in Europe
►The earliest discovered traces of art are beads and carvings, and then paintings, from sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period. We might expect that early artistic efforts would be crude, but the cave paintings of Spain and southern France show a marked degree of skill. So do the naturalistic paintings on slabs of stone excavated in southern Africa. Some of those slabs appear to have been painted as much as 28,000 years ago, which suggests that painting in Africa is as old as painting in Europe. But painting may be even older than that. The early Australians may have painted on the walls of rock shelters and cliff faces at least 30,000 years ago, and maybe as much as 60,000 years ago.
The researchers Peter Ucko and Andrée Rosenfeld identified three principal locations of paintings in the caves of western Europe: (1) in obviously inhabited rock shelters and cave entrances; (2) in galleries immediately off the inhabited areas of caves; and (3) in the inner reaches of caves, whose difficulty of access has been interpreted by some as a sign that magical-religious activities were performed there.
The subjects of the paintings are mostly animals. The paintings rest on bare walls, with no backdrops or environmental trappings. Perhaps, like many contemporary peoples, Upper Paleolithic men and women believed that the drawing of a human image could cause death or injury, and if that were indeed their belief, it might explain why human figures are rarely depicted in cave art. Another explanation for the focus on animals might be that these people sought to improve their luck at hunting. This theory is suggested by evidence of chips in the painted figures, perhaps made by spears thrown at the drawings. But if improving their hunting luck was the chief motivation for the paintings, it is difficult to explain why only a few show signs of having been speared. Perhaps the paintings were inspired by the need to increase the supply of animals. Cave art seems to have reached a peak toward the end of the Upper Paleolithic period, when the herds of game were decreasing.
The particular symbolic significance of the cave paintings in southwestern France is more explicitly revealed, perhaps, by the results of a study conducted by researchers Patricia Rice and Ann Paterson. The data they present suggest that the animals portrayed in the cave paintings were mostly the ones that the painters preferred for meat and for materials such as hides. For example, wild cattle (bovines) and horses are portrayed more often than we would expect by chance, probably because they were larger and heavier (meatier) than other animals in the environment. In addition, the paintings mostly portray animals that the painters may have feared the most because of their size, speed, natural weapons such as tusks and horns, and the unpredictability of their behavior. That is, mammoths, bovines, and horses are portrayed more often than deer and reindeer. Thus, the paintings are consistent with the idea that the art is related to the importance of hunting in the economy of Upper Paleolithic people. Consistent with this idea, according to the investigators, is the fact that the art of the cultural period that followed the Upper Paleolithic also seems to reflect how people got their food. But in that period, when getting food no longer depended on hunting large game animals (because they were becoming extinct), the art ceased to focus on portrayals of animals.
Upper Paleolithic art was not confined to cave paintings. Many shafts of spears and similar objects were decorated with figures of animals. The anthropologist Alexander Marshack has an interesting interpretation of some of the engravings made during the Upper Paleolithic. He believes that as far back as 30,000 B.C., hunters may have used a system of notation, engraved on bone and stone, to mark phases of the Moon. If this is true, it would mean that Upper Paleolithic people were capable of complex thought and were consciously aware of their environment. In addition to other artworks, figurines representing the human female in exaggerated form have also been found at Upper Paleolithic sites. It has been suggested that these figurines were an ideal type or an expression of a desire for fertility.
来源: TOEFL TPO 4