Prehistoric art: meta-language and landscape

Résumé En

In a particular moment of Man’s history on our planet, the phenomenon of Prehistoric Art appeared, more or less 40,000 years ago. This huge coacervation of signs that men have impressed on the surrounding world is not the result of an immediate transformation of Homo Sapiens’s intellectual activity, but is the effect of the maturation of a long cognitive process based on the psychic dimension and comporting stages leading to a more enlarged Self knowledge. To undertake the study of Prehistoric Art, some basic concepts from the science of signs are useful to navigate on the ocean of information that is presently disposable. Concerning Prehistoric Art, since we are confronted with situations that derive their peculiar characters in connection with space, with time and with different individuals that interact within a complex of signs, it is possible to utilize theoretic patterns deriving from the semiologic and meta-linguistic fields. In consideration of the territory and its ancient or actual anthropization, Prehistoric Art sites could be classified in three categories : “fossil” sites ; “historic” sites ; “living” sites. All these sites forming, today, the “residue” of prehistoric landscapes, theatre of the human adventures that have produced Prehistoric Art as one of the signs of communication and social externalization. “Powerful places” instanced by the presence of Prehistoric Art, considered as “genius loci” present us with data relating to a fundamental phenomenon of the human culture : landscaping. In the light of these considerations, landscape is not simply a portion of territory or a geographical notion, but assumes the valence of the highly spiritual building up of Humanity.