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  3. The earliest discovered traces of art are beads and carvings, and then paintings, from sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithi

The earliest discovered traces of art are beads and carvings, and then paintings, from sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithi

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问题     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 Andree 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.
    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.
Which of the following has been used as evidence to suggest that Upper Paleolithic people were capable of complex thought and conscious awareness of their environment?
选项 A、They engraved animal figures on the shafts of spears and other objects.
B、They may have used engraved signs to record the phases of the Moon.
C、Their figurines represented the human female in exaggerated form.
D、They may have used figurines to portray an ideal type or to express a desire for fertility.
答案B
解析 事实细节题。最后一段第四句指出，早在公元前3万年前，猎人们可能已经使用了一种刻在骨头和石头上的记谱系统来标记月相。接着第五句表明，如果这是真的，这将意味着旧石器时代晚期的人们有能力进行复杂的思考，并有意识地注意他们的环境。B项他们可能使用雕刻符号来记录月相，与文意相符，故为答案。
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