The first "modern humans" found in Western Europe date back to about 36,000 years ago. Those fossils were found in the south-west of Romania. The founds were made in a stone cave called Peștera cu Oase.
The Lascaux cave paintings are from this time period. They are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1979 and are in France.
Evidence for belief in the afterlife in the Upper Palaeolithic: appearance of burial rituals and ancestor worship.
Possibly among the earliest traces of art are Venus figurines. These are "figurines" (very small statues) of women, mostly pregnant with visible breasts. The figurines were found in areas of Western Europe to Siberia. Most are between 20,000 and 30,000 years old. Two figurines have been found that are much older: the Venus of Tan-Tan, dated to 300,000 to 500,000 years ago was found in Morocco. The Venus of Berekhat Ram was found on the Golan Heights. It has been dated to 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. It may be the one of the earliest things that show the human form.
Different kinds of stone, bones and ivory were used to make the figurines. Some are also made of clay which was then burned in a fire. This is one of the earliest known traces of the use of ceramics.
Today it is not known what the figurines meant to the people who made them. There are two basic theories:
Scientists have excluded that these figurines were linked to the fertility of fields, because agriculture had not been discovered at the time the figurines were made.
The two figurines that are older may have mostly formed by natural processes. The Venus of Tan-Tan was covered with a substance that could have been some kind of paint. The substance contained traces of iron and manganese. The figurine of Berekhat Ram shows traces that someone worked on it with a tool. A study done in 1997 states that these traces could not have been left by nature alone.
Cave paintings are paintings that were made on the walls or roofs of caves. Many cave paintings belong to the Palaeolothic Age, and date from about 15,000 to 30,000 years ago. Among the most famous are those in the caves of Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France. There are about 350 caves in Europe where cave paintings have been found. Usually, animals have been painted, like aurochs, bisons or horses. Why these paintings were done is not known. They are not simply decorations of places where people lived. The caves they were found in usually do not show signs that someone lived in them.
One of the oldest caves is that of Chauvet in France. Paintings in the cave fall into two groups. One has been dated to around 30,000 to 33,000 years ago, the other to 26,000 or 27,000 years ago. The oldest known cave paintings, based on radiocarbon dating of "black from drawings, from torch marks and from the floors". As of 1999, the dates of 31 samples from the cave have been reported. The oldest paintings have been dated from 32,900±490 years ago.
Some archaeologists have questioned the dating. Züchner believe the two groups date from 23,000–24,000, and 10,000–18,000 years ago. Pettitt and Bahn believe the dating is inconsistent. They say the people at that periods of time painted things differently. They also do not know where the charcoal used to paint some things is from, and how big the painted area is.
People from the Palaeolithic era drew well. They knew about perspective, and they knew of different ways to draw things. They also were able to observe the behaviour of animals they painted. Some of the paintings show how the painted animals behaved. The paintings may have been important for rituals.
Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C.. It is centered at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Adams Morgan is the center of Washington's Hispanic immigrant community. It is a major night life area with many bars and restaurants, particularly along 18th Street (the primary commercial district) and Columbia Road. Much of the neighborhood has 19th- and early 20th-century row houses and apartment buildings.
Adjacent to Adams Morgan is Dupont Circle to the south, Kalorama-Sheridan to the southwest, Mount Pleasant to the north, and Columbia Heights to the east. The neighborhood is bounded by Connecticut Avenue to the southwest, Rock Creek Park to the west, Harvard Street to the north, 16th Street to the east, and Florida Avenue to the south.
The name Adams Morgan was originally hyphenated. It is derived from the names of two, formerly segregated area elementary schools—the older, all-black Thomas P. Morgan Elementary School (now defunct) and the all-white John Quincy Adams Elementary School. Pursuant to the 1954 "Bolling v. Sharpe" Supreme Court ruling, District schools were desegregated in 1955. The Adams-Morgan Community Council, comprising both Adams and Morgan schools and the neighborhoods they served, was formed in 1958. The city drew boundaries of the neighborhood through three preexisting neighborhoods – Washington Heights, Lanier Heights, and Meridian Hill – naming the resulting area after both schools.
In the late 1960s, a group of residents organized and worked with city officials to plan and construct a new elementary school and recreational complex that was conceived as a community hub, a concept that 40 years later has become a favored one in public school facilities design. The development was named the Marie H. Reed Learning Center after Bishop Reed, a community activist, minister and leader. It featured a daycare center, tennis and basketball courts, a solar-heated swimming pool, health clinic, athletic field and outdoor chess tables.
Adams Morgan, together with the nearby Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, serve as a gateway community for immigrants. Since the 1960s, the predominant international presence in both communities has been Latino, with the majority of immigrants coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and other Central American countries. Since the early 1970s, like other areas of the nation, Adams Morgan had seen a growing influx of immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, as well. Gentrification and the resulting high cost of housing, however, have displaced many immigrants and long-time African American residents, particularly those with young children. Many small businesses have also been displaced. The community still retains a degree of diversity, most evident in its array of international shops and restaurants. Restaurants in Adams Morgan offer ethnic cuisines, among them Spanish, Ethiopian, Guatemalan, Mexican, Italian, Dutch, Vietnamese, Ghanaian, Cajun, Brazilian, Palestinian, Peruvian, Pakistani cuisine, Thai, Lebanese, Somali, and Chinese.
Adams Morgan also has become a thriving spot for night life, with a number of bars and clubs featuring live music. Over 90 establishments possess liquor licenses, putting it on level with other popular nightlife areas like Georgetown and Dupont Circle. Local stores along the 18th Street corridor were rapidly replaced with late-night establishments, leading to a moratorium on new liquor licenses by the Alcohol Beverage Control Board in 2000 after successful lobbying by resident groups. The moratorium was renewed in 2004, but eased to allow new restaurant licenses.
Although many immigrants and African-American residents have left Adams Morgan, the long-time institutions that meet the needs of Latinos and other non English-speaking residents ontinue to serve immigrants and their families. Adams Morgan is home to Mary's Center, a clinic focusing on healthcare delivery to Spanish-speaking patients, and the Latino Economic Development Corporation, as well as numerous businesses and churches that employ and cater to immigrants. Adjacent Mt. Pleasant also hosts a number of commercial enterprises, social service agencies and other institutions that help to anchor local immigrants to the area.