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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 statements about painting in Europe is TRUE?
选项 A、It is much older than painting in Australia.
B、It is as much as 28,000 years old.
C、It is not as old as painting in southern Africa.
D、It is much more than 30,000 years old.
答案B
解析 事实细节题。第一段第四句提到，其中一些石板上的图案似乎是在28000年前绘制的，这表明非洲的绘画与欧洲的绘画一样古老。B项表述与原文相符，故为答案。C项表述与原文相反，D项表述也与原文不符，故排除。该段最后一句指出，早期的澳大利亚人可能至少在3万年前，也可能在6万年前就已经在岩窟的墙上和悬崖的峭壁上作画了。由此可知，澳大利亚的绘画比欧洲更早，A项表述与文意相反，故排除。
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