The following activities are to guide students in their exploration of the stops on the virtual tour of the Cave Art of Paleolithic France. All files are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print. You might wish to print out the individual activity pages and create a booklet for students use as they tour the sites.

Introduction: This is the "McDougal Littell NetActivities: Cave Art" site. The activity begins with a quiz of background information on Paleolithic people. It then leads the student through a general background of cave art and its place in Paleolithic culture.

Cave at Lascaux: This cave is one of the largest and is often referred to as the "Sistine Chapel" of cave art. This activity will help students understand the methods of cave painting and to examine the iconography of the cave. (You might want to look at the Sistine Chapel to understand this comparison.)

Cave at Chauvet: This tour stop focuses on the ususual aspects of the Cave at Chauvet found under TIME AND SPACE: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CAVE.

The final project and its assessments are based on the information students have acquired on the virtual tour and the sketches and notes they have taken:
For examples see:
Cave Art

Objectives:

• Compare and contrast the use of the same symbols in different artwork
• Describe the artistic components within an prehistoric art work to include elements and expressive ideas: Tools, and processes
• Describe or demonstrate the various processes or tools that were used to create art in prehistoric times
• Describe how prehistoric works of art reflect different cultures, times and places
• Create cave paintings using various techniques: chalk, charcoal and fingers; painting tool made of natural materials and paint created with a binder

Assignment One: Produce a cave art drawing using charcoal and colored chalk, shading the drawing with your fingers.
Assignment Two: Produce a primitive painting tool using sticks and twigs.
Assignment Three: Use the primitive painting tool to make a cave painting on crumpled brown paper to simulate stone walls.