Neolithic

The "new" arts to emerge from this era were weaving, architecture, the construction of megaliths and increasingly stylized pictographs that were well on their way to becoming writing. The earlier arts of statuary, painting and pottery stuck with (and still remain with) us. The Neolithic era saw many refinements to each. Statuary (primarily statuettes), made a big comeback after having been largely absent during the Mesolithic age. Its Neolithic theme dwelt primarily on the female/fertility, or "Mother Goddess" imagery (quite in keeping with agriculture, this). There were still animal statuettes, however these weren't lavished with the detail the goddesses enjoyed. They are often found broken into bits - perhaps indicating that they were used symbolically in hunting rituals. Additionally, sculpture was no longer created strictly by carving something. In the Near East, in particular, figurines were now fashioned out of clay and baked. Archaeological digs at Jericho turned up a marvelous human skull (c. 7,000 BC) overlaid with delicate, sculpted plaster features. Painting, in Western Europe and the Near East, left the caves and cliffs for good, and became a purely decorative element. The finds of Çatal Hüyük, an ancient village in modern Turkey, show lovely wall paintings (including the world's earliest known landscape), dating from c. 6150 BC. As for pottery, it began replacing stone and wood utensils at a rapid pace, and also become more highly decorated.