I have earlier provided an overview of the origins, timeline, and examples of prehistoric art but, due to the importance of Egyptian art in the development of Greek and Roman art, a detour into Egyptian art of this period is warranted.
According to metmuseum.org, "In Egypt, millenia before the advent of powerful dynasties and wealth-laden tombs, early settlements are known from modest scatters of stone tools and animal bones at such sites as Wadi Kubbaniya."
"The Predynastic Period of Ancient Egypt corresponds to the late Neolithic and covers the cultural and social changes which occurred between the late Paleothic period and the early Pharonic era" (thoughtco.com). Prior to the Predynastic, however, there were Paleolithic and Neolithic groups stretching back thousands of years. Both the prehistoric and Predynastic periods are divided into cultural eras, each named after the place where a certain type of Egyptian settlement was first discovered. The chart below shows the various cultures that are included in the two periods.
"During the Predynastic Period, Egyptians developed a written language ... and institutionalized religion. They developed a settled agricultural civilization along the fertile dark soils of the Nile (which involved the revolutionary use of the plough) during a period in which Northern Africa was becoming arider and the edges of the Western (and Saharan) desert spread" (thoughtco.com). Also during this period, "ceramic figurines, mace heads, and other artifacts such as slate palettes used for grinding pigments, begin to appear, as does imagery that will become iconic during the Pharonic era ... " (Calvert, et al., Smarthistory guide to Ancient Egyptian art, Smarthistory, 2019.)
Examples of art of this period are depicted in the chart below.
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