Time Frame

• Primitive folk art crafts were made in the millions of years of human history before written records were first created (around 3,100 B.C. in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia).
  
  

Expert Insight

• According to Randall White, material representations communicate what forgotten generations felt was important in their time. "The very materials and images chosen, which evoked shared beliefs, knowledge and metaphorical associations, can contribute to their meaning and power."
  
  

Prehistoric Alaskan Carvings

• In the prehistoric Inuit societies, early humans created ivory engravings and sculptures that were later uncovered in Siberia and Alaska.
  
  

Primitive Paints

• In prehistoric times, paints were mixed through complex methods using ingredients, including cave water, oils of animals and plants, blood, egg whites and natural pigments. Folk crafts such as spoons and spearheads show paint using primitive paint formulas.
  
  

Necklaces

• Primitive necklaces were made of many materials, including the woolly mammoth bones used to make female bead necklaces discovered at the Ukrainian site of Mezirich.
  
  

Significance

• Many primitive folk art crafts have disappeared because sites of early civilizations were destroyed by modernization.