Red, black or white? The dawn of colour symbolism

In this paper the use of the pigments in the Paleolithic is presented, and some ideas of the symbolic meaning of colours are suggested. The colour red might have been a symbol of transformation, and as such, it was used in burials and for painting the Venus figurines. In the Slovenian Paleolithic, there is scant evidence of importance of colour and only a few finds of stones used for the grinding of the red pigment have been found.V članku je predstavljena uporaba barvil v paleolitiku in poskus interpretacije njihovega simboličnega pomena. Ta je najbolj očiten pri rdeči barvi, ki je morda bila simbol transformacije, kar se odraža v njeni uporabi pri pokopih in pri barvanju ženskih figur. V slovenskih paleolitskih najdiščih je le malo sledi obdelave pigmentov, tolkači, s katerimi so drobili rdeč pigment, so znani le iz treh jam