Early Animation

Animation is a much older art form that most people probably know. Cave art that had been created in the Paleolithic age is thought to be the world's first attempt at producing a moving picture. There have been many cave paintings across France where animals appear to have multiple limbs, heads and tails — but, according to archaeologist Marc Azéma of the University of Toulouse–Le Mirail, who has spent over 20 years studying the phenomenon, the paintings are actually primitive animations. When viewed under the unsteady light of flickering flames, the images can appear to move.

The ingenuity of our Stone Age ancestors isn't limited to cave walls, either. Although the thaumatrope (a disc or card with a different image on each side that is threaded on a string and is then spun to blur the images into one) wasn't technically invented until 1824, French artist Florent Rivère found that Paleolithic people used similar objects; bone discs with different images on each side which were previously thought to be buttons, but when threaded on strings and spun, animated images could be seen. Below is a video demonstrating how the paintings would have appeared to move; 

There are also examples of how ancient egyptians gave the illusion of movement in their cave paintings, sequences of images that portray different scenes that when put together tell a story;