Indonesian cave paintings may be oldest ever

Adam Khor

http://news.yahoo.com/prehistoric-paintings-indonesia-may-oldest-cave-art-ever-174954380.html

Rubecula

truly fascinating

JupiterKid

This is an important development and shows that human artistry was more widespread much earlier than supposed.

Wibbs

Which is to be expected I think JK. The later cave and other art would have had some evolution. Though I'll reserve judgement on how widespread it was. This area of science that considers our ancestors can be a real mix of hype, debatable results, sacred cow theories, even pretty dodgy science and logic fails. Going by what has been found so far, "art" had a couple of starts and then seems to die out for a time. Even Neandertals may have had some abstract "art". For some reason in paleolithic Europe it sticks and really explodes. I personally think of it like the domestication of the dog. Many starts in different areas that doesn't stick enough or transmit enough to become a given in human culture, then whammo! it takes off.

Adam Khor

Hey Wibbs, do you think Homo erectus could've painted too?

In fact, do you believe in Homo erectus at all? I recently read it may actually be several different species (or alternatively, those species may all be Homo erectus... its a mess really)

Wibbs

I'd be beyond shocked to discover Erectus painted or had the kind of abstract thinking that would allow for it. Individuals may have had the odd time, but even then I doubt it AK.

Indeed I would be of the opinion that outside of really rare events and individuals, abstract thinking and "art" is a new thing and almost entirely down to modern humans, with some later Neandertal thrown in(though symmetry seems to be a deep enough tendency for humans going right back). Even with modern humans evidence is very thin before 40-50 Kya. The incised ochre, bone "needles" and shell beads found in Blombos(sp) cave in South Africa is about it. And I have serious doubts personally about the shell beads and am not so sure of the dating of the site overall TBH.

If you go by what we currently know and took a trip in your time machine to say 80 Kya you'd find little or no evidence of "art", in any species of humans including us. Move forward to 50 Kya and you start to see the glimmers of it in us and it seems Neandertals. Move on to 30 Kya and it's everywhere(in Europe at least) and damned sophisticated too. Not just paintings, but sculpture of outstanding quality. Even everyday items like tools start to get the art treatment well beyond their functional purpose. The idea of a "finished article" mapped out in advance seems to take over*. Something happened in the 60 - 40 Kya period. Larger populations? Better food gathering tech that allowed some members of the group to take flights of fancy and work on art? Contact between different humans, so the need to group identify became so strong it was selected for and "art" happened? Who knows.

As for the species angle. Yea I'd reckon they existed as a general interrelated bunch of humans with a wide morphology but the same species or close to it. The Georgian skulls really showed this off. A bunch of folks all from the same place and time but with a very wide range of skull morphology. If those skulls had been found separately elsewhere I'm quite sure they'd all be labeled as different sub species, even species. It's an area of science that tends towards that kinda thing.

I reckon it's down to the old search for "the missing link" that first came out after Darwin. Every researcher wanted to be the person to find said link. Even though we know there can't ever be a missing link, the draw to find a new species of human to call your own is still very strong. Add in the rarity and dearth of fossils and this just adds to it. Look at the Denisovans. All that is known of them is a tiny finger bone and a tooth. The DNA research was amazing, but for me it asks as many questions as it provides answers. Another aspect of that find was the mention of a polished stone ring found at the same level, yet I've heard nada on that since. That I'd be looking at.




* the Mousterian industry of tool production(Neandertals and us) is generally seen as aiming for a finished article. Indeed the Levallois technique is based on this principle. However I don't buy it for one second. In some cases yes there is a finished point/blade, but IMHO in the vast majority of cases(inc ones I've seen and handled), there isn't. I see it as a very efficient way of reducing a block of flint into useful tools, not as currently seen, a way of discarding lots of useful cutting surfaces to make one finished tool. Our modern human mind is biased towards aims and finished articles so we apply that to our ancestors. IMH wrongfully in many, if not most cases.

Adam Khor

Wibbs wrote: »

Something happened in the 60 - 40 Kya period. Larger populations? Better food gathering tech that allowed some members of the group to take flights of fancy and work on art? Contact between different humans, so the need to group identify became so strong it was selected for and "art" happened? Who knows.

Aliens

Wibbs wrote: »

the draw to find a new species of human to call your own is still very strong.

A new species of anything, really... this often explains why paleontologists keep naming new dinos from really measly remains, splitting some species into many new ones, etc. Zoologists, too, naming new species from minimal DNA differences (although when it comes to living species there's also the conservation angle involved...)

Wibbs wrote: »

Look at the Denisovans. All that is known of them is a tiny finger bone and a tooth.

Tiny? Correct me if I'm wrong but, wasn´t the tooth described as "as big as a bear's", and the finger bone claimed to come from a creature even more robust than a Neanderthal?

Wibbs

Adam Khor wrote: »

Aliens

:D

A new species of anything, really... this often explains why paleontologists keep naming new dinos from really measly remains, splitting some species into many new ones, etc. Zoologists, too, naming new species from minimal DNA differences (although when it comes to living species there's also the conservation angle involved...)

Yep

Tiny? Correct me if I'm wrong but, wasn´t the tooth described as "as big as a bear's", and the finger bone claimed to come from a creature even more robust than a Neanderthal?

IIRC they're within the upper size limit of Neandertals. The problem is with just one bone and a tooth you can tell jack about the appearance in a general population(DNA was the real winner here). With Neandertals we have about the most set of bones of any archaic human and even there there are gaps. Female ones for a start are small in number and the males vary quite a bit in morphology and geography and vary more than a bit over time. Within the range of their morphology, some have chins, some are more compact in the face, others are long in the face, some are short, some are quite tall(one Iranian dude is 5'10-11). If all we had was him we'd reckon Neandertals were taller than average modern humans.

Rubecula

Some of the older paintings could possibly be by another hominid species I suppose. However and although I keep an open mind on these things, I suspect cave paintings are either by Sapiens or Neandertal.

Wibbs

I'd take the same view R. yes we have some rare examples(so far found) of "art" and abstract thought before the largely European explosion of it. Some is us, some may be other folks like Neandertals. Maybe, why it took off in such a big way in Europe is because of competition? We arrive in Europe and these other folks are already in the place. Other folks who may have had their own abstract stuff going on albeit on a low level(evidence of pigments and pendants is pretty good, use of avian feathers might be a stretch). So this kicks off an arms race of art. There's some mixing from both cultures and both step up to the plate and really ramp it up. We are the ones who win and take it well beyond what the competition requires and hence the cave paintings and sculpture etc.

One mad notion I've had is that maybe, just maybe previous humans and our early selves abstracted "art" in decoration of our bodies. Maybe initially as a practical camouflage thing for hunting that transmogrified into an outward group allegiance thang? Which added things like pendants and necklaces into the mix. Also addition of such things into grave goods? So we would have had our own personal, skin and flesh based "art" and so would have the neandertal dudes. In Europe both groups encountered one another and then the arms/art race kicked off. One trying to outdo the other. Maybe, our innovation was to externalise the "skin" onto the "skin" of the earth itself. We began to tattoo the stones of caves as well as ourselves? If nothing else it would heavily imply ownership of a territory. Much more than body paint(or tattoos) on people. People and their body adornments die and fade with them, but if you tattoo the earth itself you make a much more lasting claim and impression on the territory you say is yours.

Put it this way, I'm sure there are folks reading this with some fantastic examples of body art in tattoos and piercings and the like, yet when they pass away as all must, that art and personal expression will pass with them and leave zero record in history. Look at Otzi tbe Iceman. never mind all the other cool stuff, one thing that grabbed what passes for my attention was his tattoos. Before he was found our knowledge of bronze age body mods were pretty much zilch. Hey, maybe we should ask the folks from the Body mod forum to dig through the artifacts that appear to make no sense. We may find us and Neandertals had lip and ear piercings to beat the band.


TL;DR? maybe we were different because we externalised an existing notion of art for the self and projected it onto the earth, created another self and maybe even religion and that led to further projection and the progress of the human philosophical mind all the way to Plato.

Adam Khor

Wibbs wrote: »

We may find us and Neandertals had lip and ear piercings to beat the band.

I think the cannibalistic hominins from Quest for Fire had piercings indeed. And didn´t I post some news about prehistoric paintings depicting genital piercings, too? Was a while ago, tho...

Rubecula

Adam Khor wrote: »

And didn´t I post some news about prehistoric paintings depicting genital piercings, too?.

OMG you didn't? :eek:


:pac: