Posted on 07/08/2004 11:27:07 AM PDT by blam
Published online: 07 July 2004
Michael Hopkin
Fossil findings blur picture of art's birth
Who created the earliest artwork?
Artworks from Germany were found alongside human remains.
For years archaeologists have clung to the idea that only truly modern humans were artists, and that our Neanderthal cousins spent their entire evolutionary lifetime as boorish philistines. But fresh analysis of a prized set of human bones has dealt a body blow to this cherished theory.
The first sparks of artistic creativity are seen in carved figurines found at various sites throughout Europe. The oldest examples are between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, which means they were created about the time that modern humans are thought to have blazed a trail across the continent, displacing Neanderthals as they went.
Many experts argue that this cannot be simple coincidence. Art arrived in Europe with modern humans, they say. As proof, they point to the Vogelherd caves near Ulm, Germany, where a dozen figurines of this vintage, as well as stone tools, were unearthed alongside Homo sapiens remains in 1931.
However, no one had proved that the Vogelherd bones and artwork were the same age, says Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen, Germany, who led the new study. "Speculation is cheap," he says. "It sounds plausible, but you need evidence."
Dating game
Conard's team have now dated the artefacts, by looking at the rates of decay of radioactive carbon atoms in samples taken from the specimens. As he and his colleagues report in this week's Nature1, the bones are only about 5,000 years old, which is much younger than the stone tools and artworks that litter their resting place.
The Vogelherd humans must have been deliberately buried, much as we inter our dead today, Conard's team concludes. And this means that researchers have lost a valuable lead in their hunt for the artists who created the figurines.
"It is disappointing," says Clive Gamble, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, UK. The discovery leaves experts without a concrete link between art's origins and modern man.
Everyone assumes that modern man made the first art. But no one knows the true story.
Nicholas Conard University of Tübingen
Does this mean, then, that Neanderthals could have been artists too? After all, they lived in Europe alongside modern humans at the time of art's first flowering. Perhaps, says Gamble, although it seems unlikely given that they are thought to have arrived in Europe around 200,000 years ago, long before the earliest art.
Still, Gamble admits that Vogelherd has taught archaeologists not to assume the figurines were made by modern man just because they are the right age. "It's like saying that every baguette must have been made by a Frenchman," he says.
Until someone finds bones and art of the same age buried together, the true picture will stay hidden, agrees Conard. "Everyone assumes that modern man made the art, and the Vogelherd humans were supposed to prove that," he says. "But now no one knows the real story."
We (humans) were a lot closer to the big brained Cro-Magnon back then. We've lost a lot of brain capacity and probably IQ since then.
Does this mean, then, that Neanderthals could have been artists too? After all, they lived in Europe alongside modern humans at the time of art's first flowering. Perhaps, says Gamble, although it seems unlikely given that they are thought to have arrived in Europe around 200,000 years ago, long before the earliest art.Of course, the likelihood of 200,000 year old art surviving is about as low as art sample that old being accepted for what they are:
There's a massive bias against human qualities that are considered "advanced" to be discerned in the leavings of vanished humans of very long ago. The Berekhat Ram object was also shaped by humans. Imagine however that the best known sculpture of our day should lay in the soil for 100s of 1000s of years...'Oldest sculpture' found in MoroccoA 400,000-year-old stone object unearthed in Morocco could be the world's oldest attempt at sculpture... The object, which is around six centimetres in length, is shaped like a human figure, with grooves that suggest a neck, arms and legs. On its surface are flakes of a red substance that could be remnants of paint. The object was found 15 metres below the eroded surface of a terrace on the north bank of the River Draa near the town of Tan-Tan. It was reportedly lying just a few centimetres away from stone handaxes in ground layers dating to the Middle Acheulian period, which lasted from 500,000 to 300,000 years ago... A 200,000-300,000-year-old stone object found at Berekhat Ram in Israel in 1986 has also been the subject of claims that it is a figurine. However, several other researchers later presented evidence to show that it was probably shaped by geological processes.
by Paul Rincon
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
I have also known few people who look like the Neanderthals :)
I think you are right about that. I wonder which parts of their brains were bigger than ours. I would think that would be important to knowing how smart they were and in what way. I think the horse statue is really nice and doesn't look primitive but very sophisticated.
I've made this comment a number of times on different threads, you're the first to ever respond. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that ponders such things.
I am Art and I know exactly when I was born.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
|
|
|||
Gods |
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.