Ancient rock art has been likened to a prehistoric form of Facebook by a Cambridge archaeologist.
Posted on 05/19/2012 6:28:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Mark Sapwell believes he has discovered an 'archaic version' of social networking site Facebook.
Mark Sapwell, who is a PhD archaeology student at St John's College, believes he has discovered an "archaic version" of the social networking site, where users share thoughts and emotions and give stamps of approval to other contributions -- similar to the Facebook "like".
Images of animals and events were drawn on the rock faces in Russian and Northern Sweden to communicate with distant tribes and descendants during the Bronze Age.
They form a timeline preserved in stone encompassing thousands of years.
Mr Sapwell said: "Like a Facebook status invites comment, the rock art appears very social and invites addition -- the way the variations of image both mirror and reinterpret act as a kind of call and response between different packs of hunters across hundreds -- even thousands -- of years."
The two sites he is investigating, Zalavruga in Russia and Nämforsen in Northern Sweden, contain around 2,500 images each of animals, people, boats, hunting scenes and even early centaurs and mermaids.
He is using the latest technology to analyse the different types, traits and tropes in the thousands of images imprinted on the two granite outcrops, where the landscapes of early Bronze Age art stretch across areas of rock the size of football pitches.
Mr Sapwell, 28, explained: "These sites are on river networks, and boat is likely how these Bronze Age tribes travelled.
"The rock art I'm studying is found near rapids and waterfalls, places where you would have to maybe leave the river and walk around -- carrying your animal-skin canoe on your back -- natural spots to stop and leave your mark as you journey through, like a kind of artistic tollbooth."
(Excerpt) Read more at cambridge-news.co.uk ...
Ancient rock art has been likened to a prehistoric form of Facebook by a Cambridge archaeologist.
The post at the bottom says:
“This morning I have to shovel all the crap left after last night’s party..”
To the right is his Like for Bullwinkle cartoons..
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You can get an app for that on your iStone.
:’D
I think that is Tor, killing the Moose that bit his sister.
The site in Sweden was being worked thousands of years before the Norse people even arrived along the Southern Coast of Scandinavia. The site in Russia is in Keralia and that part of the world is well outside of any Bronze Age. Keralia was opened up to non-Sa'ami some time in the last 1500 years but some of the stone drawings there date back to 7500 BC, and possibly earlier. The important thing to remember is that when it was opened up they went immediately from the age of stone and bone to IRON!
One site on the net refers to a warm period about 1000 BC that brought agriculturalists to the Scandinavian coastline, but that was wrapped up about 500 BC and it was another half millenium before anybody else could bring agriculture (with improved methods and animals) back to that part of the world.
This is a case where ART HISTORY is lagging way behind DNA studies that clearly establish that the earlier populations of Sa'ami were NOT (closely) related (in time) to the far more recent populations of Norse from Europe.
Farmville then was EVERYWHERE
Reporters are just hopeless when it comes to stuff like this.
I just likened dogs sniffing around fire hydrants as akin to Facebook. Can I have a grant now?
Facebook is a kind of black hole.
Since the FB IPO, it has become a green hole.
That’s right, I almost forgot!
Since the term “Nordic” doesn’t appear either in the excerpt or in the full article, what you’re engaged in there is a classic straw man argument.
A quick review of the literature regarding both sites ~ including the maps ~ and a reference to the Bronze Age as it's identified in Scandinavia, pins this piece down to the Nordic Thesis ~ which has been modified substantially since the advent of DNA testing of extant populations and mummified remains.
So, no straw man here ~ maybe some Taiga
Ancient rock art has been likened to a prehistoric form of Facebook by a Cambridge archaeologist.
That’s quite an imagination ya got there.
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