
Animal painting found in cave is 44k years old - Reedx
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50754303
======
mouzogu
You might also find the red ladder from la pasiega cave in Spain of interest.
It's 65,000 years old which means it was painted by Neanderthals (based on
current knowledge).

It blows my mind to think that another human species walked on this same
planet and drew this art. To me, that's as profound as the discovery, if ever,
of another intelligent species in the universe.

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/22/neanderthals...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/22/neanderthals-
not-humans-were-first-artists-on-earth-experts-claim)

Also worth considering, is the art of Chauvet Cave and the excellent Werner
Herzog documentary about it. The artistry is incredible. It stands up to
anything we could draw today.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave)

This art from when I last read is considered to have been done around the time
that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals were both present in Europe. It's
incredible to see that these people who lived in ancient France where drawing
wild animals such as Rhinos and Lions.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
>people who lived in ancient France were drawing wild animals such as rhinos
and lions.

My guess is that when Homo sapien met the people who live in caves, they got
to talking about africa and one human was trying to explain rhinocerous and
after a while they got frustrated and said "no you're still not getting it.
Give me that ink over there, I'll show you."

And then they drew the rhino and also a group of people, for scale.

~~~
arkitaip
Or maybe they were enjoying a game of pictionary.

~~~
crooked-v
On that note, it's kind of fascinating to consider that ancient humans (both
homo sapiens and other human species) almost certainly had their own
variations of currently universal party games like charades, would you rather,
etc.

------
umvi
I don't understand how the aging works.

Pure calcite does not contain uranium. How do we know the calcite didn't form
in an environment already containing traces of old decaying uranium and thus
trapped both thorium and uranium as the crystal formed?

Edit: I think I've figured it out (from the wiki[1])

> Thorium is not soluble in natural water under conditions found at or near
> the surface of the earth, so materials grown in or from this water do not
> usually contain thorium.[citation needed] In contrast, uranium is soluble to
> some extent in all natural water, so any material that precipitates or is
> grown from such water also contains trace uranium, typically at levels of
> between a few parts per billion and few parts per million by weight.

So what I'm guessing is happening is this: Running water is dissolving uranium
and going down a cave wall. The water contains no thorium because thorium is
not soluble and the water is running (i.e. by the time the uranium decays it
will not be on the wall anymore). Calcite forms using the minerals in the
running water, and traps the dissolved uranium. Only then can it decay inside
the crystal into thorium.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium%E2%80%93thorium_dating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium%E2%80%93thorium_dating)

------
walrus01
Not the same cave, but I highly recommend this Werner Herzog documentary.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams)

------
Bayart
>"I think I said the characteristic Australian four-letter word out very
loud."

"Mate" ?

~~~
Avyiel
Probably the other one

~~~
ghostly_s
I genuinely don't know which word he's talking about, either. I mean I know
plenty of 4-letter words but none that Australia has cornered the market on,
to my knowledge.

~~~
aaron695
Australians have a meme they say cunt more than other cultures.

Analytically the UK is actually higher I believe, but they are just to cool to
brag about it -
[https://onemilliontweetmap.com/?search=cunt](https://onemilliontweetmap.com/?search=cunt)
(Possibly a bit off atm because of elections)

------
esnible3
Also discussed on NPR: [https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786760790/44-000-year-
old-ind...](https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786760790/44-000-year-old-
indonesian-cave-painting-is-rewriting-the-history-of-art)

The NPR story quotes one of the authors of a paper published today in
Nature... but then brings in an unrelated graduate student to say, without
evidence, that painting was invented somewhere other than Southeast Asia:
"Personally, I think ... Africa."

~~~
SantalBlush
And in the very next paragraph, the author of the paper agrees with the
opinion.

"While not everyone in the field agrees, and no figurative cave art in Africa
has been dated older than the Indonesian works, Brumm says he has the same gut
feeling."

~~~
barrkel
To be clear, there's a logic behind this: the experts are looking at
similarities between figurative art in Europe and Asia and hypothesizing a
common ancestor rather than coincidence.

~~~
wrnr
Thats a fun theory, but how is that different than all the pyramids found
around the word. I mean, it's sort of is the "easiest" big structure one can
build.

~~~
koboll
Surely the paintings that survived for 44,000 years aren't the _only_ ones
that were painted that early. There's no particular reason that art couldn't
be older -- _much_ older, even -- but not be able to survive for much longer
than that.

------
Zenst
AFAIK most early animal paintings in caves was to show what game/food/animals
there was in the local area.

Makes you wonder if future archaeologists would have the same ore and wonder
at finding a McDonalds menu board buried some 50,000 years on from now. When
you think of it like that, you wonder what people of the time would make of
interpretations of them and how accurate they are.

EDIT - Spilling error

~~~
mouzogu
It's interesting that some of those oldest sculptures discovered are
considered to be a form of "proto-pornography". Shows that times may change
but we sure don't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines)

~~~
hutzlibu
Hm, that seems to me like projecting our ideas to a time and culture where
they may not apply.

I rather think they have religious meaning.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Their speculation seems as valid as yours; unless you've some evidence to add?

~~~
hutzlibu
Well, to quote the wikilink:

"The original cultural meaning and purpose of these artefacts is not known. It
has frequently been suggested that they may have served a ritual or symbolic
function. There are widely varying and speculative interpretations of their
use or meaning: they have been seen as religious figures,[5] an expression of
health and fertility, grandmother goddesses or as self-depictions by female
artists"

~~~
yesenadam
GK Chesterton is great on this subject, in _Science and the Savages_ from
_Heretics_ (1905):

The secret of why some savage tribe worships monkeys or the moon is not to be
found even by travelling among those savages and taking down their answers in
a note-book... The answer to the riddle is in England; it is in London; nay,
it is in his own heart. When a man has discovered why men in Bond Street wear
black hats he will at the same moment have discovered why men in Timbuctoo
wear red feathers. The mystery in the heart of some savage war-dance should
not be studied in books of scientific travel; it should be studied at a
subscription ball. If a man desires to find out the origins of religions, let
him not go to the Sandwich Islands; let him go to church. If a man wishes to
know the origin of human society, to know what society, philosophically
speaking, really is, let him not go into the British Museum; let him go into
society.

This total misunderstanding of the real nature of ceremonial gives rise to the
most awkward and dehumanized versions of the conduct of men in rude lands or
ages. The man of science, not realizing that ceremonial is essentially a thing
which is done without a reason, has to find a reason for every sort of
ceremonial, and, as might be supposed, the reason is generally a very absurd
one — absurd because it originates not in the simple mind of the barbarian,
but in the sophisticated mind of the professor. The learned man will say, for
instance, "The natives of Mumbojumbo Land believe that the dead man can eat
and will require food upon his journey to the other world. This is attested by
the fact that they place food in the grave, and that any family not complying
with this rite is the object of the anger of the priests and the tribe." To
any one acquainted with humanity this way of talking is topsy-turvy. It is
like saying, "The English in the twentieth century believed that a dead man
could smell. This is attested by the fact that they always covered his grave
with lilies, violets, or other flowers. Some priestly and tribal terrors were
evidently attached to the neglect of this action, as we have records of
several old ladies who were very much disturbed in mind because their wreaths
had not arrived in time for the funeral." It may be of course that savages put
food with a dead man because they think that a dead man can eat, or weapons
with a dead man because they think that a dead man can fight. But personally I
do not believe that they think anything of the kind. I believe they put food
or weapons on the dead for the same reason that we put flowers, because it is
an exceedingly natural and obvious thing to do. We do not understand, it is
true, the emotion which makes us think it obvious and natural; but that is
because, like all the important emotions of human existence it is essentially
irrational. We do not understand the savage for the same reason that the
savage does not understand himself. And the savage does not understand himself
for the same reason that we do not understand ourselves either.

The obvious truth is that the moment any matter has passed through the human
mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all purposes of science. It has
become a thing incurably mysterious and infinite; this mortal has put on
immortality. Even what we call our material desires are spiritual, because
they are human. Science can analyse a pork-chop, and say how much of it is
phosphorus and how much is protein; but science cannot analyse any man's wish
for a pork-chop, and say how much of it is hunger, how much custom, how much
nervous fancy, how much a haunting love of the beautiful.

[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1301191h.html#ch11](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1301191h.html#ch11)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Fantastic quote, thanks for sharing.

------
asdff
I love reading about these finds. Animals are drawn with astounding detail and
accuracy, while drawings of humans are absent or strikingly diminished stick
figure forms. These anonymous drawings seem to predate the ego that dominates
our world today.

This is truly the age of pure humanity. War was something that had to be
invented, and only came about ~10k years ago. We are all descendants of the
survivors of war, the most brutal and feared killers are our ancestors; the
predisposition towards violence is in our blood. The humans who worked in
these caves and elsewhere, consuming migratory reindeer and avoiding larger
and more dangerous fauna, our ancestors slaughtered these men and enslaved
these women. How different the world might be if war was never waged, it's
hard to imagine as we've become so accustomed to constant warfare.

Many historians feel that the neolithic revolution, with the resulting social
stratification and development of warfare that has been with us ever since,
was the worst development in human history.

~~~
whatshisface
Just because there wasn't warfare doesn't mean there wasn't violence and blood
feuds. That behavior has been seen even groups of other primates. If anything
professional armies were an improvement because they laid the groundwork for a
distinction between civilians and soldiers.

~~~
asdff
Violence happened but was generally something to avoid in the paleolithic due
to the risk. It was too costly and it wasn't until the neolithic were
population sizes high enough to make that cost worth while, and grain and
resource storage made a worthwhile reward. Systematic warfare didn't appear
until the neolithic, that's when we begin finding mass graves of peoples
slaughtered by weaponry and more depictions of warfare in art.

~~~
chrisco255
The reason for the mass graves of course, is the increase in human population
as a result of agriculture. It's not necessarily that as a percentage, you
were less likely to be a victim of violence in the Paleolithic era.

------
melling
44,000 years later as we enter the third decade of the 21st century...

~~~
shakezula
This always really messes with me. We have a tendency to view our current
civilization as permanent, but we could easily lose all of this progress with
a few well-timed famines and be reduced back to barely-bronze-age tribes in
the span of a few decades.

We could collapse, nearly entirely disappear and face another genetic
bottleneck event, then have to rediscover all of our current society some two
or three thousand years in the future and the Universe wouldn't even have
ticked a single second in the grand scheme of things.

~~~
orthecreedence
This article really pushed the point home for me:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/arroganc...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/arrogance-
anthropocene/595795/)

It's about the geological insignificance of humans, and how we could have done
this all several times already and we wouldn't have any idea.

------
contingencies
IIRC ancestors of Australian aborigines arrived from ~Indonesia around ~60k
years ago, and the oldest rock art in the Northern Territory (the closest part
to Indonesia) with confirmed dating is apparently
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung)
at ~28k years old, although its site has ~44k years of confirmed human use,
which is exactly the same age as this Sulawesi find.

Very vaguely then ~60k years ago was "out of Africa", ~40-30k years ago was
"Prehistoric Australasian art flourish", and ~4k years ago was "dawn of known
civilizations". Makes you wonder what everyone was getting up to in the mean
time... possibly killing off challengers! Nearby species died in the mean time
- Flores hobbit[0] ~17k years ago, Red Deer Cave people[1] ~12k years ago.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people)

------
notkaiho
I absolutely love the fact that the human-like figures are depicted with
snouts and tails.

~~~
xaedes
To be honest, it looks more like regular humans and animal hunter companions
(dogs??).

The resolution of the info graphic is a joke, here is one with better
resolution, found by reverse image search:
[https://www.eltiempo.com/uploads/2019/12/11/5df119644b023.jp...](https://www.eltiempo.com/uploads/2019/12/11/5df119644b023.jpeg)

~~~
chrisco255
I wonder if they wore animal pelts as helmets when they hunted?

~~~
blotter_paper
I've always loved the idea that centaurs sprung up as a reaction of non-horse-
riding cultures seeing hunters on horses, though I think our brains mashing
together different forms we've seen in nature is explanation enough on its
own.

------
chrisweekly
Anyone interested in this sort of thing is likely already aware of "Sapiens"
by Yuval Harari. Mentioning it just in case. Highly recommended!

------
briga
Interesting how similar these look to cave paintings in Europe. Is it
convergent cultural evolution, or was this a result of some sort of cross-
continent cultural transmission?

My guess is that the first paintings were painted much earlier than 44,000
years ago, although most of the older paintings have probably been lost to
time.

~~~
chrisco255
This is probably correct. Homo sapiens appeared roughly 200-300K years ago and
they had the same brains we do. I also suspect that humans painted regularly
on animal canvas and that all of them have been lost to time long ago. When
you look at the Lescaux caves paintings (27K years old) and the beautiful art
work there, there's no way that was done without a very practiced artist.
These were Da Vincis of their age.

~~~
asdff
The aurochs in that cave look like they were drawn by an art student today.
Very impressive.

------
fungicide
If you think that's cool check out some cave movies.
[https://kottke.org/12/09/cave-paintings-were-stone-age-
anima...](https://kottke.org/12/09/cave-paintings-were-stone-age-animations)

------
pvaldes
Almost extinct, but not yet. Woo hoo!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EQvqbiNg0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EQvqbiNg0o)

Nice little stabber. I can understand the attack plan.

------
droithomme
Old time people did a lot of cool stuff. Many discoveries still to come. It's
not all about banging two rocks together.

------
seltzered_
If anyone's curious about this domain and theories of human development
associated with it, you may want to check out Jeremy Lent's "The Patterning
Instinct".

Slowly reading through it right now, and coming across the OP cave painting
piece was interesting. Some rough notes below.

\----

Rough timelines & theories:

Theories:

    
    
      - Aiello & Dunbar "gradual and early" language hypothesis, Pinker, Chomsky
    
      - Bill Noble & Iain Davidson - "sudden and recent" 
    
      - Ray Jackendoff (1999) - blend the two above theories, reframe from whether hominids "had language" to "what elements of a language capacity"
    

Timeline:

    
    
        - 8 million yrs ago - Great rift valley challenges, birth of mimetic culture (see above)
    
        - 2.5 million yrs ago - Olduvai - Homo habilis
    
        - 2 million yrs ago - transition from mimetic forms to early language/symbolics?
    
            - Jackendoff's development - development of mimetic language
    
        - 300k yrs ago 
    
            - under Aiello/Dunbar "gradual and early" theory, we "crossed the Rubicon" to modern state just before anatomically modern humans
    
            - Jackendoff, we developed protolanguage - small nets of symbols
    
        - 40k years ago - upper paleolithic revolution 
    
            - Noble&Davidson, arguing this was a "sudden and recent" revolution and explosion of symbols, since we had less artifacts before this period. 
    
            - Jackendoff, modern language (giant net of symbols)
    

# Ch. 3 - The rise of mythic consciousness

## Great Leap Forward Theory

\- lascoux cave paintings from 17k yrs ago -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux)

\- [found recently] indonesian cave paintings from 44k yrs ago?

\- [https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786760790/44-000-year-
old-](https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786760790/44-000-year-old-) indonesian-
cave-painting-is-rewriting-the-history-of-art

\- "great leap forward" theory (Jared Diamond)

    
    
        - If humans were anatomically modern 150k yrs ago, why did it take so long for the upper paleolithic revolution (40k yrs ago)?
    
          - "Why did it take so long for symbolic thinking to get going! This rather awkward question was first framed by archaeologist Colin Renfrew, who referred to it as the “sapient paradox“."
    

## Out of Africa

\- "The revolution that wasn't" theory (Sally McBrearty & Alison Brooks)

    
    
      - Contrary to "Great Leap Forward", argues things were slow and gradual.
    

\- "Out of Africa" theory / story, backed with some dna analysis

    
    
        - 70k yrs ago - humans expanded through africa, small contingent crossing red sea into arabia -> south asia -> australia

------
Merrill
Probably done by a senior hunter to explain how to corner and kill food
animals. The earliest known example of a PowerPoint presentation.

~~~
soneca
Or it was the very first whiteboard interview for the position of junior
hunter

------
Braggadocious
Today I learned there was a giant balloon cow god that existed 44000 years
ago.

------
b0rsuk
Wow, those are some pretty talented animals.

------
rafaelvasco
Mind mind would blow up if it were discovered that there was already a
civilization on Earth like 200,000 years ago.

