[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Neanderthal art?

Thu Dec 4 12:44:44 UTC 2003

Hooray! Once again we see they were smarter than we give them credit for!
It's crazy how our perception that they didn't have artistic abilities
relies on the fact that most of their art didn;t survive for tens of
thousands of years. I wonder how many original Dali paintings will be around
in 50,000 years.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry W. Colvin" <fortean1 at mindspring.com>
To: <Extropy-chat at extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 7:33 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Neanderthal art?

> < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3256228.stm >
>
> Last Updated: Tuesday, 2 December, 2003, 12:21 GMT
>
> Neanderthal 'face' found in Loire
> By Jonathan Amos
> BBC News Online science staff
>
> A flint object with a striking likeness to a human face may be one of the
> best examples of art by Neanderthal man ever found, the journal Antiquity
> reports.
>
> The "mask", which is dated to be about 35,000 years old, was recovered on
> the banks of the Loire at La Roche-Cotard.
>
> It is about 10 cm tall and wide and has a bone splinter rammed through a
> hole, making the rock look as if it has eyes.
>
> Commentators say the object shows the Neanderthals were more sophisticated
> than their caveman image suggests.
>
> "It should finally nail the lie that Neanderthals had no art," Paul Bahn,
> the British rock art expert, told BBC News Online. "It is an enormously
> important object."
>
> Nose and cheeks
>
> It is described in Antiquity by Jean-Claude Marquet, curator of the Museum
> of Prehistory of Grand-Pressigny, and Michel Lorblanchet, a director of
> research in the French National Centre of Scientific Research, Roc des
> Monges, at Saint-Sozy.
>
> The mask was found during an excavation of old river sediments in front of
a
> Palaeolithic cave encampment. Tool and bone discoveries suggest
Neanderthals
> used the location to light a fire and prepare food.
>
> Triangular in shape, the object shows clear evidence, the researchers say,
> of having been worked - flakes have been chipped off the block to make it
> more face-like.
>
> The 7.5-cm-long bone has also been wedged in position purposely by flint
> fragments.
>
> Marquet and Lorblanchet tell Antiquity: "We think that this is indeed a
> 'proto-figurine'; that is, a small flint block whose natural shape evokes
a
> crudely triangular human face - or a mask if one notes that it is
primarily
> the upper part of the face that is concerned, like a carnival mask, or,
> rather less clearly, an animal face, perhaps a feline?
>
> "It was not only picked up and brought into the habitation, but was also
> modified in various ways to perfect its resemblance to a face: the
forehead,
> the eyes underlined by the bone splinter, the nose stopped at its
extremity
> by an intentional flake-removal, and the rectified cheeks."
>
> Over and over
>
> The standard view of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) is that they
> lacked the thought processes capable of producing art - certainly to any
> real level of sophistication produced by modern humans (Homo sapiens).
>
> Clive Gamble, an expert from Southampton University on the early
occupation
> of Europe by human species, says science has been reluctant to see
> Neanderthals as great conceptual thinkers.
>
> "The great problem with all the Neanderthal art is that they are one-offs.
> What is different about the art of modern humans when it appears 35,000
> years ago is that there is repetition - animal sculptures and paintings
done
> over and over again in a recognisable style.
>
> "With Neanderthals, there may have been the odd da Vinci-like genius, but
> their talents died with them."
>
> Bahn, on the other hand, believes the Roche-Cotard mask should set the
> record straight on Neanderthals' artistic capabilities.
>
> "There are now a great many Neanderthal art objects. They have been found
> for decades and always they are dismissed as the exception that proves the
> rule."
>
> "This is not just a fortuitous bone shoved into a hole in a rock. Whether
> the Neanderthal artist saw a rock that looked like a face and modified it,
> or conceived the thing from the start - who knows? Either way it is pretty
> sophisticated."
>
> Abstract thought
>
> Perhaps the oldest example of modern human art generally accepted by the
> scientific community would be the 77,000-year-old engraved ochre pieces
> found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa.
>
> There are claims for even older items, dating back 200,000 years or more,
> that comprise mainly rock objects apparently sculpted to look like the
human
> form.
>
> But many sceptical researchers believe these objects are merely accidents
of
> geological processes, and doubt they have been intentionally modified in
any
> way by a human hand.
>
> However, earlier this year, scientists announced the discovery of the
oldest
> Homo sapiens skulls. These 160,000-year-old fossil bones had been polished
> after death.
>
> This mortuary practice suggests at least these early people were abstract
> thinkers, capable of analysing ideas of life and death.
>
>
> -- 
> "Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank
Rice
>
>
> Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
>      Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
> Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
> Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
>       U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
> ------------
> Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
>    TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans,
> Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>