Before the Sistine Chapel
October 8, 2014 12:18 PM Subscribe
Cave paintings change ideas about the origin of art. Recently discovered Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia is some of the earliest cave paintings produced by humans. 'Early artists made them by carefully blowing paint around hands that were pressed tightly against the cave walls and ceilings. The oldest is at least 40,000 years old.' 'The dating of the art in Sulawesi will mean that ideas about when and where this pivotal moment in our evolution occurred will now have to be revised.' '
'For decades, the only evidence of ancient cave art was in Spain and southern France. It led some to believe that the creative explosion that led to the art and science we know today began in Europe.
But the discovery of paintings of a similar age in Indonesia shatters this view, according to Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London.
"It is a really important find; it enables us to get away from this Euro-centric view of a creative explosion that was special to Europe and did not develop in other parts of the world until much later," he said.
The discovery of 40,000-year-old cave paintings at opposite ends of the globe suggests that the ability to create representational art had its origins further back in time in Africa, before modern humans spread across the rest of the world.
"That's kind of my gut feeling," says Prof Stringer. "The basis for this art was there 60,000 years ago; it may even have been there in Africa before 60,000 years ago and it spread with modern humans".'
'For decades, the only evidence of ancient cave art was in Spain and southern France. It led some to believe that the creative explosion that led to the art and science we know today began in Europe.
But the discovery of paintings of a similar age in Indonesia shatters this view, according to Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London.
"It is a really important find; it enables us to get away from this Euro-centric view of a creative explosion that was special to Europe and did not develop in other parts of the world until much later," he said.
The discovery of 40,000-year-old cave paintings at opposite ends of the globe suggests that the ability to create representational art had its origins further back in time in Africa, before modern humans spread across the rest of the world.
"That's kind of my gut feeling," says Prof Stringer. "The basis for this art was there 60,000 years ago; it may even have been there in Africa before 60,000 years ago and it spread with modern humans".'
It's controversial to people with a eurocentric version of history that they stubbornly cling to despite bountiful evidence to the contrary.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:33 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by poffin boffin at 12:33 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
In the articles I read, various experts refer to earlier art, including African, that is another technique, hash about independent discovery vs. spread from single source, and offer more nuance and content then you give them credit for. And that's in the quotes that made it into print.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 12:38 PM on October 8, 2014
posted by Lesser Shrew at 12:38 PM on October 8, 2014
The oldest firmly dated rock art painting in Australia is a charcoal drawing on a rock fragment found during the excavation of the Narwala Gabarnmang rock shelter in south western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Dated at 28,000 years, it is one of the oldest known pieces of rock art on Earth with a confirmed date.
Certainly 'Australian Indigenous art is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world.'[emph. mine, VS]
posted by VikingSword at 12:39 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Certainly 'Australian Indigenous art is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world.'[emph. mine, VS]
posted by VikingSword at 12:39 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
And glancingly related, but too good to not mention: if you haven't seen Werner Herzog's great documentary/meditation on early art and cave drawings of the Chauvet caves of Southern France (where he had pretty exceptional access), do what you need to do, but make sure you see it. It's available to stream (or order on DVD) on Netflix. Cave of Forgotten Dreams - it is Herzog at his very best, and a fantastic piece in its own right.
posted by VikingSword at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by VikingSword at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2014 [13 favorites]
This is confusing to me. They discovered a site that was producing art pigments in Africa that's more than a hundred thousand years old.
It's controversial to people with a eurocentric version of history that they stubbornly cling to despite bountiful evidence to the contrary.
Which people? The framing of the story seems to be tilting at straw-men. What's wrong with "earliest representational art found in Asia"? The storyline seems manufactured and not indicative of the actual historical consensus, and buries the import of an otherwise remarkable find with artificial drama.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:54 PM on October 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
It's controversial to people with a eurocentric version of history that they stubbornly cling to despite bountiful evidence to the contrary.
Which people? The framing of the story seems to be tilting at straw-men. What's wrong with "earliest representational art found in Asia"? The storyline seems manufactured and not indicative of the actual historical consensus, and buries the import of an otherwise remarkable find with artificial drama.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:54 PM on October 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Does anyone know if this is the technique they used to date them? I can't access the Nature article right now, but I'd love to know more. I do know that technological advances has been an enormous boon to understanding and dating earlier and earlier sites, even though there are often compounding issues that prevent the use of certain techniques. I'm also glad that the BBC brought up the all-too-common problems of site preservation vs. economic concerns, especially where archaeological sites aren't well protected by laws (or even understood as "sites" before being damaged or destroyed.) The photos are wonderful.
Slap*Happy, while they found pigments, they don't know what they were used for, although they list "decoration, painting and skin protection" as possibilities. In cases like the "70,000-year-old blocks of ochre with abstract engravings" I think that falls into the major issue of how we define art and what art has meant to us as a species-- abstract markings could have many meanings or purposes, among them art, but hey that's why research like this is exciting and great.
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:00 PM on October 8, 2014
Slap*Happy, while they found pigments, they don't know what they were used for, although they list "decoration, painting and skin protection" as possibilities. In cases like the "70,000-year-old blocks of ochre with abstract engravings" I think that falls into the major issue of how we define art and what art has meant to us as a species-- abstract markings could have many meanings or purposes, among them art, but hey that's why research like this is exciting and great.
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:00 PM on October 8, 2014
In paleontology, one of the most fundamental concepts is what we call "total range" of a taxon. We almost always operate within the idea that seeing changes in a taxon's occurrence is an event. Terminologies vary, but seeing a taxon appear in multiple places at the same time, for example, might be called the first "common" occurrence, which is wayyyy different than the first appearance in the record. You can even have population spikes at various times due to different factors, and intervals in between in which the taxon may be rare or extinct. These appearances can be used to build confidence intervals for its actual first occurrence, which is assumed to (usually) not be seen - what is seen is the first "rare" appearance. This principles are used because we assume 1)that populations change and 2)that preservation severely limits our understanding of events.
Applying that same concept to the event of the appearance of ancient art, I would call its appearance at different locations around the same time as the first "common" occurrence, and use this to calculate its actual first occurrence, operating under the assumption that most art hasn't been preserved, and seeing a "spike" actually means it was much, much more widespread, thus increasing the chance of preservation. So the idea of "view of a creative explosion" seems wrong on purely scientific grounds, and one wonders at their methods.
(To take this analogy further, one could compare cave art as the development of a hard bodied organism in its evolutionary lineage when previously it was a soft bodied one, i.e., mere drawings in the dirt, or paintings with mud on their own bodies. A hard bodied organism is much easier to preserve than a soft bodied one, but that doesn't mean its populations differ.)
posted by barchan at 1:02 PM on October 8, 2014 [7 favorites]
Applying that same concept to the event of the appearance of ancient art, I would call its appearance at different locations around the same time as the first "common" occurrence, and use this to calculate its actual first occurrence, operating under the assumption that most art hasn't been preserved, and seeing a "spike" actually means it was much, much more widespread, thus increasing the chance of preservation. So the idea of "view of a creative explosion" seems wrong on purely scientific grounds, and one wonders at their methods.
(To take this analogy further, one could compare cave art as the development of a hard bodied organism in its evolutionary lineage when previously it was a soft bodied one, i.e., mere drawings in the dirt, or paintings with mud on their own bodies. A hard bodied organism is much easier to preserve than a soft bodied one, but that doesn't mean its populations differ.)
posted by barchan at 1:02 PM on October 8, 2014 [7 favorites]
Cave of Forgotten Dreams - it is Herzog at his very best, and a fantastic piece in its own right.
I second this recommendation, and also note that it's totally worth watching in 3D too if you have a TV that supports it. The 3D really enhances the feeling of actually being in the cave.
posted by yasaman at 1:03 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I second this recommendation, and also note that it's totally worth watching in 3D too if you have a TV that supports it. The 3D really enhances the feeling of actually being in the cave.
posted by yasaman at 1:03 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
The article in that pigment link provided by Slap*Happy, gives good evidence for the 100,000 year old pigments probably being used for artistic purposes, but is does not actually show clear representational art. The closest it comes to is some abstract probably decorative abstract motifs from 70,000, but it is not representational in the sense of human or animal forms. On preview: jetlagaddict makes the same points. And now I'll quit threadsitting.
posted by VikingSword at 1:03 PM on October 8, 2014
posted by VikingSword at 1:03 PM on October 8, 2014
Indonesia is also one of the places that's a candidate for where language developed, isn't it? Maybe language itself was invented, in the beginning, entirely so as to obtain the ability to communicate "my kid could do that."
posted by XMLicious at 1:09 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by XMLicious at 1:09 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
Maybe language itself was invented, in the beginning, entirely so as to obtain the ability to communicate "my kid could do that."
"For all its technical excellence, fundamentally it's a rather jejune and derivative work in the Oog tradition."
posted by happyroach at 1:22 PM on October 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
"For all its technical excellence, fundamentally it's a rather jejune and derivative work in the Oog tradition."
posted by happyroach at 1:22 PM on October 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
If anyone else is curious, here's one section from the article about the samples:
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:23 PM on October 8, 2014
To determine the age of the earliest rock art in the Maros karsts we undertook an extensive program of uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with the motifs. The sampled materials all comprise static coralloids that formed directly on top of clearly discernible motifs, offering the possibility to obtain minimum ages for the underlying rock art. In some cases, hand stencils and paintings were made over coralloids that then continued to grow, providing an oppor- tunity to obtain both minimum and maximum ages for the art.Super cool.
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:23 PM on October 8, 2014
Language obviously developed as a form of art criticism.
posted by carping demon at 1:28 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by carping demon at 1:28 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Indonesia is also one of the places that's a candidate for where language developed, isn't it?
Where did you hear that? Studying the origin of human language is incredibly difficult due to the ephemeral nature of the phenomenon. People still debate whether modern human languages (save some exceptions) have a single common ancestor or whether modern language arose multiple times. I would be very surprised if a credible scholar has suggested a specific geographic location outside of Africa as the origin of human language.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:08 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Where did you hear that? Studying the origin of human language is incredibly difficult due to the ephemeral nature of the phenomenon. People still debate whether modern human languages (save some exceptions) have a single common ancestor or whether modern language arose multiple times. I would be very surprised if a credible scholar has suggested a specific geographic location outside of Africa as the origin of human language.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:08 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Heh, I can probably clear up a few points since this used to be my specialty. The earliest evidence we have for pigment manufacture is indeed Blombos Cave in South Africa, dated to ~100 kya (thousand years ago). The pigment kit is spectacular, an abalone shell of that size is very rare and it was likely the most prized possession of whomever stashed it there. It's widely agreed that the kit was used to make pigment, but we don't know for what purpose. The geology of southern Africa is quite different from European, caves tend to be formed from sandstone that flakes off after ~20k years. European caves, on the other hand, tend to be limestone. If a limestone cave is sealed off from the outside world, it can survive practically forever. Hence the lack of African cave art older than ~20k years and the bounty of European from the same time frame. Back in the bad old days of anthropology, this was cited as evidence of the inferiority of African culture.
Since organic materials rarely survive more than thousands or tens of thousands of years, we don't know what these pigments were used for. They could have been used to paint skin or hair, for tattoos, or even for more utilitarian uses like projectile point adhesives. The African archaeological record commonly contains raw materials that could have been used to make pigments since 250kya, and in rare instances since 500kya (before we were considered modern humans).
Dating cave art tends to be quite difficult, but I think the dating of these paintings is secure. Limestone formations called speleothems form on cave surfaces only when a cave is sealed to outside air. The speleothems can be dated with a high degree of accuracy, meaning that the cave and its paintings were sealed a minimum of 40,000 years ago. The paintings themselves could have been created any time before that, potentially hundreds or even thousands of years.
posted by TungstenChef at 3:51 PM on October 8, 2014 [19 favorites]
Since organic materials rarely survive more than thousands or tens of thousands of years, we don't know what these pigments were used for. They could have been used to paint skin or hair, for tattoos, or even for more utilitarian uses like projectile point adhesives. The African archaeological record commonly contains raw materials that could have been used to make pigments since 250kya, and in rare instances since 500kya (before we were considered modern humans).
Dating cave art tends to be quite difficult, but I think the dating of these paintings is secure. Limestone formations called speleothems form on cave surfaces only when a cave is sealed to outside air. The speleothems can be dated with a high degree of accuracy, meaning that the cave and its paintings were sealed a minimum of 40,000 years ago. The paintings themselves could have been created any time before that, potentially hundreds or even thousands of years.
posted by TungstenChef at 3:51 PM on October 8, 2014 [19 favorites]
VikingSword, true, 28K is the oldest one they were able to do exact dating on, but there's good reason to think some others are 40K or more old. So this new precise dating for a southeastern Asian site is certainly very cool, but I just had never before heard anyone posit the idea that art was only invented in Europe.
posted by tavella at 4:11 PM on October 8, 2014
posted by tavella at 4:11 PM on October 8, 2014
Where did you hear that? Studying the origin of human language is incredibly difficult due to the ephemeral nature of the phenomenon. People still debate whether modern human languages (save some exceptions) have a single common ancestor or whether modern language arose multiple times. I would be very surprised if a credible scholar has suggested a specific geographic location outside of Africa as the origin of human language.
I don't recall the specific source, though I'm feeling like it was something I read rather than heard in a documentary. The hypothesis was based on a supposed high geographic density of language isolates in the area of the archipelagos from Indonesian to Micronesia: that whereas in most parts of the world people are speaking variations in broad related language families, like Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, or Niger–Congo language groups, with unique un-related "language isolates" sparsely distributed at this point in history, in that region there are a large number of completely different unrelated languages with starkly varying characteristics spoken in close proximity to each other.
I do remember that it was only briefly mentioned in the course of a longer discussion of culture and language in the region, so maybe it was more of an observation than a developed theory.
There's a consensus around an origin in Africa, though? That's definitely interesting, and something I'll have to read more about.
posted by XMLicious at 4:16 PM on October 8, 2014
Looking at Wikipedia, most of the language isolates in that region are New Guinea and nearby islands, and I don't think there's any mystery there; people have been in New Guinea for a very, very long time, and the nature and history of the terrain tends to promote isolation and language divergence. I.e., sea rise cut off many islands (as well as separating NG from Australia), and the mountains and jungles of the New Guinea highlands still today allow groups to remain fairly isolated.
There's also some in Australia, but also there's a pretty good chance those weren't originally isolates. There was a brutal culling of Australia native languages along with their people, and most didn't even survive to be recorded.
It doesn't take a very long time (in the scale of the 40K+ years of inhabitance) for languages to diverge so much that you can't recognize their historical connection. We are spectacular creators of language -- I love the story of Light Walpiri, where in a village of just a few hundred, a generation of children invented a new language which is now supplanting the traditional language, apparently just because it was cool and distinguished themselves as a group.
Obviously, humans have been in Africa much longer, but there's also been a lot more empires and waves of migration to remix, reset, and wipe out languages.
posted by tavella at 4:49 PM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
There's also some in Australia, but also there's a pretty good chance those weren't originally isolates. There was a brutal culling of Australia native languages along with their people, and most didn't even survive to be recorded.
It doesn't take a very long time (in the scale of the 40K+ years of inhabitance) for languages to diverge so much that you can't recognize their historical connection. We are spectacular creators of language -- I love the story of Light Walpiri, where in a village of just a few hundred, a generation of children invented a new language which is now supplanting the traditional language, apparently just because it was cool and distinguished themselves as a group.
Obviously, humans have been in Africa much longer, but there's also been a lot more empires and waves of migration to remix, reset, and wipe out languages.
posted by tavella at 4:49 PM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
This is very cool.
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM on October 8, 2014
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM on October 8, 2014
There's a consensus around an origin in Africa, though? That's definitely interesting, and something I'll have to read more about.
I didn't intend to imply that there's a consensus. Some believe that the ability to speak a modern language was likely to have evolved along with homo sapiens; this would place the first human language in Africa. However, if you don't believe that, all bets are off. There's just no evidence.
I don't follow the argument that density of isolates could be an indication of the geographic origin of language. First, we're talking about time scales on the order of 40,000+ years the absolute minimum--long enough for language change to have erased any reliable evidence of relationship. The oldest known language family (Proto-Afro-Asiatic) is only ~15,000 years old, and that's because we have extraordinary evidence for it. The fact that they're isolates doesn't mean they aren't related in the distant, inaccessible past.
Second, we know that major language families like Indo-European spread into areas with speakers of other, unrelated languages. Niger-Congo, for example, spread into areas that were probably inhabited by Khoisan speakers in the last three millenia. Indo-European spread into a Europe that was already populated. For every known language family that covers a large geographic area, there will be a similar expansion within the last ~15,000 years, whether it's into an inhabited or uninhabited area.
The linguistic landscape of today is not a very good reflection of the landscape thousands of years ago.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:18 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I didn't intend to imply that there's a consensus. Some believe that the ability to speak a modern language was likely to have evolved along with homo sapiens; this would place the first human language in Africa. However, if you don't believe that, all bets are off. There's just no evidence.
I don't follow the argument that density of isolates could be an indication of the geographic origin of language. First, we're talking about time scales on the order of 40,000+ years the absolute minimum--long enough for language change to have erased any reliable evidence of relationship. The oldest known language family (Proto-Afro-Asiatic) is only ~15,000 years old, and that's because we have extraordinary evidence for it. The fact that they're isolates doesn't mean they aren't related in the distant, inaccessible past.
Second, we know that major language families like Indo-European spread into areas with speakers of other, unrelated languages. Niger-Congo, for example, spread into areas that were probably inhabited by Khoisan speakers in the last three millenia. Indo-European spread into a Europe that was already populated. For every known language family that covers a large geographic area, there will be a similar expansion within the last ~15,000 years, whether it's into an inhabited or uninhabited area.
The linguistic landscape of today is not a very good reflection of the landscape thousands of years ago.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:18 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I didn't intend to imply that there's a consensus. Some believe that the ability to speak a modern language was likely to have evolved along with homo sapiens; this would place the first human language in Africa. However, if you don't believe that, all bets are off. There's just no evidence.
This is deliriously talking me back to the days I was stuffing for my Physical Anthro degree.
Definitely it's just speculation. I tend to think that language developed first in a single region, as I would think that if it developed independently in different areas, we'd see different funeral differences in language use. But then I remind myself of the sheer amount if time we're dealing with- plenty of time for movement and intermixing.
I tend to think that the traditional diagrams of human movements have led Anthropologists to a subconscious assumption of populations starting HERE and spreading out to THERE. I think probably in reality it was more like Brownian motion; as in, for every two bands of people heading north out of Africa, there was one band heading south.
And with the sheer scope of time we're dealing with, there's plenty of time for mixing. Even at an average rate of speed of one mile per year, there's time for a band of hunters to go from the top of Europe to the bottom of Africa a couple times over.
posted by happyroach at 9:12 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is deliriously talking me back to the days I was stuffing for my Physical Anthro degree.
Definitely it's just speculation. I tend to think that language developed first in a single region, as I would think that if it developed independently in different areas, we'd see different funeral differences in language use. But then I remind myself of the sheer amount if time we're dealing with- plenty of time for movement and intermixing.
I tend to think that the traditional diagrams of human movements have led Anthropologists to a subconscious assumption of populations starting HERE and spreading out to THERE. I think probably in reality it was more like Brownian motion; as in, for every two bands of people heading north out of Africa, there was one band heading south.
And with the sheer scope of time we're dealing with, there's plenty of time for mixing. Even at an average rate of speed of one mile per year, there's time for a band of hunters to go from the top of Europe to the bottom of Africa a couple times over.
posted by happyroach at 9:12 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
The Oldest Known Art in the World Is Spray-Painted Graffiti
posted by homunculus at 11:09 AM on October 12, 2014
posted by homunculus at 11:09 AM on October 12, 2014
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posted by tavella at 12:31 PM on October 8, 2014 [6 favorites]