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November 10, 2018 5:52 PM Subscribe
The world’s oldest figurative drawing depicts a wounded animal [Ars Technica] “New radiometric dating identifies the oldest known figurative drawing—not a stenciled outline of a hand or an abstract design, but an actual attempt to depict a real object in an image. As far as we know, a cave wall in Indonesian Borneo was the site for the first time a person drew something, rather than just making abstract marks. The drawing is at least 40,000 years old, based on uranium-series dating of a thin layer of rock deposited on top of the drawing since its creation. It’s a large animal of some sort, outlined and colored in with reddish-orange pigment, but after 40,000 years, parts of the image are missing. Griffith University archaeologist Maxime Aubert and his colleagues say it appears to be a large hoofed mammal with a spear shaft sticking out of its flank.” [High Resolution Images] [YouTube]
I’m comforted to know that the figurative stuff is later. I've always imagined some old cave artist having finished a lovely, elaborate sketch of a horse and turning around to see everyone in the tribe is facing away, intently pondering the hand stancils of some young modernist.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:53 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:53 PM on November 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
As far as we know, a cave wall in Indonesian Borneo was the site for the first time a person drew something, rather than just making abstract marks.
Really? How much you wanna bet? "Oldest found" doesn't mean "first." How many earlier ones of these were done in places less well-protected than caves, where weather wore them away in a mere few hundred years?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:03 AM on November 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Really? How much you wanna bet? "Oldest found" doesn't mean "first." How many earlier ones of these were done in places less well-protected than caves, where weather wore them away in a mere few hundred years?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:03 AM on November 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
"Oldest found" doesn't mean "first."
As embedded in the formulation "as far as we know". That's historians for you.
posted by Namlit at 3:11 AM on November 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
As embedded in the formulation "as far as we know". That's historians for you.
posted by Namlit at 3:11 AM on November 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
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:)
posted by warriorqueen at 5:58 PM on November 10, 2018 [3 favorites]