A "person off the street" solves 20,000-year Ice Age drawings mystery
January 5, 2023 1:49 PM Subscribe
A London furniture conservator has been credited with a crucial discovery that has helped understand why Ice Age hunter-gatherers drew cave paintings. (BBC)
I didn't expect the answer to be kinda funny. "Three moons from now the food will make more food." 90 more sleeps til bison!
posted by greenland at 1:57 PM on January 5, 2023 [26 favorites]
posted by greenland at 1:57 PM on January 5, 2023 [26 favorites]
Fantastic!! Check out the original paper for lots of images and diagrams
posted by rebent at 2:04 PM on January 5, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by rebent at 2:04 PM on January 5, 2023 [13 favorites]
The thing that always fascinates me about that era is that for hundreds of thousands of years humans just steadily ticked along doing the same sorts of hunter gatherer stuff. Untold numbers of generations come and go. They had fire, music, marriage, burials, caves, hunting. Same thing for millennia after millennia. Then 12,000 years ago agriculture starts and that kicks off a massive avalanche of accelerating change that we're still in.
posted by memebake at 2:11 PM on January 5, 2023 [52 favorites]
posted by memebake at 2:11 PM on January 5, 2023 [52 favorites]
The description of literally anyone from outside the academic bubble as "a person off the street", and the implied presumption against them possibly having anything useful to contribute, is 100% what it's like. I'm glad this guy got to prove the opposite, but academia really is full of credentialist assholes.
posted by automatronic at 2:35 PM on January 5, 2023 [38 favorites]
posted by automatronic at 2:35 PM on January 5, 2023 [38 favorites]
@memebake - maybe it was enough.
posted by andreinla at 3:17 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by andreinla at 3:17 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Holy heck I love this. Thank you for posting it!
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:26 PM on January 5, 2023
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:26 PM on January 5, 2023
The description of literally anyone from outside the academic bubble as "a person off the street", and the implied presumption against them possibly having anything useful to contribute, is 100% what it's like.
Like 95% of the time they're a crank, though.
Learning to let go of ideas is a necessary skill for any academic work, and most people outside of academia* don't have it. There are certain academic fields where amateur contributions are heavily valued, most famously astronomy. I think fields unlikely to attract cranks, like pure mathematics, are more open to non-academic contributions.
* and also many people inside it
posted by Merus at 3:41 PM on January 5, 2023 [20 favorites]
Like 95% of the time they're a crank, though.
Learning to let go of ideas is a necessary skill for any academic work, and most people outside of academia* don't have it. There are certain academic fields where amateur contributions are heavily valued, most famously astronomy. I think fields unlikely to attract cranks, like pure mathematics, are more open to non-academic contributions.
* and also many people inside it
posted by Merus at 3:41 PM on January 5, 2023 [20 favorites]
Yeah, just to Merus's point, this "person off the street" did a metric fuckton* of learning and careful methodical research and seems super willing to work with experts. 95% of the time, the "person off the street" has an idea that they think is a super good one and are unwilling to learn any background or consider any additional information that might disprove it.
Even worse is when those persons off the street have very plausible ideas that convince a lot of people they're right while failing to acknowledge disproving data or failing to stress test those ideas (coughGladwellcough).
*yes, that's the technical academic term. Why do you ask?
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 4:36 PM on January 5, 2023 [12 favorites]
Even worse is when those persons off the street have very plausible ideas that convince a lot of people they're right while failing to acknowledge disproving data or failing to stress test those ideas (coughGladwellcough).
*yes, that's the technical academic term. Why do you ask?
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 4:36 PM on January 5, 2023 [12 favorites]
What's interesting is that this "person off the street" just gathered together as many images as he could, catalogued them, looked at them and thought about them. You would have thought lots of people had already done that. Maybe the established ideas about the paintings purpose (for good luck hunting or whatever) held people back whereas an outsider could really think more widely.
posted by memebake at 4:41 PM on January 5, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by memebake at 4:41 PM on January 5, 2023 [14 favorites]
fields unlikely to attract cranks, like pure mathematics
… well this would certainly be a good way to troll any mathematicians you know, if you intentionally wanted to do that.
I’m not sure how the total numbers compare with other fields, but in terms of percentage of people who email mathematicians out of the blue, having no connections with anyone in the discipline, with some amazing thing they believe they’ve proven or discovered that is actually anything approaching reasonable, let alone not previously known? There’s basically only been one ever*, so that percentage is exceedingly small.
(* Ok, in the entire history of mathematics I would be quite surprised if there weren’t more than one. But the conclusion remains valid. Modern mathematics, in particular, just requires a fair amount of study to get to being able to understandable problem statements in the current edges of what is known in most fields - discrete math being a notable exception, but there seems to often be a trade-off between how complex a problem is to state versus how complex it is to solve. Learning this mathematical background is entirely do-able by anyone, and there are certainly non-mathematicians who teach themselves important, deep, or beautiful mathematics. But it takes time (math is a body of knowledge that has been building on itself for over 2000 years) and productive persistence, and progress is slower when you don’t have other people to bounce ideas off, get feedback from, or learn the standards for level of detail/rigor for mathematical proof from. So folks not formally trained in math rarely get to the level of being able to make new research contributions. The level of being able to see and appreciate the beauty and creativity in pure math, yes; and making that experience available to more non-mathematicians is a goal that many folks are working on, at least.)
posted by eviemath at 4:46 PM on January 5, 2023 [16 favorites]
… well this would certainly be a good way to troll any mathematicians you know, if you intentionally wanted to do that.
I’m not sure how the total numbers compare with other fields, but in terms of percentage of people who email mathematicians out of the blue, having no connections with anyone in the discipline, with some amazing thing they believe they’ve proven or discovered that is actually anything approaching reasonable, let alone not previously known? There’s basically only been one ever*, so that percentage is exceedingly small.
(* Ok, in the entire history of mathematics I would be quite surprised if there weren’t more than one. But the conclusion remains valid. Modern mathematics, in particular, just requires a fair amount of study to get to being able to understandable problem statements in the current edges of what is known in most fields - discrete math being a notable exception, but there seems to often be a trade-off between how complex a problem is to state versus how complex it is to solve. Learning this mathematical background is entirely do-able by anyone, and there are certainly non-mathematicians who teach themselves important, deep, or beautiful mathematics. But it takes time (math is a body of knowledge that has been building on itself for over 2000 years) and productive persistence, and progress is slower when you don’t have other people to bounce ideas off, get feedback from, or learn the standards for level of detail/rigor for mathematical proof from. So folks not formally trained in math rarely get to the level of being able to make new research contributions. The level of being able to see and appreciate the beauty and creativity in pure math, yes; and making that experience available to more non-mathematicians is a goal that many folks are working on, at least.)
posted by eviemath at 4:46 PM on January 5, 2023 [16 favorites]
memebake, I wouldn’t be surprised if most academics hadn’t actually had the time to do that? Between teaching, grant proposals, writing up reports, committee work, pulling together applications for tenure and promotion, and keeping up with expectations for quantity of annual research output, most academics don’t have the time or career flexibility to work on problems that are going to take too long before even potentially yielding any results. They might chip away at a pet project of this sort very slowly over their careers, but it would always be a back burner sort of project.
posted by eviemath at 4:51 PM on January 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 4:51 PM on January 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
Thanks so much for posting this. I've been to the major prehistoric art caves in Europe along with many many of the smaller ones in the Pyrenees and norther Spain - for me this is fascinating. And thanks for the link to the original paper - I had a lot of questions after reading the popular press article.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:16 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by bluesky43 at 5:16 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
There's an entire book dedicated to mathematical crankery. I remember coming across a different one that consisted entirely of crankery the author had personally received!
posted by BungaDunga at 5:17 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 5:17 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
The thing that always fascinates me about that era is that for hundreds of thousands of years humans just steadily ticked along doing the same sorts of hunter gatherer stuff. Untold numbers of generations come and go. They had fire, music, marriage, burials, caves, hunting. Same thing for millennia after millennia. Then 12,000 years ago agriculture starts and that kicks off a massive avalanche of accelerating change that we're still in.
No, no, you're not getting it! The crops are just the beginning! I can see a day when we'll all have a fake fish mounted on a piece of wood on our wall as if we caught it and killed it and stuck it up there as a trophy. But - here's the special part - whenever we walk past, it will come to life and sing! The fish will sing to us!
posted by Naberius at 5:26 PM on January 5, 2023 [23 favorites]
No, no, you're not getting it! The crops are just the beginning! I can see a day when we'll all have a fake fish mounted on a piece of wood on our wall as if we caught it and killed it and stuck it up there as a trophy. But - here's the special part - whenever we walk past, it will come to life and sing! The fish will sing to us!
posted by Naberius at 5:26 PM on January 5, 2023 [23 favorites]
well I apologise to the pure mathematicians for being insensitive to their professional struggles, assuming that fields that were easier for laypeople to understand the results of, like medicine or physics, would be the fields that attract cranks
posted by Merus at 5:33 PM on January 5, 2023
posted by Merus at 5:33 PM on January 5, 2023
Paul Erdős is the exact opposite of a mathematical crank, but he was known for basically dropping in on mathematicians, writing a brilliant problem solving paper, and then moving on to the next mathematician
posted by Jacen at 5:54 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 5:54 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Like 95% of the time they're a crank, though.
I don't doubt that what you say is true, but I'd bet there are plenty of Renaissance (wo)men or autodidacts that could contribute.
One of my heroines is a Baltimore hairdresser. From a Smithsonian magazine article quoting John Humphrey, the editor of the Journal of Roman Archaeology: Janet Stephens wrote... a very serious piece of experimental archaeology which no scholar who was not a hairdresser—in other words, no scholar—would have been able to write.”
posted by BlueHorse at 6:50 PM on January 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
I don't doubt that what you say is true, but I'd bet there are plenty of Renaissance (wo)men or autodidacts that could contribute.
One of my heroines is a Baltimore hairdresser. From a Smithsonian magazine article quoting John Humphrey, the editor of the Journal of Roman Archaeology: Janet Stephens wrote... a very serious piece of experimental archaeology which no scholar who was not a hairdresser—in other words, no scholar—would have been able to write.”
posted by BlueHorse at 6:50 PM on January 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
Animal reproductive cycles but not human reproductive cycles? I'm skeptical that cavewomen were not also period tracking. Maybe that evidence has disintegrated. But it seems unlikely that a hunter would be able to track matings of wild animals that aren't hanging out near the cave 24/7 (this predates domestication, right?)
posted by basalganglia at 7:07 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by basalganglia at 7:07 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Wow. Thank you for posting!
posted by fruitslinger at 8:09 PM on January 5, 2023
posted by fruitslinger at 8:09 PM on January 5, 2023
But it seems unlikely that a hunter would be able to track matings of wild animals that aren't hanging out near the cave 24/7
What do you think a hunter does all day? Surely they spent much of their time finding, tracking, and watching animals. And there are all sorts of animal behaviours associated with looking for, finding and attracting mates, besides the actual act of mating.
posted by automatronic at 8:11 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
What do you think a hunter does all day? Surely they spent much of their time finding, tracking, and watching animals. And there are all sorts of animal behaviours associated with looking for, finding and attracting mates, besides the actual act of mating.
posted by automatronic at 8:11 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
But it seems unlikely that a hunter would be able to track matings of wild animals that aren't hanging out near the cave 24/7
It's not necessarily the mating that's observed, but the competition for territory & for mates. And hunters still find it worth paying attention to:
"Deer rutting season (or “the rut”) is the highlight of the year for any seasoned deer hunter. With bucks with big and small antlers on the chase for estrus does, unique behaviors emerge that make them much more vulnerable and easier to hunt."
posted by mr vino at 8:17 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's not necessarily the mating that's observed, but the competition for territory & for mates. And hunters still find it worth paying attention to:
"Deer rutting season (or “the rut”) is the highlight of the year for any seasoned deer hunter. With bucks with big and small antlers on the chase for estrus does, unique behaviors emerge that make them much more vulnerable and easier to hunt."
posted by mr vino at 8:17 PM on January 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yeah, with wildlife, any unusual behavior is probably mating season related.
posted by Jacen at 11:31 PM on January 5, 2023
posted by Jacen at 11:31 PM on January 5, 2023
Fantastic!! Check out the original paper for lots of images and diagrams
The second author on the paper is not the Cambridge professors but someone listed as one Azadeh Khatiri. The only mention in some articles is that Khatiri is an 'independent researcher' but no other mention. I wonder who this is and why they are excluded from the newspaper articles?
posted by vacapinta at 12:48 AM on January 6, 2023
The second author on the paper is not the Cambridge professors but someone listed as one Azadeh Khatiri. The only mention in some articles is that Khatiri is an 'independent researcher' but no other mention. I wonder who this is and why they are excluded from the newspaper articles?
posted by vacapinta at 12:48 AM on January 6, 2023
one Azadeh Khatiri. The only mention in some articles is that Khatiri is an 'independent researcher' but no other mention. I wonder who this is and why they are excluded from the newspaper articles?
From the author biographies included in the paper: "Azadeh Khatiri is a musician and a wellbeing workshop facilitator. She is also studying Clean Language coaching and wood carving. Previously she worked as a science journalist and producer at the BBC. She has a PhD in Semiconductor Nanotechnology from Imperial College London. Her interests include social justice and individual and community wellbeing." This article briefly mentions her. (Elsewhere, this is she.)
posted by progosk at 2:19 AM on January 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
From the author biographies included in the paper: "Azadeh Khatiri is a musician and a wellbeing workshop facilitator. She is also studying Clean Language coaching and wood carving. Previously she worked as a science journalist and producer at the BBC. She has a PhD in Semiconductor Nanotechnology from Imperial College London. Her interests include social justice and individual and community wellbeing." This article briefly mentions her. (Elsewhere, this is she.)
posted by progosk at 2:19 AM on January 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
Speaking of mathematics, one thing that strikes me about this is it will be one of the very earliest really concrete examples of people doing distinct mathematical things: Tallying things up, using basic calendar units like the phases of the moon, and then using that kind of knowledge to gain insight into future events.
Descriptions of very early mathematics are generally pretty vague, tally sticks, people would have wanted to keep track of various things, that led to counting, etc. (And of course there is evidence for things like tally marks & tally sticks from various periods & places.)
But this, if it really holds up, just seems A LOT more specific.
Regarding animal mating & reproduction: When you are hunting an animal, particularly with atlatls and such like that require a real close-up relationship with your prey, you are basically becoming an animal psychologist. You have to understand everything about that animal, where it goes, what it does, when, and why.
Mating and reproduction are HUGE aspects of that - they affect animal behavior in practically every way.
Just for example, the repertoire of deer behavior around mating is pretty large. Whenever you are out looking for deer or figuring out where to track or hunt them, a big part of what you are looking for is signs of behavior around rutting and reproduction - everything from antler scrapes and mud rolls to some really astounding fights among the bucks at rutting time.
This kind of thing is not hard to observe at all - bucks snorting, stamping, charging, and head-butting can be heard for miles around. And once you've seen it you're not going to forget it soon.
Not to mention - it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a newborn baby animal is going to be a full grown animal soon, and so if you're managing your food supply from the herd, you're pretty likely to not want to kill either the newborn or the mother when it's tending the newborn. Rather you'd like to let them grown and reproduce, then harvest.
Keep in mind that every evidence I've seen of harvesting large animals from this period doesn't involve the lone hunter in the forest with his bow and arrow (which hadn't been invented yet) but rather a large communal activity where some several to dozens of people worked together to herd animals towards a trap and harvesting area (one example - another).
Point is, this wasn't just some spur of the moment random thing, but a community activity and decision, and you can bet your booties they spent some time discussing and figuring how best to do it.
posted by flug at 3:29 AM on January 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
Descriptions of very early mathematics are generally pretty vague, tally sticks, people would have wanted to keep track of various things, that led to counting, etc. (And of course there is evidence for things like tally marks & tally sticks from various periods & places.)
But this, if it really holds up, just seems A LOT more specific.
Regarding animal mating & reproduction: When you are hunting an animal, particularly with atlatls and such like that require a real close-up relationship with your prey, you are basically becoming an animal psychologist. You have to understand everything about that animal, where it goes, what it does, when, and why.
Mating and reproduction are HUGE aspects of that - they affect animal behavior in practically every way.
Just for example, the repertoire of deer behavior around mating is pretty large. Whenever you are out looking for deer or figuring out where to track or hunt them, a big part of what you are looking for is signs of behavior around rutting and reproduction - everything from antler scrapes and mud rolls to some really astounding fights among the bucks at rutting time.
This kind of thing is not hard to observe at all - bucks snorting, stamping, charging, and head-butting can be heard for miles around. And once you've seen it you're not going to forget it soon.
Not to mention - it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a newborn baby animal is going to be a full grown animal soon, and so if you're managing your food supply from the herd, you're pretty likely to not want to kill either the newborn or the mother when it's tending the newborn. Rather you'd like to let them grown and reproduce, then harvest.
Keep in mind that every evidence I've seen of harvesting large animals from this period doesn't involve the lone hunter in the forest with his bow and arrow (which hadn't been invented yet) but rather a large communal activity where some several to dozens of people worked together to herd animals towards a trap and harvesting area (one example - another).
Point is, this wasn't just some spur of the moment random thing, but a community activity and decision, and you can bet your booties they spent some time discussing and figuring how best to do it.
posted by flug at 3:29 AM on January 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
Azadeh Khatiri is a musician and a wellbeing workshop facilitator [who] has a PhD in Semiconductor Nanotechnology.
Ace! Through the 80s, I taught in a science department at a UK redbrick university. In all those years, only one student really deserved a 1st class hons degree. Sharp as a tack, Scots 2ndary school education (she quoted Aristotle in the original Greek in her finals), widely read, a hoover mind. Her career aspiration was to switch to full-time working in a camping and climbing shop in the Lake District to be nearer the crags she loved to top. tsk tsk what a waste, my colleagues opined. Me: fakkin' A! your knees aren't going to get springier here on out: better use them for something other than pushing under a desk. Brian May etc.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:30 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ace! Through the 80s, I taught in a science department at a UK redbrick university. In all those years, only one student really deserved a 1st class hons degree. Sharp as a tack, Scots 2ndary school education (she quoted Aristotle in the original Greek in her finals), widely read, a hoover mind. Her career aspiration was to switch to full-time working in a camping and climbing shop in the Lake District to be nearer the crags she loved to top. tsk tsk what a waste, my colleagues opined. Me: fakkin' A! your knees aren't going to get springier here on out: better use them for something other than pushing under a desk. Brian May etc.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:30 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Azadeh Khatiri is a musician and a wellbeing workshop facilitator [who] has a PhD in Semiconductor Nanotechnology.
Ace!
Her connection to the research is likely via co-author Tony Freeth, hon prof. at UC London, whose brother Martin's media company Khatiri previously worked for. An interesting cast of characters, Bennett Bacon is quite the individual himself...
posted by progosk at 3:38 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ace!
Her connection to the research is likely via co-author Tony Freeth, hon prof. at UC London, whose brother Martin's media company Khatiri previously worked for. An interesting cast of characters, Bennett Bacon is quite the individual himself...
posted by progosk at 3:38 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
This Werner Herzog film is a must see if you’re interested in seeing how these cave drawings were discovered. Previously on Metafilter. The cave had been sealed off for thousands of years; the level of preservation is unimaginable. They even found small footprints in the sandy floor they believe are prehistoric. It’s mind blowing to see the artistic skill and style of these paintings, and now this newly discovered use of the paintings.
Werner Herzog narration is a bonus.
posted by waving at 4:59 AM on January 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
Werner Herzog narration is a bonus.
posted by waving at 4:59 AM on January 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
This Werner Herzog film yt is a must
Geoblocked in Italy, but RAI has it freely viewable (with Italian subtitles).
posted by progosk at 7:23 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Geoblocked in Italy, but RAI has it freely viewable (with Italian subtitles).
posted by progosk at 7:23 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
> if you're managing your food supply from the herd
So were getting a really early and specific glimpse into the birth of mathematics, calendars, and this, too: Animal husbandry.
When you're talking about and drawing about and clearly managing to some extent the reproduction of these animals, you're a bunch of steps along the way to domesticated herd animals and all that entails.
That doesn't mean these animals were domesticated per se, but there can be a situation of herd management that is a kind of semi-domestication.
A bit like our deer and elk herds today. They're generally not domesticated like cattle, sheep, or goats, but they are very much managed in a number of different ways.
posted by flug at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
So were getting a really early and specific glimpse into the birth of mathematics, calendars, and this, too: Animal husbandry.
When you're talking about and drawing about and clearly managing to some extent the reproduction of these animals, you're a bunch of steps along the way to domesticated herd animals and all that entails.
That doesn't mean these animals were domesticated per se, but there can be a situation of herd management that is a kind of semi-domestication.
A bit like our deer and elk herds today. They're generally not domesticated like cattle, sheep, or goats, but they are very much managed in a number of different ways.
posted by flug at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
The only mention in some articles is that Khatiri is an 'independent researcher' but no other mention. I wonder who this is and why they are excluded from the newspaper articles? [...] Azadeh Khatiri is a musician and a wellbeing workshop facilitator. She is also studying Clean Language coaching and wood carving. Previously she worked as a science journalist and producer at the BBC. She has a PhD in Semiconductor Nanotechnology from Imperial College London. Her interests include social justice and individual and community wellbeing."
Hmmmm...hard to speculate...what could it be? Trying to put my finger on it but...hm...hard to know exactly, just exactly why this particular individual might be pushed to the back of the narrative. I think we will never know!
posted by amanda at 9:53 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Hmmmm...hard to speculate...what could it be? Trying to put my finger on it but...hm...hard to know exactly, just exactly why this particular individual might be pushed to the back of the narrative. I think we will never know!
posted by amanda at 9:53 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
TIL about deer rutting season; thanks to everyone who provided such detailed information without feeling the need to get snarky about it!
Metafilter: this wasn't just some spur of the moment random thing, but a community activity and decision, and you can bet your booties they spent some time discussing and figuring how best to do it.
posted by basalganglia at 2:07 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: this wasn't just some spur of the moment random thing, but a community activity and decision, and you can bet your booties they spent some time discussing and figuring how best to do it.
posted by basalganglia at 2:07 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
What a wonderful discovery. I think the development of calendars is so interesting and having time tracking in conjunction with these kinds of illustrations is just... It's really neat. Really really neat.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 8:05 AM on January 20, 2023
posted by The Adventure Begins at 8:05 AM on January 20, 2023
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