Feb 4, 2024 05:30 PM
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/...-questions
EXCERPTS: . . . Over the past decade, increasing evidence suggests artistic expression emerged much earlier in human evolution than scientists once thought, and it's reshaping our understanding of the cognitive abilities of archaic humans, such as Neanderthals and earlier hominins. For instance, there's archaeological evidence that Neanderthals made abstract designs on cave walls long before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe and may have made pendants from eagle talons up to 130,000 years ago.
"Cognitively, Neanderthals seem to have been just as capable at becoming artists as our own species, Homo sapiens," Leder said.
Because most archaeologists are not art theorists, their debates have avoided defining the term "art." Instead, many have focused on early forms of symbolism — objects clearly intended to depict something, like a bear drawn on a wall, as well as objects in which the symbolism is unclear, like the carved bone from the Unicorn Cave.
Leder, for his part, avoids calling the carved bone from the Unicorn Cave "art." Instead, he prefers the term "pre-art," which researchers use to describe very early forms of artistic expression...
[...] Other archaic humans may have used symbolism even before Neanderthals emerged, said Thomas Terberger, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Göttingen in Germany who has also studied the carved bone from the Unicorn Cave.
"There is increasing evidence for ornaments and various expressions of symbolic behavior since about 120,000 years ago in Africa and Europe," Terberger told Live Science.
Going back further, archaeologists have found hundreds of stone spheres, a few inches across, at several ancient human sites where stone tools were made. The earliest date from around 2 million years ago — which predates the emergence of Neanderthals and H. sapiens by more than a million years. While some have suggested the spheres were "hammerstones" or the stone "cores" that remained from flaking stone tools, it is not clear what the spheres' function was, or even if they had one.
Experts don't call the spheres "art," but analysis suggests they were deliberately shaped to be increasingly spherical, perhaps in the pursuit of "symmetry" — something also seen in some paleolithic hand axes.
There are also prehistoric indentations or cup-shaped marks called cupules, found throughout Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, with the earliest known dating to 1.7 million years ago. It's been proposed that the cupules may have been used to grind seeds. But many archaeologists now think the cupules had no function other than to decorate the rock surface... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . Over the past decade, increasing evidence suggests artistic expression emerged much earlier in human evolution than scientists once thought, and it's reshaping our understanding of the cognitive abilities of archaic humans, such as Neanderthals and earlier hominins. For instance, there's archaeological evidence that Neanderthals made abstract designs on cave walls long before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe and may have made pendants from eagle talons up to 130,000 years ago.
"Cognitively, Neanderthals seem to have been just as capable at becoming artists as our own species, Homo sapiens," Leder said.
Because most archaeologists are not art theorists, their debates have avoided defining the term "art." Instead, many have focused on early forms of symbolism — objects clearly intended to depict something, like a bear drawn on a wall, as well as objects in which the symbolism is unclear, like the carved bone from the Unicorn Cave.
Leder, for his part, avoids calling the carved bone from the Unicorn Cave "art." Instead, he prefers the term "pre-art," which researchers use to describe very early forms of artistic expression...
[...] Other archaic humans may have used symbolism even before Neanderthals emerged, said Thomas Terberger, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Göttingen in Germany who has also studied the carved bone from the Unicorn Cave.
"There is increasing evidence for ornaments and various expressions of symbolic behavior since about 120,000 years ago in Africa and Europe," Terberger told Live Science.
Going back further, archaeologists have found hundreds of stone spheres, a few inches across, at several ancient human sites where stone tools were made. The earliest date from around 2 million years ago — which predates the emergence of Neanderthals and H. sapiens by more than a million years. While some have suggested the spheres were "hammerstones" or the stone "cores" that remained from flaking stone tools, it is not clear what the spheres' function was, or even if they had one.
Experts don't call the spheres "art," but analysis suggests they were deliberately shaped to be increasingly spherical, perhaps in the pursuit of "symmetry" — something also seen in some paleolithic hand axes.
There are also prehistoric indentations or cup-shaped marks called cupules, found throughout Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, with the earliest known dating to 1.7 million years ago. It's been proposed that the cupules may have been used to grind seeds. But many archaeologists now think the cupules had no function other than to decorate the rock surface... (MORE - missing details)