From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Wed Sep 17 2003 - 22:43:23 EDT
There have been several posts lately on when humans became human. One of
the most characteristically human activities is art. I know of no reports of
animals making images of their own species save human beings. Two recent
discoveries shed light on humans making species-self-images. The first is
the Tan-Tan object.
The Tan-Tan figurine was found in Morocco and dates to 400,000 years ago.
Robert Bednarick was asked to study this crude, but human-like pice of
quartzite. He concluded that it was indeed manufactured. The rock has
grooves which separate the head from the body, arms from the body and legs
from each other. Of the 8 groves found on the rock, five appeared to be
manufactured based upon the fact that individual grains in the grooves have
been fractured or show fractureing. This is hard to explain in any other
fashion because a grain in the groove would be naturally protected from all
but the sharpest instruments (like stone tool cutting edges). natural
processes would be unlikely to produce that patter. The figurine also shows
flakes of iron oxide and manganese oxide--two chemicals used extensively by
ancient man to paint objects. Manganese oxide is black pigment and
iron-oxide is red. Being a quartzite, the rock has little naturally
occurring iron oxide which bolsters the argument for it having been painted.
One report stated:
"Bednarik also claims to have uncovered an artlike object at least 2.5
million years old. Many of his colleagues are skeptical, partly because
these claims contradict the standard Eve hypothesis, which holds that modern
humans arose in Africa and spread around the world, displacing groups of
primitive humans. If those groups had art and collaborative skills, they
weren’t so primitive, Bednarik says: ‘The only way to maintain the Eve
hypothesis is by drawing a thick line between moderns and totally different
archaic people. That’s not what we see.’” Kathy Svitil, “Leonardo of the
Pleistocene,” Discover, October 2003, p. 18
Another item of interest in this regard occurs long after the Tan-tan
object. It is a purported mask made by Neanderthals. It was found at La
roche-Cotard. Information can be found in French at
http://ma.prehistoire.free.fr/masque.htm
an automatic translation puts it like this:
The site of Rock Cotard was discovered in the beginning of the 20th century
but the level of the Mousterian (Rock-Cotard II), located in front of the
opening of the cave, has been known only for 25 years. In this level of
dwelling a very special object undoubtedly prepared by the Man was
discovered: it is a flint having a natural hole in which small a esquille of
bone is placed. This object which makes think of a human or animal face is
an exceptional witness of the slow advance of humanity towards the advent of
illustrated art.
The only dating obtained for this level Mousterian which contained some rare
tools and from the fragments of bone gives 32000 years "or more".
The "Mask" consists of a small flat flint which was modified to accentuate
its resemblance to a face:
(1) a small glare of bone was inserted in an opening natural of the stone
and fixed by two small stones;
(2) the stone was then improved to obtain a symmetry.
The "Mask" is regarded as a "proto-figurine", one of the first steps towards
the art of the Paleolithic superior. It is an exceptional object because the
culture Mousterian is not known to give this type of artistic production. If
civilization Mousterian is well as one believes it specific of the Man of
Neandertal in Europe, the "Mask" thus gives to think that Néandertaliens
were capable of an artistic production more advanced than one suspected
until now.
"MASK" MOUSTÉRIEN OF
The Rock-cotard
With LANGEAIS (The Indre-and-Loire)
Jean-Claude MARQUET
Conservative of the departmental museum of Prehistory of Large-Pressigny
(the Indre-and-Loire)
Michel LORBLANCHET
Director of Research at CNRS.
Rock of Monges, Saint-Sozy
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://ma.prehistoire.fr
ee.fr/masque.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3DLa%2BRoche-Cotard%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie
%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN
http://ma.prehistoire.free.fr/masque.htm
**
Jacques Cinq-Mars, who had a copy of the hard-to-get journal, posted
some additional information (palanth-l message 10117, May 22, 2001):
"For those interested, here is some background information lifted
from the article by Marquet & Lorblanchet....the site is located
just downstream from a place called CINQ-MARS-LA-PILE (emphasis
mine) and upstream from the town of Langeais (Indre-et-Loire) on the
right bank of the Loire and corresponds to a recently
identified/excavated small "component" (Roche-Cotard II) of a
(cave/shelter) complex that has been known since the early
1900's.... the deposit (RC II) consists of a lengthy depositional
sequence made of both colluvial (local chalk) and alluvial (Loire
river) sediments; one of the alluvial sub-units (level 7), described
as some sort of a beach (fluvial sands) that had developed at the
base of the shelter/cave has yielded a relatively undisturbed
(albeit truncated) Mousterian occupation layer that was found to
contain traces of a somewhat well-defined hearth, a few very
Mousterian tools, a few poorly preserved (?) bone fragments and,
finally, the "Mask" in question; the only date available for this
cultural layer (a bone date) says 32,000 bp or older...The "Mask" is
considered to be part of the assemblage obtained from the Mousterian
layer; it consists of a small, flattish flint nodule whose
natural/original face looking shape was, according to the authors,
enhanced by a series of modificationhs; these include (1) the
insertion of a small bone splinter into a natural hole (under what
is considered to be the bridge of the nose; the splinter was
apparently forced into the hole and further wedged by two small
stones - left hand side of the photograph) and (2) the
further "regularization" (?) of the natural symmetry of the stone by
flaking (shown in the drawing). The authors consider the object to
be a "proto-figurine", and view it, together with the Berekhat Ram
(possible) figurine, the bear face from Tolbaga (Siberia), and the
curious Srbsko/Chlum sculpture as an "important document"
or "premise" in the slow road to (later) Upper Palaeolithic
figurative/representational art and symbolism."
The photograph and drawing that Jacques referred to were from the
article and were temporarily loaded into the palanth-l files, but
they remained there only for a few weeks and I was absent in Wyoming
at the time and never got the chance to look at them. I don't know
whether your (Thierry's) jpg is the same photo or not.
That's all I know on this object,
Dar
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paleoanthropology/message/7715
**
While neither of these objects is 'technically' skilled by modern standards,
one must ask if that is a pre-requisite for them being art. After all,
mankind didn't even understand perspective until the Renaissance only 400
years ago. Even Hieronymous Boxch's Gardon of Earthly Delight painted in the
1500's doesn't show much perspective.
So, what is one to do with primitive pieces of art? Is a stick figure drawn
by a child not a portrait of humanity? No other species even comes close to
drawing stick figures of themselves. I would conclude from this that there
is no reason to deny humanity to the 400,000 year-old artist, even though
his work was less skilled than we are used to. Skill at art is not a human
trait. Species self-portrature--both technically good and bad--is.
The Neanderthal mask is not much different in concept than the masks I
bought last month in Thailand and Melakka, Malaysia. Primitive peoples use
masks to act out their religion. The fact that Neanderthals made masks is
just another sign of their humanity--a humanity almost universally rejected
by the anti-evolutionary christians--both of the ID variety and the YEC
variety (not to mention Terry Gray, who seems not to accept the vast amount
of evidence for the humanity of these predecessors of ours). To me, it is
mere predjudice to reject the humanity of creatures who are doing the same
thing we are doing but doing it will a very primitive technology which
limits their skill. Some day, Christians will be forced to actually face up
to their humanity and will have to deal with that theologically. But in this
century, our biases require that they not be included as humans.
One must not forget the Berekhat Ram figurine from 230,000 years ago, which
is also a human figurine, carved from scoria. Nor should we forget the 1.6
million year old phonolite pebble found by Mary Leakey which has a face
pecked onto it. Nor should we forget the 3.0 million year old Makapansgat
pebble, a natural pebble which had an australopithecine face when viewed
from one direction and a human face when it was turned upside down. It at
least represents the recognition of the face by someone 3 million years ago.
glenn
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm
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