<<Jim,Trust me on this. Art did not start in the upper paleolithic as you
suggest. I don't care what the popular press says, art began outside of Europe
and long, long ago>>
First, I should point out that if we accept your ideas as expressed in your
last message, it points to INCIPIENCE, that is, a gradual development from the
"shapes" to sophisticated art. How can this be explained if hominids were
biblical man? It is inconsistent. You have proposed a techonological dark age.
Is there an artistic dark age too?
Second, you're doing what you accuse Hugh Ross of doing. You state it plainly,
and ask me to trust you, that "art" began outside of Europe long ago. But this
presupposes you know exactly what "art" is. In discussing the Australian
rocks, Kim Ackerman, the curator of prehistory at the Northern
Territory Museum and Art Gallery in Australia, the question of what is art is
a "very, very broad one philosophically" [quoted in the Sunday Moring Herald,
Sept. 21, 1996] It is not an open and shut case.
Shaman-art is, though. Everyone knows it is art, complex, human. No
controversies there.
Third, there is concern about dating. Thermoluminescence dates can be
artificially increased by proximity to rocks that may be hundreds of millions
of years old.
But even if one sees this as gradualism, there is still an unexplainable leap,
a burst onto the scene, of shaman-art. Just as modern man, with his articulate
language and complex society, appeared suddenly, so too did their shaman-art.
BTW, if birds can make tools and exhibit decorative art, what does that make
them?
Jim