Rock Art

[kbs2244]

Those are great photos. Done by a professional that knows how to catch the light to best effect.
The interesting thing is how the North American Far West ones compare to the North African ones.

[Beagle]

The interesting thing is how the North American Far West ones compare to the North African ones.

I agree. Plus the Australian and South American art. Lots of similarities.

[Manystones]

Beagle,

I ought to direct your attention to the following article;

Bednarik, R. G., 2007, Antiquity and Authorship of the Chauvet rock art, Rock Art Research, Vol 24,1, pp. 21-34

Quote from the abstract:

“The attribution of the cave art to the Aurignacian is validated by several factors and stylistic objections are refuted. The question of the ethnicity of the Aurignacian artists is also considered, leading to the cognisance that they are very unlikely to have been ‘anatomically modern’ humans. There is currently no sound evidence that the ‘Aurignacians’ were not robust Homo sapiens people, i.e. Neanderthals or their descendants. The gracilisation humans experienced in the Final Pleistocene and Holocene is attributed not to evolutionary processes, but to cultural intervention through breeding preferences leading to the neotenous features characterising present-day humans”.

And correct a misconception from a much earlier posting.

Rock art can be notoriously difficult to "date".

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/date/web/index.html

[Beagle]

Hi Richard, good to see you back. I'm not sure which post we're talking about, but I'll look back and find it in a bit.

Thanks for anything by Bednarik.

[Ishtar]

Rock art can be notoriously difficult to "date".

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/date/web/index.html

One of the problems at Bhimbetka, a prehistoric rock art site in India, is that although they have art there that they reckon is at least 12,000 years old, during those 12,000 years, other people had added to them, and so in places they have an undateable hotchpotch.

However, if you haven't already seen this art, here's a link to a good site all about it. http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/rockpain/betaka.htm

[Digit]

The gracilisation humans experienced in the Final Pleistocene and Holocene is attributed not to evolutionary processes, but to cultural intervention through breeding preferences leading to the neotenous features characterising present-day humans”.

Hmmm! Again. I view with a very jaundiced mind any conclusions reached on the basis of assumed social contexts, they don't fossilize well!

[Beagle]

Nice link Ishtar. We don't have a lot of Indian rock art here.

[Manystones]

Digit,

Maybe bear in mind this is an abstract from someone who tends not to jump to any conclusions. Possibly one of the most critical scientific thinkers with respect to 'archaeology' of our time.

try http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/epistem/s ... ummies.PDF

Beagle, to give you a taste of the article:

"The now absurd 'African Eve' or replacement model (Stringer and Andrews 1988) was derived from the 'Afro-European sapiens' model (Brauer 1984), which in turn was based on the fake datings of Protsch. Therefore, the now unravelling paradigm was initiated by academic fraud. The replacement model, which demands complete genetic isolation of the invading Africans and the resident robusts, has been refuted, and those models that admit hybridisation between the two hypothetical populations are in reality local versions of the Multiregional Theory that merely claim a strong inflow of African genes (Relethford 2001, Relethford and Jorde 1999)......

...The traditional response, that the Neanderthals could have never been sufficiently advance to produce such masterworks, is simply no longer adequate now that all of the Aurignacian appears to be of 'Neanderthal' tradition.

European Pleistocene archaeologists need to adjust to this new scenario, and unless they can demonstrate that Chauvet was made by what they call 'moderns' or 'Cro-Magnons', they are obliged to fairly consider the possibility that this art is the work of either Neanderthals or of their descendants who experienced genetic drift rather than 'replacement' and whose breeding patterns were influenced by cultural selection: selection in favour of neotenous features. Based on the present archaeological and palaeoanthropological evidence, the latter scenario is the more likely: we have Neanderthal remains from the time of Chauvet, and we have no 'moderns'...."

Bednarik even notes how the footprints in Chauvet Cave appear to be of Neanderthaloids rather than 'anatomically modern humans'.

[Beagle]

I'm really going to enjoy this article. Bednarik can really lay it out there!
I may post some or all of it in the Neanderthal thread, or you can if you like.

Bednarik is always out in front of this stuff. Thanks Richard.

[Digit]

I have to agree with that MS but my point was that trying to ascribe mental processes to ancient people is likely to be wrong as we have no way of compaing their attitudes with ours. Let's face it, we can't even understand for certain why people built Stonehenge never mind about the mindset of people so much further back in time. It has to be guess work unless supported by physical evidence, granted that the guess may be correct, but still guess work.

[Manystones]

Bednarik notes that one of the most important issues for archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists has been ineffectively tackled if at all:

Why did humans of the Late Pleistocene develop into inferior forms not only in Europe, but in all four continents occupied at the time?

Why was an historic trend toward robusticity reversed leading to rapid gracilisation?

[Digit]

Why was an historic trend toward robusticity reversed leading to rapid gracilisation?

Quite! and to ascribe it sexual preference is shear guesswork!

[Forum Monk]

Richard,
does the author imply that slighter builds are somehow inferior? Considering the enormous energy required to fuel a large brain, how much more so a large frame.

[Forum Monk]

[quote="DigitQuite! and to ascribe it sexual preference is shear guesswork![/quote]

Huh?

[Manystones]

Digit,

No mental processes being ascribed:

Gracilisation cannot be explained in evolutionary terms.

Bednarik proposes that culture (in the scientific and not the archaeological sense) gained so much influence over human behaviour that it shaped conscious choices over evolutionarily irrelevant values such as "aesthetics". As evidence he cites the Czech hominins (32,000-26,000 BP) where females are consistently more gracile than the robust males i.e. that it first occurred in females.