Friday, June 12, 2009

Engraved Pigments Point to Ancient Symbol Tradition

Hello Ece, are you reading this? This one is just for you. Story from Sciencenews.org Engraved pigments point to ancient symbolic tradition Incisions on ochre from a South African cave suggest modern human behavior emerged around 100,000 years ago (Image: Geometric patterns incised on pieces of ancient pigment, such as these 100,000-year-old finds, may reveal the surprisingly ancient origins of modern human behavior.Credit: Courtesy of C. Henshilwood and F. d’Errico) By Bruce Bower Web edition : 1:03 pm Scientists excavating a Stone Age cave on South Africa’s southern coast have followed a trail of engraved pigments to what they suspect are the ancient roots of modern human behavior. Analyses of 13 chunks of decorated red ochre (an iron oxide pigment) from Blombos Cave indicate that a cultural tradition of creating meaningful geometric designs stretched from around 100,000 to 75,000 years ago in southern Africa, say anthropologist Christopher Henshilwood of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and his colleagues. Their report appears online and in an upcoming Journal of Human Evolution. Much debate surrounds the issue of when and where language, religion, symbolic decorations and other facets of modern human behavior originated. Researchers such as Henshilwood hypothesize that modern human behavior developed gradually in Africa, beginning more than 100,000 years ago. Others posit that a brain-boosting genetic mutation around 50,000 years ago fostered modern behavior in Africa. Some researchers suspect that behavioral advances first appeared in Europe, Asia and Africa at that later time. Possible examples of symbolic behavior from around 100,000 years ago — such as proposed human burials in the Middle East and pigment use in Africa — have been controversial. "What makes the Blombos engravings different is that some of them appear to represent a deliberate will to produce a complex abstract design," Henshilwood says. “We have not before seen well-dated and unambiguous traces of this kind of behavior at 100,000 years ago.” Further studies need to confirm that the ancient incisions were not the result of, say, slicing into ochre with stone tools in order to remove powder quickly, cautions anthropologist Curtis Marean of Arizona State University in Tempe, who studies ancient human behavior at another South African cave (SN: 10/20/07, p. 243). [Anyone looking at the patterns scored into the small pigment stones would probably conclude otherwise. One would not have to score a specific geometric pattern into a pigment stone in order to remove colored pigment to mix paint. Any way of pulverizing pigment off the stone would do, including just making gouges. This is just common sense.] Even if the Blombos pigments contain intentional designs, fully modern human behavior — such as the use of figurative art (SN: 6/20/09, p. 11) — didn’t emerge until tens of thousands of years later, contends archaeologist Nicholas Conard of the University of Tuebingen, Germany. [Hmmm, could this contention possibly have anything to do with the fact that, for instance, the Willendorf Venus was found in Germany, and dates to c. 35,000 years ago?] Henshilwood and study coauthor Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux I in Talence, France, disagree. In their view, the Blombos pigments bear intentionally fashioned designs that held some sort of meaning and were passed down the generations for 25,000 years. Thus, the two researchers say, it’s likely that a 100,000-year-old society already steeped in symbolic behavior originally produced the ochre engravings. In 2002, Henshilwood’s team described evidence of symbolic engravings on two other ochre pieces from Blombos Cave. Those 77,000-year-old finds were excavated in 1999 and 2000. Engraved chunks of pigment in the new analysis were unearthed during the same excavations. Specimens came from either of three sediment levels with estimated ages of 72,000 years, 77,000 years and 100,000 years. A microscopic analysis indicates that ochre designs were made by holding a piece of pigment with one hand while impressing lines into the pigment with the tip of a stone tool. On several pieces, patterns covered areas that had first been ground down. Geometric patterns on the ochre pieces include cross-hatched designs, branching lines, parallel lines and right angles. [See images at beginning of article]. Pigment powder had also been removed from many of the recovered ochre chunks. Incised patterns may have served as models for pigment designs applied to animal skins or other material, the scientists speculate. Excavations of Blombos Cave sediment from before 100,000 years ago have begun. “The discovery of more, and perhaps even more striking, engravings is very possible,” Henshilwood says. [That remains to be seen...]

1 comment:

Unknown said...

...life is a to(r)ch/ca=toca(N)=
our/to-ca/being. ochre/ocre(sp)/
oc(r)elia,oceliz(N)=blossom, revive
(retoƱar). in nauatl, tlauitl(N),
from the live/life/love word, which
means torch=tlauiz(N), as in the ancient word for morningstar,
tlauiz calpan tecuhtli(N)=
lord of the house of the tla/daw(n),proto-christ,quetzalcoatl,
son of breath/weaving venus,
ehecatl/hecate.
the intention of ochre/ocre/
celia,oceliz/ocelotl, animal of
the birthing cave venus,
tlatla tzol teotl, flame hole
deity, wife of t/l/red/t/l=fire,
is rebirth. 71 pieces of ochre/
oceliz(N/preterit)are found in
levant's qafzeh cave,
dating from 100k bc, 71 is one
short of the times the tonalamatl/
booksouls/260days revolves in
a period of 52solar yrs, which has
4 suits and is the origin of cards/
(e)ca(r)t/d(letra)=
ecatl(day2souls).
the reason only 71 were found is that for the pieces to pass as
offering to the land of the dead,
mictlan, one has to be missing,
like a holed or killed pot in
burials. tlahuitl/tlahuiz/dawn/
lavi, lavil(mayan)/la vie(Fr)/
uiuil(letra)=vivir(sp), and it's
use implies the promethean neander/
neandra concept of life/love
(torch song)as fire, and the after-
life as well. the first god is
tetl/stone, as in, te(o)tl,
the guanche and berber, old
peoples of the euro chthonic/
chitoni(N)=sparky deer cult of
50k bc worship tetl/te(o)tl as first god, then, form the 2d god,
t(l)etl, from the, l, of the
(o)llin/holy when they have fire.
this insertion process probably happened after they had fire,
as fire/tletl gives us,
xiuhtletl, lord of herbs and time
and comets and the year itself,
he is the first of the 9 deitys
of the night in souls/tzol.
once herbology starts, so does
the entire process of the measuring
of time and with time/temi/fill
in the divine/te uena/uentli(N)=
the offering, which ochre is, so
venus charting and the tonalamatl are much earlier than that, which
agrees with the fallen angel hypothesis that neander/neandra
gave us the gods, and in a specific
place, the ibero/iueli(N)bear
worship a neander worship area
of the painted caves, where language and the gods were born.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...