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Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

theguardian.com

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Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#11

Post by tootie »

pengaru wrote: post #9
there_the_and wrote: post #7

Rock art is really weird because there are exactly same motifs using the same materials (usually red ochre) all over the world and separated by tens of thousands of years. People act like it’s no big deal, but it sure looks like a pretty big deal that raises some interesting questions. We have a global view of information flows now, and I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of behaviors in humanity that explain how this h…

Hands are the universally present and usable drawing implements, what you're questioning seems incredibly obvious.

Hand prints and basic shapes is the first thing every toddler with fingerpaints will draw. Followed by people and animals.

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#12

Post by markdown »

there_the_and wrote: post #7

Rock art is really weird because there are exactly same motifs using the same materials (usually red ochre) all over the world and separated by tens of thousands of years. People act like it’s no big deal, but it sure looks like a pretty big deal that raises some interesting questions. We have a global view of information flows now, and I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of behaviors in humanity that explain how this h…

Do you, by chance, watch the History channel?

Spend some time around kids. Rock art is completely obvious.

After a few thousand nights in a cave with nothing to do, drawing on the walls with some charcoal from your fire is what every human probably did, and would do even today.

Switching to red ochre is just one step away from that.

Even chimps are known to scratch figures in the dirt.

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#13

Post by aazaa »

> Their date is based partly on their depictions of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that hasn’t roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the palaeolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses.

The article doesn't describe what other means were used, but this is important.

It's also a little disappointing that there are no close-up, high-resolution images of the extinct megafauna being depicted. I imagine the interpretation of what constitutes a Giant Sloth, for example, could be quite subjective.

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#14

Post by there_the_and »

mikem170 wrote: post #10
there_the_and wrote: post #7

Rock art is really weird because there are exactly same motifs using the same materials (usually red ochre) all over the world and separated by tens of thousands of years. People act like it’s no big deal, but it sure looks like a pretty big deal that raises some interesting questions. We have a global view of information flows now, and I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of behaviors in humanity that explain how this h…

Maybe rock art is a secondary effect of whatever evolutionary leap brought about language in the human species. Whatever brain mechanisms facilitated that also facilitated cave paintings. The rest can be explained by many independent inventors over tens of thousands of years. Maybe even call these paintings a first attempt at writing, a precursor to hieroglyphics.

Indeed. It seems possible that there’s something about the red ochre hand motif is hardwired into human brain and is related to language development. But on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, even if we somehow outgrew it as a species, it seems there would still be residual evidence.

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#16

Post by BrissyCoder »

there_the_and wrote: post #14
mikem170 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe rock art is a secondary effect of whatever evolutionary leap brought about language in the human species. Whatever brain mechanisms facilitated that also facilitated cave paintings. The rest can be explained by many independent inventors over tens of thousands of years. Maybe even call these paintings a first attempt at writing, a precursor to hieroglyphics.

Indeed. It seems possible that there’s something about the red ochre hand motif is hardwired into human brain and is related to language development. But on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, even if we somehow outgrew it as a species, it seems there would still be residual evidence.

Here you go: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a2/e4/cb/a2e4cb366c802776412e...

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#17

Post by TrainedMonkey »

there_the_and wrote: post #7

Rock art is really weird because there are exactly same motifs using the same materials (usually red ochre) all over the world and separated by tens of thousands of years. People act like it’s no big deal, but it sure looks like a pretty big deal that raises some interesting questions. We have a global view of information flows now, and I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of behaviors in humanity that explain how this h…

Here is a theory - survivorship bias. Humans made all kinds of things, but only small amount of it survived. Red ochre on rock faces just happened to be something that lasts a long time.

To expand on that I think there was a lot of self expression covering all possible surfaces. So the statement shifts from many human groups picked same thing to express themselves to multiple self expressive groups discovered ochre techniques and produced artwork that survived to this day. There were probably plenty of groups that did not discover that and none of their art survived.

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#18

Post by chrisco255 »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #17
there_the_and wrote: post #7

Rock art is really weird because there are exactly same motifs using the same materials (usually red ochre) all over the world and separated by tens of thousands of years. People act like it’s no big deal, but it sure looks like a pretty big deal that raises some interesting questions. We have a global view of information flows now, and I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of behaviors in humanity that explain how this h…

Here is a theory - survivorship bias. Humans made all kinds of things, but only small amount of it survived. Red ochre on rock faces just happened to be something that lasts a long time. To expand on that I think there was a lot of self expression covering all possible surfaces. So the statement shifts from many human groups picked same thing to express themselves to multiple self expressive groups discovered ochre t…

Yeah I bet there were hundreds of thousands of works of art painted on animal canvas or pottery, but due to deterioration did not survive.

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#19

Post by Igelau »

da39a3ee wrote: post #5

This article is an embarrassment to the anglophone world. The rock art in Chiribiquete is already well-known in Colombia. Perhaps this expedition discovered some new cliffs with paintings, or perhaps not. I doubt it personally, more like they got a film crew there. But the article gives the distinct impression that Colombians (including the indigenous people of the amazon basin) themselves aren't capable of discoveri…

Easy there, before you start foaming. In case you blacked out after the first paragraph, they mentioned that site.

> The site is in the Serranía de la Lindosa where, along with the Chiribiquete national park, other rock art had been found. The documentary’s presenter, Ella Al-Shamahi, an archaeologist and explorer, told the Observer: “The new site is so new, they haven’t even given it a name yet.”

Re: Rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

#20

Post by [deleted] »

BrissyCoder wrote: post #16
there_the_and wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It seems possible that there’s something about the red ochre hand motif is hardwired into human brain and is related to language development. But on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, even if we somehow outgrew it as a species, it seems there would still be residual evidence.

Here you go: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a2/e4/cb/a2e4cb366c802776412e...

[deleted]
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