http://archaeology.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=archaeology&cdn=education&tm=4368&f=10&tt=8&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/

The earliest known European cave paintings date to 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the cave paintings is not known, and may never be. The evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. Also, they are often in areas of caves that aren't easily accessed. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of transmitting information, while other theories ascribe them a religious or ceremonial purpose. This assortment of images was found at Oddee.com, where there is also short text accompanying them. Additional information can be found here. 

 

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A hundred years ago I received my Cultural Anthropology degree. I have been fascinated by the Study of Man every since.  For that is all Anthropology means. The Study of Man.I recall when I learned that Greek translation I thought, well, everything is the Study of Man. I do not care if you are examining great cave art or the history of the light bulb. It is all concerned with the rise of Humanity.  Or the descent of humanity depending upon your mood.

I saw a wonderful documentary last night on Nova. It is the third in a series entitled Becoming Human:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beta/evolution/becoming-human-part-3.html

The series begins with a new paleontological find in the African Savannah:

Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of "Selam," also known as "Lucy's Child." Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA's cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers "inside the skull" to show how our ancestors' brains had begun to change from those of the apes. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beta/evolution/becoming-human-part-1.html

I have bored people here with this find before. What is interesting is that the paleontologists who found these bones were more interested in the hips of this hominid than her brain. And that was because they could deduce that she walked upright and had feet like us. She had a tiny brain 380-420 cm, much smaller than even some tea baggers. Selam is just another find like Lucy.  Selam by the by is the Ethiopian word for peace. Shalom anyone?

Part 3 of the documentary takes us back to South Africa some seventy thousand years ago:

Blombos Cave is a Middle Stone Age (MSA) site located in the southern Cape, South Africa, that contains excellently preserved deposits that date to older than 70,000 years. Excavations at this site led by Christopher Henshilwood and Cedric Poggenpoel began in 1992, and have yielded remarkable, yet anomalous finds that are directly relevant to the 'modern' human behavior debate. These finds include a range of bone tools, finely crafted bifacial stone points, ochre pieces engraved with deliberate designs, an engraved bone fragment and evidence for 'modern' subsistence practices including fishing. (Wiki)

 

Every documentary, like every thesis paper in graduate school, calls for a theme, a conclusion. Part of the farce of humanity really. Sometimes I think there is only chaos out there and we attempt to create an order so that we feel better about ourselves.

But this documentary deals with climatic changes, severe climate change, that 'called for' adaption by all fauna including man. And Blombos Cave gives us a glimpse of that adaption.  We were called to the sea. We began to eat fish as well as local flora due to climate change.

There is not full consensus as to what happens next. I mean this series tells us that 'we' began migrating around the globe from Africa some 70,000 years ago based primarily upon a certain group of geneticists and if I had the time I could find theories dating that migration to two hundred thousand years ago. Hell I can find theories dating migration to eight hundred thousand years ago. The immediate problem with the 70,000 year theory is that there are Homo Sapiens in caves in the Middle east going back 100,000 years ago living side by side with Neanderthals.  But I digress.

The main reason for that I wrote this post is that I was blown away by another find at Blombos Cave. http://archaeology.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=archaeology&cdn=education&tm=4368&f=10&tt=8&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/

And that find is reproduced in the first picture presented in this post. There are etchings made by humans on this 75,000 year old stone. And as the professor tells us in the documentary, this stone represents the first time humans recorded something; that is made a record of something outside of their own minds. Oh I am sure there were markings on trees and such made to help our ancestors find their way out of the forest or through the savanna to their homes. But the etchings on this stone represent something else.

If we go back just 35,000 years or so, we find some of the most intriguing paintings by men and women ever created. Take a couple minutes and hit the link under the cave painting I reproduced here. I mean there are stories being told about the hunt. There are depictions of wonderful and powerful fauna found outside the caves.

I mean really: ECCE HOMO!!!!

But these etchings demonstrate that all of this wonderful cave art did not arise ex nihilo. They took tens of thousands of years 'education', trial and error and cultural development to appear on the 'record'.

Like the discoveries of fossils similar to  Lucy and Selem demonstrate there are many 'links' between humanity and 'the lower animals'; there were several 'advancements' in human culture that occurred before that wonderful art appears in those caves.

I guess this post is just an advertisement for the PBS series which was well worth my time.

And the next time someone talks about 'missing links' and how gaps in the 'record' demonstrate somehow that evolution is a silly theory, refer them to documentaries like the one they just aired on PBS.

We will never have the entire picture, but we have enough evidence to demonstrate that humanity has been around a long, long time. And those poor people who hold onto silly myths that somehow the entire universe is six thousand years old are missing so much about what humanity is all about.