Pleistocene Palaeoart of Asia

Abstract

This comprehensive overview considers the currently known Pleistocene palaeoart of Asia on a common basis, which suggests that the available data are entirely inadequate to form any cohesive synthesis about this corpus. In comparison to the attention lavished on the corresponding record available from Eurasia's small western appendage, Europe, it is evident that Pleistocene palaeoart from the rest of the world has been severely neglected. Southern Asia, in particular, holds great promise for the study of early cognitive development of hominins, and yet this potential has remained almost entirely unexplored. Asia is suggested to be the key continent in any global synthesis of 'art' origins, emphasising the need for a comprehensive pan-continental research program. This is not just to counter-balance the incredible imbalance in favour of Europe, but to examine the topic of Middle Pleistocene palaeoart development effectively.

Palaeoart at Two Million Years Ago? A Review of the Evidence

“…Rather than a generic or essentialist definition, I developed a checklist of types of such behavior, and used this to screen the literature. This list refines the categories in Harrod (2010) [46], which drew on, and added to, categories of "symbolic behavior" in McBrearty and Brooks (2000: p. 518) [70] and "palaeoart" in Bednarik (2013aBednarik ( , 2013bBednarik ( , 1995 [5,11,17,18] as well as adding terminology from the IFRAO Rock Art Glossary [13]. To put the list in a primate and child development art-theoretic perspective I add the concept of "trace-making" from Matthews (2011Matthews ( , 1997Matthews ( , 1994 [67][68][69] (Table 1).…”

“…Middle as well as Early Acheulian period evidence occurs in Africa, including pigments, e.g., red ochre, Wonderwerk Cave Units 6 and 7, 1.17 Ma and Kathu Pan 1, ~800-900 ka (reviews of African palaeoart: [3,17]). In southwest Asia, Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, ~750-800 ka [42], reports small angular, unworn, quartz crystals and two naturally perforated bead-like circular crinoid fossil casts natural to the site) [43], worn on their sides, apparently due to being in contact with other beads [18]. From the same site there are a few cleavers among hundreds of bifacial tools in which the knapper appears to have preserved and enhanced the basalt vesicles (e.g., Goren-Inbar and Sharon 2006: cover) [44], which is "most remarkable" since all other bifaces were made from homogenous material (N. Goren-Inbar, email to author, 31 October 2010).…”

“…Six manuported quartz crystals occur at Singi Talav, India (Gaillard et al 1983;d'Errico et al 1989; Bednarik 2013) [18,26,39], ~800 ka (Gaillard et al 2010) [35]. At Auditorium Cave, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India, site III-F24, a cupule-and meandering-groove petroglyph occurs in upper Acheulian Level 5, and based on how cupules are made, the petroglyph was more likely made by occupants of lower Acheulian Level 6 or Level 8, which has Oldowan-like cobble chopper tools and scrapers (Bednarik , 2006(Bednarik , 2005; design analysis, Harrod 2007) [14,15,18,48]. A vertical cupule panel also occurs in Auditorium Cave and a cupule panel at Daraki-Chattan, India associates to an industry with cobble tools, discoids and no bifaces (Kumar 1996;Bednarik 1996) [6,57].…”

DNA Genealogy and Linguistics. Ancient Europe

“…As a consequence of this lack of DNA data, it is hard to imagine that African languages could have evolved into PIE languages. Overall, it is highly questionable that "anatomically modern homo" arose in Africa (Klyosov & Rozhankii, 2012;Klyosov et al, 2012;Bednarik, 2012Bednarik, , 2013, see also Figure 1.…”

“…Another archaic African lineage split even earlier, some 200,000 ybp or perhaps some 350,000 ybp (Mendez et al, 2013); bearers of this archaic lineage still live in Africa. In other words, the "Out of Africa" hypothesis has presented a distorted pattern not only of the origin of man but also of the development of human languages Klyosov et al, 2012;Bednarik, 2012Bednarik, , 2013.…”