The Most Beautiful Piece Of Ochre Ever Held By A Primate —

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The world’s oldest example of abstract art?

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No, not at all; of course not. But, given those marks were made at least 70,000 years ago; something intriguing was definitely going on.

That ’something’ may well have happened— and probably did —before this piece of ochre ‘Art’ was contrived … but as it is— as I type —the earliest known example yet discovered: it, for the moment, points to this period as quite a significant juncture in our history as a species.

The reason it has proved such a stunning find:

It— for the scientific community —knocked a strongly-held and widely-spread theory of human development back by almost 40,000 years. (It’s never a good idea to place too much faith in ‘gospel’).

This piece of shaped and inscribed ochre was discovered— along with one other —in 2001, at Blombos Cave in South Africa (290 kilometres [180 miles] east of Cape Town). It can be dated from its exact position in the metres of strata on the cave-floor within which it was found: all the other gradually built-up evidence of human habitation and natural in-fill … evidence, for the most part, pertaining to survival (diet: and the acquisition/consumption thereof).

It has been subjected to rigorous scientific study and there is now no doubt the scoring— the geometric striation —was conceived and produced with deliberation. The marks were not made haphazardly; they’re not accidental (i.e. they were not made as a result of running a flint, chert or obsidian blade across the ochre to, say, test for sharpness … and they are not the result of the limitations imposed by the human body in holding something in one hand and absent-mindedly marking it with an implement held in the other). The particular ochre (from this locale) has been subjected to an equal degree of testing and its specific properties— with regard to how it will flake, fracture and crumble when subjected to just-as-specific varieties of pressure and stress —have been documented, with electron microscope, and comparisons made:

The marks were drawn! They were not ’sliced’ into the ochre by running a sharp slither or ‘blade’ along it; the design was inscribed with downward pressure and a point … a ’stylus’.

Why is this important: because it is the earliest example of the human mind creating something in the abstract … some thing symbolized something else … even if it was only in the mind of the individual who created it while they created it. That 70,000 year old piece of ochre— that externalized cerebral messaging — that intent —could be transported … could be shown … described … and discussed. It ceased to be a piece of ochre; the human mind had transformed it into something else entirely! It wasn’t a weapon and it wasn’t a tool, and it had no practical application, as an object in itself, to the lives people then led: it was extraneous to survival. It was a ‘leap’ in the processes of human thought.

This ‘event’— previously —had been thought by the boffins to have taken place about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago.

It is known, because the skeletal evidence has been discovered, and its gorgeous sequential evolutionary development studied (though some among us would say their gawd was having another chuckle), that modern man— our Subspecies sapiens, in the Species sapiens, in the Genus of Homo: i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens —had, by 200,000 years ago, diverged and advanced to tentatively and tenuously exist and coexist on the continent of what is now Africa. Our species did not leave Africa until about 70,000 years ago though: Homo erectus is surmised to be the first species of upright-walking, tool-making/-using, hunter/gatherer Great Apes to move North into colder climes (first setting forth 2 million years ago btw … and it is believed ‘he’— from fossil evidence of the species discovered on islands —had the ability to make rafts too). And— get this —up till 18,000 years ago we shared the planet with at least three other distinct species of upright-walking, tool-making/-using, hunter/gatherer Great Apes.

What has proved far harder to fathom was when behaviour, we could and would recognize and embrace as our own, first came into being. (Any evidence would have rotted— or been abraded to a good deal less than a memory —in the millennia since it was first produced). Think of it as a ‘light bulb’ moment: when was the ’switch’ thrown? At what point did those— our —early brains develop suffice to engage with endeavours and behaviour external to the rigours of our hunter/gatherer past? When did the cerebral leap take place? (Though, to look at much of modern man’s behaviour; you’d be forgiven for wondering if it ever did).

The cave-paintings of bison, auroch, mammoth, ibex, boar, deer, cattle, bull and horse etc at Lascaux in France (16,000 years old) and Altamira in Spain (18,500 years ago, then a break in usage till 16,500 years ago) … and the earliest examples of cave-painting yet discovered at the Apollo 11 caves in Namibia (23,000 to 25,000 years ago) … had proven the most solid collection of evidence as to when this ‘leap’ had fully gestated into a sophisticated cultural norm and necessity; they don’t tell us when it started though.

Not only animals are represented by this cave-’Art’. Symbols proliferate: geometric patterns comprised of dots; and rods and bars repeated in linear sequence. As do basic narratives of the hunt; or stylized human bodies and body-parts (e.g. the vulva and, of course, its associations with fertility); and hand marking … both impressed and ’stencilled’. These paintings are encountered predominantly in far-from-accessible areas of the cave-networks … painted, we presume, in relative isolation by chosen-for-the-task individuals and by the light of burning fat or oil. They obviously had a special and specific purpose: they were not decorative. They were indicative of something symbolic.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso— mad misogynist egomaniacal bam though he was —was, upon encountering these images for the first time, quoted as saying: (artistically) ‘We have learned nothing!’

They’re not Art though. It has been hypothesized the cave-painting was spiritual: perhaps ‘votive’ offerings— facilitators —with regard to the specific community within which they were produced: with a mind to future success in the hunt. The rock formations upon which they are painted may also suggest a connection between this world and another perceived: many of the animals are painted upon cherry-picked rock shapes— bulges and concavities —which naturally (to the human eye) suggest their forms. It has been suggested that, with the ‘dancing’ light in which they were produced and subsequently viewed, and the ‘artistic’ sophistication with which many of the later images are painted— e.g. an attempt at chiaroscuro is often made — the animals are not outlines; they are contrived in the ’round’ with an acute anatomical understanding of the animals in movement —the symbolized animals would become ever-more animated: alive! These animated ‘apparitions’, from an otherworld, could be touched (as most animals in the wild can’t; until they’re dying or dead) … they could be engaged … manipulated … and, in a way, for a shaman in a trance-state … the future could be ‘touched’ also.

This advanced and sophisticated work, along with earlier examples of ‘Art’ (the Woman of Willendorf and her ilk mentioned in the previous Post) had led many to believe the ‘light bulb’ moment in modern human development took place, as I said, at about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago. But the ochre from the Blombos Cave— overnight —knocked this notion for six: by a phenomenal margin too … ‘for six’ to the nth degree.

Ochre was an important mineral resource to early man. The paintings described above used many different, natural and easily-found, minerals but ochre (a naturally-occurring iron oxide in rock formations) proved particularly attractive because it is soft … easy to powder, mix with water/fat, and apply to a variety of surfaces. As a pigment its properties have good longevity and an intense opaque colouration. It is believed painted body-adornment with ochre helped define some of these early communities from their neighbours; as it does still, throughout the world, today. Ancient ‘graves’ have been found where the bones were polished to a sheen and painted with this mineral (among others). Documented, obviously cultural, behaviour from archaeological sites and anthropological study have found instances where the bones of the most-honoured deceased are carried between the various nomadic and seasonal settlements … or buried, in shallow graves, within the dwellings of the living, in a section of the home reserved especially for this purpose … and it is suspected this behaviour stretches far far back into our prehistory.

Though the lump of ochre from the Blombos Cave (and its companion) are unique in their marking … thousands of similarly-worked pieces of this mineral have been found: little cuboids and conical ‘pencils’ … obviously shaped, by a human hand for a specific purpose, and abraded further by use. And it was used for millennia upon millennia upon millennia. Artists, and some of our modern-day cultures, use it still (in much the same way it always was: even, we now know, 70,000 years ago).

Why does this excite me so much? Well, as an artist, I’ve expounded for years in support of the discipline I studied. I’m usually met with a fair degree of hostility. But take a look around you: almost every damn thing you own, or can see, or interract with, started off life as a symbolic mark … by an artist; a designer; an engineer; an architect; a writer; an inventor; a composer; a musician; a computer programmer; a carpenter (you get the idea). A mark on paper or whatever: an externalized abstraction of human thought— symbolizing some form of human potential —created the world around you. What that primate, in that cave, started off 70,000 years ago (as far as we’re aware presently) led to the ‘light bulb’ moment: the ‘leap’; symbolism; ‘artistic’ endeavour; storytelling and received wisdom; ceremony and spirituality; pictography; writing; mathematics; science; philosophy; et cetera et cetera.

Our brains had evolved.

The next time you’re gabbin’ on the phone, and— absent-mindedly or consciously —pick up a pen or pencil to have a quick doodle; think about that primate in the Blombos Cave (you might even be related)! I’m sure this lump of ochre— their deliberate and deliberated upon ‘doodle’ —was discovered by or shown to companions at some point; perhaps that is why it was found within the cumulative strata of their cave-midden … misunderstood and judged to be of no value. She or he was laughed at for the dalliance maybe. But she or he is perhaps— if she or he was the first —the reason you’re able to read this now (without first having to sweep the shell and bone and useless ‘doodles’ into the midden à votre caverne).

‘Artists’, without a doubt in my opinion, were among the first to be laughed at maliciously and with ignorance …

… they are all laughing last still.

That beautiful piece of ochre …

… created by:

Kingdom: Animalia … Phylum: Chordata (with backbone) … Class: Mammalia (females have mammary glands) … Order: Primates (a single pair of pectoral mammary glands) … Family: Hominidae (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans) … Genus: Homo … Species: sapiens … Subspecies: sapiens …

… (i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens) …

… is the ultimate FanTabula Rasa! (And— until it can be proven otherwise —the progenitor of them all).

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Make an informed choice:

EVOLUTION!

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Gil Grachison, April 2009.

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~ by Gil Grachison on April 19, 2009.