Some owl stones from 5,500 and 4,750 years ago may be children's art:
But new research suggests the palm-sized plaques decorated in geometric patterns and with two engraved circles at the top might be the work of children.The fact that the owl stones might have been made by children does not, the researchers suggest, rule out the possibility that they might have had a ritual significance. Evolutionary biologist Juan Negro and colleagues suggest, "young people might have paid homage to their elders by leaving objects they had made together as tributes to the deceased." (Science Alert)
Numbering in the thousands and made from slate, the owl-like objects — previously dated the stone objects to be between 5,500 and 4,750 years old — may be "the archaeological trace of playful and learning activities carried out by youngsters," according to the team of Spanish researchers behind the new study...
They suggest kids would have been able to easily engrave slate using pointed tools made of flint, quartz, or copper, creating 'body' patterns that emulate the streaked plumage of owls, and the circles for eyes are unmistakably owl-like, casting an unwavering stare straight at the observer.
The "owliness" of the designs is comparable to the drawing skills of modern school children who depict owls in much the same way.
Clare Watson, "Thousands of Mysterious 'owl' stones may be the work of ancient children" — Science Alert (December 7, 2022) The paper is open access.
So CrayolaTM didn't invent the idea of children's creativity.
Now, About Cooking ... 70,000 Years Ago
Neanderthals were not just downing raw hunks of meat 70,000 years ago, as many of us have assumed:
Researchers analyzed charred food remains at two locations — the Shanidar Cave in Iraq's Zagros Mountains and the Franchthi Cave in Greece — to gain insight into how Neanderthals and early modern humans prepared food. They found evidence of cooking involving a variety of ingredients, processes and deliberate decisions...Let's just say, the Neanderthals have gotten smarter as we have gotten to know them better.
The researchers' analysis suggests that early modern humans and Neanderthals weren't just consuming protein from animals; they had complex diets that consisted of a wide selection of plants and varied depending on location. They also used "a range of tricks to make their food more palatable" such as soaking and pounding, per a statement from the University of Liverpool... For example, wild nuts and grasses were often combined with pulses, like lentils, and wild mustard."
Jaquelyne Germain, "Nanderthals cooked surprisingly complex meals" — Smithsonian Magazine (November 30, 2022)
The paper is open access.
Homo Naledi Used Fire, Say Researchers
Now let's go waaay back to Homo naledi — first unearthed in 2015 in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. The remains of the 15 individuals date to between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago. It turns out that they may have lit fires in their caves:
Researchers have found remnants of small fireplaces and sooty wall and ceiling smudges in passages and chambers throughout South Africa's Rising Star cave complex, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger announced in a December 1 lecture hosted by the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington, D.C.One hitch is that the charred wood, bones, etc. have yet to be dated, to see if they come from the same layers as the Homo naledi fossils. But there are currently no other known groups that could have made the fires.
"Signs of fire use are everywhere in this cave system," said Berger, of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg...
Such behavior has not been attributed to H. naledi before, largely because of its small brain. But it's now clear that a brain roughly one-third the size of human brains today still enabled H. naledi to achieve control of fire, Berger contends...
Meanwhile, expedition codirector and Wits paleoanthropologist Keneiloe Molopyane led excavations of a nearby cave chamber. There, the researchers uncovered two small fireplaces containing charred bits of wood, and burned bones of antelopes and other animals. Remains of a fireplace and nearby burned animal bones were then discovered in a more remote cave chamber where H. naledi fossils have been found, Berger said.
Bruce Bower, "Homo naledi may have lit fires in underground caves at least 236,000 years ago" — Science News (December 2, 2022) Lecture announcement.
It's interesting to note that the basics of human culture seem to undergo much less development than we think. The culture may appear at about the same time as the humans.
Denyse O'Leary is a freelance journalist based in Victoria, Canada. Specializing in faith and science issues, she has published two books on the topic: Faith@Science and By Design or by Chance? She has written for publications such as The Toronto Star, The Globe & Mail, and Canadian Living. She is co-author, with neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul. She received her degree in honors English language and literature.
Reader Comments
We likely accidentally burned ourselves out of the trees and thought up ground dwellings as a result of changing needs.
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ps : off-topic - I guess you don't want the game?
Twistory is written by power who pay scribes to write the version they can generationally get away with.
We are getting closer to that edge precipice where the narratives don’t align & at some critical mass point will reach entropy/butterfly effect since it is all tangentially connected.
What happens next voodoo?
If you ain't been there already, then odds are in my favor, but I'm not looking to push you over the edge - you will do that on your own accord best I can tell.
Seriously pal - take a walk in the woods. Take a break from posting.
If you can't do that, if nobody can sway you one way or the other, then begs the question....are you a robot?
If you reside in an Ivory Tower, then odds are..... yes you have no connection and therefore you are a robot in a way - if not in body in mind being ........being you just telling everybody else what to think like a robot does not alive in the first place.....
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and then the card was flipped .....uncertainty - live with it - what choice do you have?
Good point about the generational view point point being different(requiring specialized propaganda), and the narrative breakdown at the intersectional contact points. Looking forward to the unraveling with sufficient “critical mass”.
Since Google is now part of the D0D & apparently that fact hasn’t sunk in yet what that actually means. Lots of knowledge being scrubbed & wasted away to the dust bin of human achievement.. A digital Fahrenheit 451.Saeculum [Link]
Here’s an interesting link about it The Gen X Files Cycles & Generations [Link]
Proof of concept & currently under construction metaphorically & literally would be contemporaneous terms like The Golden Age or New Age or Magnum Opus.
Some sources say it’s equivalent to 110 lunar years, other’s say 80-100 years it was done.
The real purpose is to generationally memory hole people’s knowledge/events of the past. Change the books/terms/meanings/values/methods etc. Of course our epigenetic memory we inherit is what they fear & know they are guilty of.
It’s done by design by the architects demiurge matrix (which was why I was trying to expose Plato’s Cave deeper meaning but that never really crystallized yet interpreting the reponse’s) & we can see it in it’s ultra high speed mode in real time now.
Enough said.
We make shit nowadays.
And its preposterous to even assume we're superior to those that came before.