Thursday, October 09, 2014

Everywhere We Were

Cave art in Indonesia has just been dated at about 40,000 years old, approximately the same age as the oldest art previously known, in caves in Spain and France.  The stenciled hands are most visible here, but there are also detailed renderings of animals, as in the ancient images in present-day Europe.  It seems pre-history is not fixed, any more than history or the future.  Such discoveries (or conclusions) seem to alter received knowledge about our humanoid origins continually.  Recently it was asserted for the first time that Neanderthals may well have fashioned tools and created art.  And that we carry their genes within us.  

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