One aspect of art that I have not seen discussed in relation to rock art is collecting. The whole point of having something as non-utilitarian as art is its possession, or collecting it. In this paper I am using the term “collection,” not as the gathering or acquiring of material for utilitarian purposes, but in the sense of keeping it in one’s possession for non-utilitarian purposes (as in a modern stamp collection). Many, although not all, of these collected items were also purposely modified to some extent making them also Paleoart.
“Paleoart of the Lower Paleolithic period seems to have been found for well over 150 years but it has remained largely ignored, misinterpreted, or its existence was fundamentally denied. Most archaeologists and paleoanthropologists of recent decades attempt to refute anthropogenically modified objects located in Lower and Middle Paleolithic contexts as being taphonomic accidents or ‘natural’ in origin. Their presumption is that all Lower and Middle Paleolithic humans (including Homo habilis, H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster, H. georgicus, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, and H. sapiens neanderthalensis) were cognitively incapable of expressing themselves through ‘art’ or exograms. They ‘know’ these hominins were cognitively incapable of expression because they were not modern humans; they have been convicted of mental deficiency by negative evidence (Speth 2004). This is despite the clear evidence that these hominins have engaged in maritime colonization since approximately a million years ago, and have crossed sea barriers of up to 189 km to reach over twenty islands and one continent prior to having ‘Upper Paleolithic’ technology (Bednarik 1999).” (Bednarik 2015:1)
So, with the existence of items that have been gathered and modified, or not, to have in the possession of these early humans, we find the earliest known instances of collecting.
Australopithecus:
Makapansget Cobble: South Africa, north of Mokopane,
found in 1925.
“Collection of fossils and ‘curious’ or unusual objects, which were transported to the inhabited areas and probably became the object of interest and observation, if not invested with other value and meaning – certainly difficult to define – by the archaic human forms and then they were apparently abandoned on the paleosols that constitute the same archaeological deposits and which are distributed over a long chronological arch, from about 3.0 Ma BP to the entire middle Paleolithic. It should be noted that in some cases these objects were transported several kilometers away from their place of collection. As an example, we can mention the diasprite pebble from the cave of Makapansget (South Africa), probably collected by an Australopithecus africanus between 2.95 and 2.6 Ma BP (Bednarik 2013:8-9, Harrod 2014:136-137, 142).” (Mussi and Rossi 2018:313) Presumably, and austrealopithecene recognized the resemblance to a face in the rock and picked it up and carried it for curiosities sake.
Homo erectus:
Tan-Tan Figurine: Morocco, discovered in 1999.
“The object, which is around six
centimeters in length, is shaped like a human figure, with grooves that suggest
a neck, arms and legs. On its surface are flakes of a red substance that could
be remnants of paint.
The object was found 15 metres below the eroded surface of a terrace on the north bank of the River Draa near the town of Tan-Tan. It was reportedly lying just a few centimeters away from stone handaxes in ground layers dating to the Middle Acheulian period, which lasted from 500,000 to 300,000 years ago.” (Rincon 2003) So this object resembling a human figure was definitely from the time of Homo erectus. It was undoubtedly ‘collected’ because of its resemblance to the finder and was then apparently modified somewhat to improve the illusion.
“The object, including its ‘arms’ and ‘legs’, was created by natural geological processes. The horizontal grooves on both sides of the object seem to be formed partly naturally partly artificially (by percussion). The object also contains traces of pigment, which seems to be iron and manganese according to preliminary study.” (Wikipedia)
Berekhat-Ram Figurine: Found at Berekhat-Ram on the Golan
Heights, 1981.
“Excavated and first described by Naama
Goren-Inbar from the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. The artifact is a scoria pebble, 35mm long, 25mm wide, and 21mm
thick. – It was excavated in 1981 at the Acheulian site of Berekhat Ram, Golan
Heights. The object is dated 280,000 – 250,000 BP. Goren-Inbar reported several
artificial grooves on the object: one is a transversal groove in the upper
third, others are longitudinal grooves on the sides below the transversal
groove.
Goren-Inbar and Marshak suggested that the object resembled a female body and was artificially modified by hominids to emphasize its anthropomorphic features.” (Wikipedia)
The Erfoud Manuport: Eastern Morocco, 1984.
“The object in question is from Site No. A-84-2, a surface cluster of Acheulian tools in the vicinity of the townships Erfoud and Rissani, eastern Morocco. – The region is essentially a desert of small pebbles and sand, and the site consists of a dense cluster of numerous late Acheulian stone tools measuring about six-metres across. It includes the apparent remains of a dwelling consisting of a pile of stones forming and enclosed space of a few square metres, adjacent to a rock outcrop. – Within what appears to be the foundation of an Acheulian dwelling at Site A-84-2, Professor Lutz Fiedler from Marburg University collected in 1984 and object called here the Erfoud manuport. The manuport consists of a silicified fragment of a cuttlefish fossil cast dating from the Devonian or Carboniferous period (Orthoceras sp.). Such fossils are very common in other parts of Morocco, but they do not occur naturally in the region of the find site. – The object’s surface condition suggests that it was deposited in the same period as the stone tools found with it. An explanation is required for why it became a manuport, having been brought from some distance, and considering its apparently unworked, non-artefact status. This is readily found in its shape, being that of a perfectly naturalistic and life-size, non-erect human penis. The only realistic explanation for the curation of this object is that this clear similarity was perceived by a hominid.” (Bednarik 2002:138-9)
Neandertal: I have previously written about a number of instances of Neandertal produced art (available through the index at the bottom of the page) dating back to 65,000 years BP, but producing art is not collecting. If, however, we have some sort of accumulation of images in a location that can be thought of as a collection.
There is also a manuport, found in Neandertal context in a cave in Krapina, Croatia. “According to a press release, a group of international researchers re-examining material excavated from a cave where archaeologists found 900 Neandertal bones between 1899 and 1905, came across an unusual split limestone rock. It stood out from the other 1,000 pieces of stone collected because of its composition and the interesting black lines spidering across its face. – The researchers believe that the Neandertals brought the rock to their home cave simply because they thought it was interesting. In other words, whoever picked it up was rock collecting.” (Daley 2017)
So here we
have a number of instances of pre-modern hominids who have been demonstrated to
have acquired something for the purpose of collecting, keeping it in their
possession for intellectual pleasure, not for utilitarian use. This is an
immensely human trait that we can all identify with, and should give us a new
perspective on pre-modern humans. I believe that it was just this sort of
impulse which eventually gave rise to the creation of art and the magnificent
palimpsests in the painted Stone Age caves, and thus, to the study of Art
History and Rock Art which fascinates us all.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Bednarik, Robert G., 2002, An Acheulian palaeoart manuport from Morocco, Rock Art Research Vol. 19, number 2, pp. 137-139.
Bednarik, Robert G., 2013, Pleistocene Palaeoart of Africa, Arts, 2, 6-34.
Bednarik, Robert G., 2015, Paleoart of the Lower Paleolithic, January 2015, ResearchGate, accessed on 17 April 2022.
Daley, Jason, 2017, Did Neanderthals Like Pretty Rocks?, 23 January 2017, Smithsonian.com, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news-did-neanderthals-pretty-rocks-180961865/#IJCeswdiLPg3FICF.99
Goren-Inbar, Naama, 1986, A figuring from the Acheulian site of Berekhat Ram, January 1986, Mitekufat Haeven:Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society, reprinted by Jstor, https://www.jstor.orb/stable/23373142, accessed 12 January 2022.
Harrod, James, 2014, Palaeoart at Two Million Years Ago? A Review of the Evidence, Arts, 3, 135-155.
Mussi, Piero and Pietro Rossi, 2018, You Snooze, you win: Perception, dream and symbolization in pre-sapiens Evolution, NeanderART 2018 (proceedings), pp. 311 – 349.
Rincon, Paul, 2003, ‘Oldest sculpture’ found in Morocco, 23 May 2003, BBC Science, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3047383, accessed 17 May 2022.
Wikipedia, Venus of Berekhat-Ram, https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Berekhat_Ram, accessed on 10 June 2022.
Wikipedia, Venus of Tan-Tan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Tan_Tan, accessed on 10 June 2022.
SECONDARY REFERENCES:
Bednarik, Robert G., 1999, Maritime navigation in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences Paris, Volume 328, pp. 559-563.
Speth, J. D., 2004, Newsflash: negative evidence
convicts Neanderthals of gross mental incompetence, World Archaeology, Volume, 36, No. 4, pp. 519-526.
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