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'Hardwired' to create rock doodles; professor says ancient art was 'an instinct'
Prescott Daily Courier ^ | Monday, November 09, 2009 | Bruce Colbert

Posted on 11/13/2009 6:01:02 PM PST by SunkenCiv

Images pecked in stone hundreds to thousands of years ago could be for religious reasons, to mark territories or simple doodles such as those still made today by children and adults.

That is according to Dr. Ekkehart Malotki, a preeminent researcher into the history of rock art.

"Creating art is a distinct piece of our biological make-up," he told about 50 people Saturday during his lecture at Deer Valley Rock Art Center. "It is an instinct."

Malotki, a professor emeritus of languages at Northern Arizona University, said no one would ever know the true meaning of images pecked or painted on stone pallets because the artists are dead and did not leave a record or "Rosetta Stone" to decipher the images' meanings.

The oldest known rock art is a 300,000-year-old panel of small chipped cups, called cupules, found in India. He believes that the images of animals and people evolved from early artists' doodles.

(Excerpt) Read more at prescottdailycourier.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: arizona; caledonia; doodles; ekkehartmalotki; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; pictish; picts

1 posted on 11/13/2009 6:01:03 PM PST by SunkenCiv
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
and a related topic:
Utah rock art canyon up for historic designation
by Mike Stark
AP
11/12/2009
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society ·
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google ·
· The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·


2 posted on 11/13/2009 6:05:12 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: SunkenCiv

3 posted on 11/13/2009 6:16:48 PM PST by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: SunkenCiv
...Malotki has teamed with evolutionary psychologist Ellen Dissanayake to study a theory that the reason images found in Arizona are identical to those found in the Sahara and elsewhere is because humans have a core of biologically universal images they are born with...

Ellen Dissanayake is currently an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington. She synthesizes a wide variety of approaches—from neuroscience and ethology, physical and cultural anthropology, and developmental and cognitive psychology—to support her claim that the arts, including music, evolved to be an inherent part of human nature...blah blah blah...

4 posted on 11/13/2009 6:21:20 PM PST by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Fred Nerks

shes a little old for bangs.


5 posted on 11/13/2009 7:02:03 PM PST by guitarplayer1953 (Romak 7.62X54MM, AK47 7.62X39MM, LARGO 9X23MM, HAPINESS IS A WARM GUN BANG BANG YEA YEA)
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To: SunkenCiv

Do you ever despair of the willful ignorance of certain anti-intellectuals who crawled under the conservative tent flap?


6 posted on 11/13/2009 7:31:52 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: guitarplayer1953; Lazamataz
shes a little old for bangs.

Nonsense! Laz would bang her...

7 posted on 11/13/2009 8:02:59 PM PST by null and void (We are now in day 296 of our national holiday from reality. - 0bama really isn't one of US.)
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To: null and void

Clintoon too.


8 posted on 11/13/2009 8:30:07 PM PST by razorback-bert (We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.)
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To: Fred Nerks
15 "human universals," called phosphenes, found in rock art around the world.

Dot/cuppule. Series of dots. Line: straight, wavy, zig-zagged, or curved: simple curve/arc, open or closed; spiral. Series of lines: parallel, non-parallel, crossing; joined free-form or as a regular/irregular polygon....

Only a finite number of figures that can be formed, no matter where in the world the rock art is created.

Combine that with with evolutionary psychologist Ellen Dissanayake and you get

Malotki, a professor emeritus of languages at Northern Arizona University, said no one would ever know the true meaning of images pecked or painted on stone pallets because the artists are dead and did not leave a record or "Rosetta Stone" to decipher the images' meanings.

Translated as, I am Dr. Ekkehart Malotki, a preeminent researcher into the history of rock art, and if I don't know the meaning, no one ever will.

9 posted on 11/13/2009 10:08:24 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: ApplegateRanch

The cups in the granite boulders near my house often have empty acorn shells in them.

Obviously, these were the work of squirrels.


10 posted on 11/13/2009 10:32:48 PM PST by Salamander (I'm sure I need some rest but sleepin' don't come very easy in a straight white vest.....)
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To: SunkenCiv

Why does everything have to be analysed to death? The early humans were just that—human. A few of them appreciated the way things looked, or wanted to better understand how something looked, so they drew a picture of it. They were artists. Historians, anthropologists, psychologists and archeologists will apparently never understand this simplest and most basic of human instincts: the urge to create.


11 posted on 11/13/2009 10:51:41 PM PST by giotto
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To: ApplegateRanch
Translated as, I am Dr. Ekkehart Malotki, a preeminent researcher into the history of rock art, and if I don't know the meaning, no one ever will.

And she says, the doodles are nothing but Jungian Archetypes hardwired into the psyche, nothing to see here...

They have both reached a dead end. They will never make the connection between what it is (for example)these symbols are trying to tell us:

Pictish Stone.

Or that a spiral symbol records a celestial phenomenon, seen worldwide:


12 posted on 11/13/2009 11:04:42 PM PST by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum)
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To: Fred Nerks

Don't show this to Richard Hoagland!

He'll claim that the "face" of 'George Washington' in the center of the right hand set of circles is a duplicate of the Face On mars, and is further 'proof' of his Cydonian theories.

(You may have to tilt your head to the left, close one eye, and squint the other one a bit to see it...BUT IT'S THERE!)

13 posted on 11/13/2009 11:32:13 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Malotki, a professor emeritus of languages at Northern Arizona University, said no one would ever know the true meaning of images pecked or painted on stone pallets because the artists are dead and did not leave a record or "Rosetta Stone" to decipher the images' meanings.

They haven't asked Helen Thomas?

14 posted on 11/13/2009 11:39:02 PM PST by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: giotto

You’re overanalyzing this. ;’)


15 posted on 11/14/2009 8:19:05 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Moonman62

I’m gettin’ out now, before someone posts the pic.


16 posted on 11/14/2009 8:19:22 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: JoeProBono; Fred Nerks; AndyJackson

Thanks!


17 posted on 11/14/2009 8:19:32 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Fred Nerks
Webelos....... Petroglyph from the Petrified Forest Arizona


18 posted on 02/21/2011 10:58:17 AM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. N.C. D.E. +12 ....( History is a process, not an event ))
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