World's oldest cave art: Half-animal, half-human hybrids depicted on oldest discovered cave art

CNN/msn.com ^ | Ashley Strickland

[RoosterRedux]

Cave art depicting a hunting scene has been found in Indonesia dated to 44,000 years old, making it the oldest rock art created by humans.

The painting itself is intriguing because it shows a group of figures that represent half-animal, half-human hybrids called therianthropes. The therianthropes are hunting warty pigs and dwarf buffaloes called anoas using spears and ropes.

The abstract figures depict a story, which changes our view of early human cognition, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The art could even show the foundation of human spirituality, given the supernatural scene depicted.

"To me, the most fascinating aspect of our research is that humanity's oldest cave art is at least 44,000 years old and it already has all the key components relating to modern cognition, [like] hand stencils, figurative art, storytelling, therianthropes and religious thinking," said Maxime Aubert, study author and professor of archaeological science at Griffith University. "So it must have a much older origin, possibly in Africa or soon after we left Africa."

Sulawesi, Indonesia is home to many intriguing limestone caves where other discoveries have been made. The same group of researchers previously found one of the oldest rock art hand stencils here in 2014, which was dated to 40,000 years ago.

"There are at least 242 known cave art sites in this area of Sulawesi and probably hundreds more awaiting discovery in this one part of the island alone," Aubert said. "The rest of this enormous island, the world's 11th largest, has barely been explored at all for cave art, so who knows what else is out there. The same goes for the rest of Indonesia -- it is likely there are many more ancient art sites hidden away there."

[RoosterRedux]

Animal-headed humans appear in earliest art

21 November 2001

By LEIGH DAYTON

Paintings of mythical animal-human hybrids are among the oldest surviving art ever produced. New research suggests that minotaurs, satyrs, the werewolves beloved of Hollywood and even Egypt’s animal-headed gods are latecomers to the art scene compared with the “therianthropes” carved by the earliest artists on bone and painted on stone.

“They go back to the dawn of humanity, to the first fully modern people,” claims rock art expert Paul Taçon of the Australian Museum in Sydney.

He has found that in Australia and South Africa there are dozens of animal-headed people in rock paintings and carvings more than 10,000 years old. Some may be far older. The oldest was an androgynous feline-headed statuette from Germany, thought to be around 32,000 years old.

Together with Christopher Chippindale at Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Taçon conducted the first rigorous worldwide survey of prehistoric therianthrope images. They surveyed nearly 5000 examples of rock art, most from northern Australia, Europe and South Africa.

Read more: newscientist.com

[RoosterRedux]

Brings to mind Genesis 6 and the Book of Enoch (I Enoch) and the Book of Giants (all of which were in the Dead Sea Scrolls IIRC).

[\/\/ayne]

"Take the prisoner to the cave!"

"Sir, we're all in the cave already."

[Fresh Wind]

To me, the most fascinating aspect of our research is that humanity's oldest cave art is at least 44,000 years old and it already has all the key components relating to modern cognition, [like] hand stencils, figurative art, storytelling, therianthropes and religious thinking"

I wonder what academics would have to say 44,000 years from now if they happened to discover an ancient wall covered with spray-can graffiti?"

[RoosterRedux]

"Sir, we're all in the cave already."

"Oh, I thought this was the Gallery of Modern Art?";-)

[mewzilla]

From 2017...

Successful publishing consortium buys New Scientist

[RoosterRedux]

They would say "Corn Pop was a bad dude"

[Track9]

Don’t tell the muzzis, they’re sure to start defacing them.

[teeman8r]

just goes to show that once there was an artist and immediately we had art critics

[exDemMom]

So furries are not only *not* a passing fad, they have been around for tens of thousands of years, even predating writing.

Amazing.

[central_va]

The first art critic in history.

...about 2 million years ago.

[mission9]

I ain’t saying they are aliens, but they sure look alien.

[Sirius Lee]

4 dudes fighting over 1 chick.

[skr]

Or those are just people with animal-styled headresses or masks on. Of course, that might be too boring of a theory.

[jerod]

Something tells me the ‘me too’ movement will need to get involved. Looks a bit like the first human depiction of sexual harassment.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Sid Caesar, Orson Welles. Classic stuff.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

4 dudes fighting over 1 chick.

4 dudes...only one without erectile dysfunction...fighting over one chick.

[Terry L Smith]

44,000 years ago, eh?
Don’t tell that Ham guy in Kentucky that he spent all that money on wood, and his time factor was off by a factor of 7.

[tbw2]

I’m already seeing questions on various forums “Does this prove ancient people could shapeshift into animals? Doesn’t this prove old pagan magic is real?”