BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia

Subject: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 10:37 PM

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/indonesian-cave-paintings-some-of-earliest-human-art-australianled-study-finds-20141008-1135ka.html

A major change in evaluating the cave art using new techniques.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 11:14 PM

Yeah, I heard about this too! VERY interesting stuff/art!

Also dating the mineral deposits *over* the art to see how long ago it was done is smart, instead of trying to radio-carbon (or whatever element is best used for these time-frames) date the paint material itself. Which might not tell you when it was painted anyway, just when the paint itself happened (probably within rounding error of its being used, but still, the new way sounds way better).

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: olddude
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 11:21 PM

I think it was rap when he was living in a cave. They only think it's old but really was mudcat rap finger painting

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Janie
Date: 08 Oct 14 - 11:47 PM

Wow! Thanks for the link, Bill. From the photos, the paintings look remarkably sophisticated also. Not that I know much (anything) about cave paintings.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 04:19 AM

Wow indeed. Truly awesome, humbling & utterly heartwarming.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:53 AM

My friends and I did those to cover up a football poster from the 'other' high school. It's just graffiti and you should ignore it.

Just look at it: one of those hands has seven fingers! Every real artist back then knew people had between four and six fingers.





(All seriousness aside, I think it's wonderful. I never thought that people "on the other side" were anything less than as "advanced" as those in Yurp.)

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Stu
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:25 AM

Our ancestors were sophisticated, creative people and keen observers of the world around them. Check this out, and be sure to watch the video: Cave art as animation

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: olddude
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:46 AM

It is amazing and thanks for sharing

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: meself
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:03 AM

I'm not impressed: my five-year-old could do better!

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:08 AM

*grin* your five year old had crayons and examples.

I wonder what the guy who used smoke and ochre would go with Photoshop...

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:29 PM

Amazing ........ I seem to remember that the hand prints (?) appear in France and it has been suggested they are made by placing the hand on the wall and blowing something - possibly carbon dust through a blow pipe.

Anybody know?

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:40 PM

I just noticed that the pigdeer that is apparently 5K years more modern than one of the hand stencils is only about a foot away from it.

People were painting in that same cave for at least many thousands of years.

Way cool.

And I wonder what they were painting thousands of years before that in Africa where we may never find remnants of anything.

I hadn't noticed polydactyl stencils, I shall re-peruse.

Yes, I believe the hand stencils are thought to be from putting hands on walls and spraying paint over them from the artist's mouth. I always pictured them spitting, rather than using a tube, though... I would think the paint would be berry juices and ash, indeed, which is why colored and carbon-datable. But I will look when I go look for the many-fingered ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:04 PM

Interesting info on ancient paint here.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 09:42 AM

One of the illustrations bemuses me.

It's not just a hand but a hand with what might be a shirtsleeve
rolled up to show about half of the forearm.

That confuses me considerably. Does anyone else see it that way?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 09:53 AM

Thanks for the interesting article, Bill D.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 10:05 AM

The artwork is much too derivative.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 10:25 AM

" much too derivative." right

"Art imitates life"

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 10:36 AM

If you look very closely just under the surface of the paintings,
you can just about make out a barely visible outlined laticework pattern.
Inside each segment of the lattice is a number,
possibley corresponding to each color to be used by the painters,
who we must presume were amateurs.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 10:51 AM

The critters are some very strange looking pigs.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: meself
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 11:04 AM

I'm with '#': if I see another sprayed "Hand of Artist", I'm going to scream. And what's with all the "Running Animal We Haven't Thought of a Name For Yet"'s? When are these guys going to start exploring the boundaries between the 'otherness' of our culturally-iterated personae and the perception (mask) of the semiotic within (without?) the colonized inn(t)er/dis/course of what is called 'the real' and what is not called 'transformation'?

Even the odd still-life would be refreshing. What I'd give for a "Yellow Flowers in Vase", not to mention a "Bowl of Fruit".

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 11:18 AM

Hi, meself. Thank you for seeing the humour in it. Made my day. Trust things are good.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: meself
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 11:58 AM

Oh, yes, everything fine - but with all the demands for art criticism, I hardly have a chance to breathe. I spend more time in caves these days than in the light of day ....

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 12:07 PM

It's a little Chagall-esque, even if they didn't have the color palette back then. The pigs are way better than any of Chagall's animals, though... IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 12:41 PM

Long hours huddled in a cave, avoiding dangerous critters, animal, human and imaginary, and doodling (art) is something to occupy time.

It probably developed along with the first sticks used to stir stew or dig tubers.

The earliest images found depend on likelihood of preservation, and assumptions of where the humans were sufficiently advanced to make fire.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 02:12 PM

So, in 40,000 years human art has evolved from this to Jackson Pollock.

Amazing!

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 03:16 PM

"The earliest images found depend on likelihood of preservation, and assumptions of where the humans were sufficiently advanced to make fire."

The use of fire may well predate "modern" humans, so it is more likely a reorganization within the brain that allowed for more abstract activity.

Oh, for a wayback machine!

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:17 PM

Begs the question: if they had fire and pigs, did they have bacon that long ago?

Seriously, I doubt they preserved food on purpose to eat later, but it's interesting. In some places, the climate would have necessitated food preservation, but that probably wasn't an issue in Indonesia.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 05:18 AM

I thought we had moved on from Jackson Pollock some years back.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 10:49 AM

what... no nudes ???

.. and you'd think if early cave men had worked out how to make images of hands,
there'd be spray painted erect phalluses all over the place !!!??

Unless their mum's made them scrub them off the walls
and sent them to bed without their pigdeer supper...???

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 12:46 PM

"...there'd be spray painted erect phalluses all over the place !!!??"

The hands were done by holding the hand against the wall..... think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Very old cave art in Indonesia
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 12:55 PM

Bill.. who knows, early cave teenagers might have been fairly easy going an accomodating
about helping each other out in the cause of crude 'graffiti art' ...