The World’s Oldest Person Illustration Has Actually Been Found In A Cave In South Africa

Archaeologists have made an amazing finding of a human drawing that goes back more than 70,000 years, making it the oldest human drawing ever found.

The finding, published in Nature, was made in Blombos Cave, which lies on the southern coast of South Africa. The research was led by Teacher Christopher Henshilwood from the University of Bergen in Norway. It’s thought this cavern was borrowed by hunter-gatherers for stays of a week or more long ago.

The “illustration” consisted of a cross-hatched pattern made of 6 lines crossed with three lines on a silcrete flake. As such, it was described as a Stone Age “hashtag”. It looks like the pattern was originally much bigger, as the lines quickly end, and may have been more intricate. The group believe it was made with a pointed ochre crayon, with a pointer 1 to 3 millimeters wide.

“It is absolutely an abstract style and it likely had some meaning to the maker,” Professor Henshilwood informed IFLScience. “It is likewise proof of the ability of early humans to keep details outside of the human brain.”

This particular cave plays host to a number of human artifacts going back to between 70,000 and 100,000 years. This consists of a “tool package” with two shells within, filled with an ochre-rich substance similar to a red paint, which proves our ancestors knew how to make paint as much as 100,000 years back.

In their paper the scientists stated this discovery “pre-dates the earliest previously understood abstract and metaphorical drawings by a minimum of 30,000 years.” They used chemical and microscopic analyses to verify that it had actually been created by a human hand, showing that Homo sapiens in southern Africa were behaviourally contemporary.

“The discovery … demonstrates that drawing belonged to the behavioural collection of populations of early Humankind in southern Africa,” the authors composed. “It demonstrates their ability to apply comparable graphic styles on numerous media using various strategies.”

Other discoveries at Blombos Cave had actually revealed that humans there might produce paint (and use a brush to paint), etch abstract designs, and create shell beads. This newest discovery was explained as a “4th leg to the table” by Teacher Henshilwood, proving they had the capability to draw.

It’s a really interesting finding, and one that offers us a remarkable insight into the capabilities of early human beings. We may never ever know the specific meaning of this drawing however we do know it was, to somebody at least, a really primitive artwork.

Source

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/the-worlds-oldest-human-drawing-has-been-discovered-in-a-cave-in-south-africa/