A chunk of rock found on a South African coast may be the oldest human artwork depicting another animal, according to the research team that examined it.
This aeolianite was discovered east of Still Bay, about 330 kilometers from Cape Town. Based on its symmetry and surface grooves, researchers hypothesize that the rock may be a human-made representation of a blue stingray (D. Chrysonota) is native to this region. The team's cautious conclusions were: published in rock art research.
Study co-authors Charles Helm, a paleontologist at Nelson Mandela University, and Alan Whitfield, honorary principal scientist at the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity, said: I have written in conversation They say their conclusions are „informed guesses based on our understanding of tens of thousands of such rocks.“
The researchers say the stone may be an ammoglyph, an imprint carved into the sand. The stone is kite-shaped, with an almost symmetrical groove on one side. At the base of the stone is a stump, which the researchers suspect may mark the spot where the stingray's „tail“ was ritually removed. This stone was found on the beach, further supporting the possibility that the carvings were traced based on fresh specimens.
„Symmetry is always interesting and can have many different origins, only one of which is human,“ Helm and Whitfield write. „But it always requires an explanation, and such multiple levels of symmetry support the origin of humanity. The possibility that the combination of multiple symmetrical features is due to chance alone does not make sense in our In my opinion, it is far away.”
Researchers say that directly dating the stone could be damaging, but photostimulated luminescence dating of nearby rocks suggests this apparent work of art was created around 130,000 years ago. It is said that
For reference, the oldest certifiable animal artwork is A picture of a pig covered in warts The one discovered in a cave in Indonesia was 43,900 years old.of the oldest depiction of hunting Although there are older works of art depicting animals from around the same time, they were probably created by Neanderthals.of lion man sculptureA 40,000-year-old figurine carved from mammoth ivory and discovered in Germany's Hollenstein Stadel Cave is the oldest known depiction of an animal, albeit a mythical human-lion hybrid. It is thought that there is. A team of researchers recently unveiled a sand sculpture of a stingray that blows the known dates of human representations of animals out of the water.
It is worth noting that Handprints and footprints from 200,000 years ago It was discovered in 2021 near a hot spring on the Tibetan Plateau, but as we reported at the time, the print may not have been made by humans. homo sapiens. But a researcher not connected to the paper said the prints could be defined as art based on the „deliberate care“ with which they were created.
The conclusion is controversial: To the untrained eye, the so-called sand sculpture of a stingray looks like an ordinary rock. But it may occupy a coveted place in the cultural history of our species.
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