color your world
Dec. 21st, 2003 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheCave Colours Reveal Mental Leap
Red-stained bones dug up in a cave in Israel are prompting researchers to speculate that symbolic thought emerged much earlier than they had believed.
Symbolic thought - the ability to let one thing represent another - was a giant leap in human evolution.
It was a mental ability that allowed sophisticated language and maths.
New excavations show that a red colour made from ochre was used in burials 100,000 years ago, much earlier than other examples of colour association.
[...] The association of ochre with burial indicates that the inhabitants had made the mental leap of associating the coloured pigment with death. Such symbolic thought spurred human progress, allowing the development of sophisticated language and mathematics.
"The red ochre meant something to them, exactly what we do not know, but it is not inconceivable that they painted their dead with red ochre," says Erella Hovers.
"It is an example of symbolic thought, the ochre symbolised death. The humans at this time behaved in a way that was not just functional but symbolic as well," she added.
The researchers believe that the red ochre at Qafzeh was brought to the cave from nearby sources.
In layers in the cave archaeologists have found ochre-stained tools indicating that the red pigment was probably produced in the cave, possibly as part of the burial ritual.
Somehow the ability was then lost. After the initial evidence of symbolic behaviour in Qafzeh about 100,000 years ago it disappears, only to emerge again about 13,000 years ago.
Red-stained bones dug up in a cave in Israel are prompting researchers to speculate that symbolic thought emerged much earlier than they had believed.
Symbolic thought - the ability to let one thing represent another - was a giant leap in human evolution.
It was a mental ability that allowed sophisticated language and maths.
New excavations show that a red colour made from ochre was used in burials 100,000 years ago, much earlier than other examples of colour association.
[...] The association of ochre with burial indicates that the inhabitants had made the mental leap of associating the coloured pigment with death. Such symbolic thought spurred human progress, allowing the development of sophisticated language and mathematics.
"The red ochre meant something to them, exactly what we do not know, but it is not inconceivable that they painted their dead with red ochre," says Erella Hovers.
"It is an example of symbolic thought, the ochre symbolised death. The humans at this time behaved in a way that was not just functional but symbolic as well," she added.
The researchers believe that the red ochre at Qafzeh was brought to the cave from nearby sources.
In layers in the cave archaeologists have found ochre-stained tools indicating that the red pigment was probably produced in the cave, possibly as part of the burial ritual.
Somehow the ability was then lost. After the initial evidence of symbolic behaviour in Qafzeh about 100,000 years ago it disappears, only to emerge again about 13,000 years ago.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-22 08:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 06:55 am (UTC)So the fact that this dawning of abstract consciousness may have happened 100,000 years ago instead of 13,000 years ago is pretty significant, anthropologically speaking.
Anthropology, especially cultural anthropology, is utterly fascinating. You should do some research on it.