Documentary Description
Understanding of humans’ earliest past often comes from studying
fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived
before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did
we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent
ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in
South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000
years old, has raised some very interesting questions.
Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.
Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution.
Unquestionable art that’s widespread and common suggests you’re dealing
with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to
define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and
shapes. This ability is unique to humans.
Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as
behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the ability
to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to devise a
shared way to describe their environment using art then it seems
inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech. The
search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just like us
is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.
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