#Upper Paleolithic

[emptyanddark]

The freedom to abandon one’s community, knowing one will be welcomed in faraway lands; the freedom to shift back and forth between social structures, depending on the time of year; the freedom to disobey authorities without consequence – all appear to have been simply assumed among our distant ancestors, even if most people find them barely conceivable today. Humans may not have begun their history in a state of primordial innocence, but they do appear to have begun it with a self-conscious aversion to being told what to do. If this is so, we can at least refine our initial question: the real puzzle is not when chiefs, or even kings and queens, first appeared, but rather when it was no longer possible simply to laugh them out of court.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

[dobescrusher2]

Little painting study of the Venus of Monruz

[anirobot]

Image: The Cambridge Archaeological Journal

Now all the people of the Turdaș–Vinča culture and the Sumerians can go to a dung heap and sprinkle ashes on themselves, because Paleolithic hunter-gatherers invented writing... And they didn’t! 😉

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The sudden revolution of 50,000 years ago at the start of the Upper Paleolithic is clearly a Eurocentric myth, caused by the fact that far more archaeologists work in Europe than in Africa.

"Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human" - Matt Ridley

[thepastisalreadywritten]

A 34,000 year old Aurignacian lunar calendar carved on a bone-tablet, found in Dordogne in France.

Louvre Museum

NOTE:

The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European Modern Humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago.

[quotesfrommyreading]

Precisely when people began to twine, loop, and knot is unknowable, but we can say with reasonable confidence that string and rope are some of the most ancient materials used by humankind. At first, our ancestors likely harvested nature’s ready-made threads and cordage, such as vines, reeds, grass, and roots. If traditional medicine and existing Indigenous cultures are any clue, early humans may have even used spider silk to catch fish and bandage wounds. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years ago, people realized they could extract fibers from the hair and tissues of animals, as well as from the husks, leaves, and innards of certain sinewy, pulpy, or pliant plants, such as agave, cannabis, coconut, cotton, and jute. By twisting these natural fibers around one another again and again, they formed a material of superb resilience and versatility.

Because they are prone to decay, pieces of intact string from more than a few thousand years ago are scarce. Even when they are found, they rarely make headlines or feature in museum exhibits, more likely to be relegated to storage. But they do exist: in 2009, scientists revealed the discovery of tiny 30,000-year-old flax fibers in clay excavated from a cave in Europe. Some of the fibers were twisted, knotted, spun, or dyed turquoise and pink, suggesting complex textiles. If one looks at the archaeological record in the right way—focusing on the implied rather than the material existence of ancient fiber—then the evidence for the importance of string and rope is even older. In South Africa, Israel, and Austria, researchers have found shell and bone beads dating as far back as 300,000 years ago. And in the Hohle Fels cave in southwestern Germany, archaeologists discovered a 40,000-year-old piece of mammoth ivory carved with four holes, each enclosing spiral incisions. They think the tool was used to weave reeds, bark, and roots into a thick cord.

 —   The Long, Knotty, World-Spanning Story of String

[tyrannoninja]

Crouching Aurignacian Huntress

Forty millennia ago, a huntress representing the Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian culture crouches on a ledge overlooking the chilly European steppes where megafauna such as woolly mammoths and rhinoceros roam. In her grip is a spear with a bone point that has been hafted to the shaft with birch tar glue. She might be scouting for game on behalf of her hunting party, or she might be calculating which animals they will single out for an attack!

If you’re wondering why she has blue eyes, a paper published in Experimental Dermatology in 2020 reported that, although the West Eurasian genetic alleles for lighter skin would have emerged no earlier than 28-22,000 years ago (and even then would have been restricted to the far east and north of Europe until much later), blue eyes might have emerged earlier, possibly dating back to 42,000 years ago. This would mean that many Upper Paleolithic Europeans would have had both dark skin and blue eyes, a combination of traits that remained widespread in western Europe before the arrival of Neolithic farmers from the region of Turkey around 8-5,000 years ago.

[tenth-sentence]

Over 40,800 years later, I held my hand next to hers, because the experts on the Upper Paleolithic told me that the handprints are always those of children, and most likely always female.

"Human Universe" - Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

[captious-solarian]

The prepared-core technique is a way to make flint blades by first knapping a stone core, then chipping off flakes. Each blade is a flake, so you get many blades from one core.

This core from the Negev is about 40 000 years old. It is shown here reassembled from blades, for two reasons:

Demonstrate the technique;

Dunk on the old losers who made it. fuck you. *unknaps your flint*

[sixtynineinchnails]

the woman of willendorf did not carve her own body into stone 25,000 years ago just for people to still be going around saying that fat people aren’t fucking gorgeous and natural and deeply human. btw.

[seduceyoursoul]

Oldest ceramic woman Secrets You Wish You Knew One Year Ago !!!

[probablyasocialecologist]

There is a growing body of physiological, anatomical, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence to suggest that not only did women hunt in our evolutionary past, but they may well have been better suited for such an endurance-dependent activity. We are both biological anthropologists. I (co-author Cara) specialize in the physiology of humans who live in extreme conditions, using my research to reconstruct how our ancestors may have adapted to different climates. And I (co-author Sarah) study Neanderthal and early modern human health. I also excavate at their archaeological sites. It’s not uncommon for scientists like us—who attempt to include the contributions of all individuals, regardless of sex and gender, in reconstructions of our evolutionary past—to be accused of rewriting the past to fulfill a politically correct, woke agenda. The actual evidence speaks for itself, though: Gendered labor roles did not exist in the Paleolithic era, which lasted from 3.3 million years ago until 12,000 years ago. The story is written in human bodies, now and in the past.

[...]

Our Neanderthal cousins, a group of humans who lived across Western and Central Eurasia approximately 250,000 to 40,000 years ago, formed small, highly nomadic bands. Fossil evidence shows females and males experienced the same bony traumas across their bodies—a signature of a hard life hunting deer, aurochs, and woolly mammoths. Tooth wear that results from using the front teeth as a third hand, likely in tasks like tanning hides, is equally evident across females and males. This nongendered picture should not be surprising when you imagine small-group living. Everyone needs to contribute to the tasks necessary for group survival—chiefly, producing food and shelter, and raising children. Individual mothers are not solely responsible for their children; in forager communities, the whole group contributes to child care. You might imagine this unified labor strategy then changed in early modern humans, but archaeological and anatomical evidence shows it did not. Upper Paleolithic modern humans leaving Africa and entering Europe and Asia show very few sexed differences in trauma and repetitive motion wear. One difference is more evidence of “thrower’s elbow” in males than females, though some females shared these pathologies. And this was also the time when people were innovating with hunting technologies like atlatls (spear throwers), fishing hooks and nets, and bow and arrows—alleviating some of the wear and tear hunting would take on their bodies. A recent archaeological experiment found that using atlatls decreased sex differences in the speed of spears thrown by contemporary men and women. Even in death, there are no sexed differences in how Neanderthals or modern humans buried their dead or the goods affiliated with their graves. These indicators of differential gendered social status do not arrive until agriculture, with its stratified economic system and monopolizable resources. All this evidence suggests Paleolithic women and men did not occupy differing roles or social realms.

[kaijuno]

The Cosquer Cave located in Cap Morgiou, Marseille, France is situated about 37 meters (121 feet) below sea level and its entrance lies about 37 meters (121 feet) underwater. This underwater entrance suggests that the sea level was significantly lower during the time the cave was inhabited by prehistoric humans, allowing access to the cave without diving equipment.

The cave contains around 600 paintings and engravings, which are predominantly of animals such as horses, bison, ibex, and seals, as well as numerous hand stencils. These artworks provide valuable insights into the lives and beliefs of the people who inhabited the region during the Upper Paleolithic period.

Due to the unique underwater entrance and the fragile nature of the cave’s contents, access to the cave is strictly regulated, and special permission is required for scientific research or exploration. In recent years, efforts have been made to study and preserve the cave and its invaluable cultural heritage.

[doc-art]

one for everyone

real upper paleolithic hours

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

SET FIVE - ROUND ONE - MATCH TWO

"Uffington White Horse" (c.1380-550 BCE) / Chauvet Cave Bear (30,000 and 32,000 BP)

UFFINGTON WHITE HORSE: its public landscape art, its from bronze or iron age and people still maintain it and this chain of people working together, even through the original purpose is lost, the art is not, the community aspect of it (anonymous)

CHAUVET CAVE BEAR: I'm not a very emotional person but there's something about prehistoric cave paintings that make me cry my eyes out. There are too many examples (please check out the Altamira cave bisons they're beautiful) but one that never fails to amaze me is the Chauvet Cave Bear. He's painting with so much care, he's only one of hundreds and thousands of paintings in this cave, many of them more detailed, colorful and dynamic than this guy, but there's something about the careful lines that the artist (bc prehistoric people were artists) put on this wall that touches me. It's put in a scene where he's hunted, he's alone, in a peaceful position, possibly rummaging through a bush. The anatomy is maybe even cartoony with its tiny ears and small mouth but it's realistic in all the ways that matter at that time, anybody could look at it and see a bear, the artist had to carefully watch this bear (or many bears) to memorize its lines, it's humps and structure and the scrounge up the materials to paint, and finally put to rock this animal they admired from a distance. The Chauvet Cave has thousands of cave bear remains, estimating 200 individuals. The cave also has a quarter of ALL cave bear depictions in pre-history. That means that whoever painted this bear not only saw one in the wild but lived alongside these animals their entire lives, their culture was deeply locked with them. There's a chamber in this cave with 50 bear skulls, all of them carefully placed. This painting shows so much care and love from people that are often depicted as brute and uncaring but they were just as capable as any current human of not only caring but DEPICTING their love. It's a beautiful early representation of our capability for admiration and cherishing things that weren't essential for basic survival. Also the artist was damn good that bear has so much expression without even having eyes, the line thickness balance is amazing. (athenasabattoir)

(The "Uffington White Horse" is a prehistoric hill figure created by trenches filled with crushed white chalk. It is 110 m (360 ft) long and is located on Whitehorse Hill in England.

The "Chauvet Cave Bear" is a prehistoric cave painting in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave located in Ardèche, France. This cave contains hundreds of preserved figure paintings from the Upper Paleolithic time period. The central bear is 120 cm (47 in) and was painted using red pigment.)

[meirimerens]

oooh upper paleolithic franco-cantabrian cultural area of cave, parietal and portable art we're really in it now