Then you should cease saying that the experts are on your side. Mary Leakey
wrote of this pebble,
"In concluding this review of the lithic material from Oldowan and
Developed Oldowan Sites the grooved and pecked phonolite cobble found in Upper
Bed I at FLK North must be mentioned. This stone has unquestionably been
artificially shaped. But it seems unlikely that it could have served as a
tool or for any practical purpose. It is conceivable that a parallel exists
in the quartzite cobble found at Makapansgat in which natural weathering has
simulated the carving of two sets of hominid-or mre strictly primate- features
on parts of the surface. The resemblance to primate faces is immediately
obvious in this specimen, although it is entirely natural, whereas in the case
of the Olduvai stone a great deal of imagination is required i order to see
any pattern or significance in the form. With oblique lighting, however,
there is a suggestion of an elongate, baboon-like muzzle with faint
indications of a mouth and nostrils. By what is probably no more than a
coincidence, the pecked groove on the Olduvai stone is reproduced on the
Makapansgat specimen by a similar but natural groove and in both specimens the
positions of the grooves correspond to what would be the base of the hair line
if an anthropomorphic interpretation is considered. This is open to question,
but nevertheless the occurrence of such stones at hominid sites in such remote
periods is of considerable interest."~M.D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge
3 Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1693, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1971), p. 269
She believes it is manmade and that it is art. So you know more about this
than her?
>You missed the question. Go back and re-read. You brought up the medieval
>Dark Ages (that's why it's in caps) as a comparison. I asked you how long
>THAT period lasted. NOT 5 million years, but a few hundred. You missed it,
>I think, because it is not an analogy you can offer seriously. Human beings
>did not regress in mental or spiritual capacity, as evidenced by the
>Renaissance. Your mythical creatures did, for 4.5 million years. Absolute
>stasis.
Not at the same rate, but where in the Bible does it say that man must be
constantly innovative and progressive in order to be human? Where?? You
seem to act as if this is the end all and be all of the definition of
spirituality. It isn't.
>
>JB >Artistic ability?
>
>GM <<NO. What he lost was the leisure time needed to produce such art. He
>was
>too busy trying to survive to create the Mona Lisa.>>
>
>A fully modern man didn't do artistic squat for 4 million years because he
>just didn't have the time, darn it.
I have mentioned the Tallensi of Ghana who did not have two dimensional art
in their culture, and they were fully sapient. Meyer Fortes writes:
"Drawing is not a common form of art or a common diversion among pre-literate
people, for obvious reasons, and there is extremely little published material
on children's drawings collected among primitive people." ~Meyer Fortes,
"Children's Drawings among the Tallensi," Africa, 13(1940):293-295, p. 293
These people didn't think of 2-d art. Are they descendants of those animal
hominids whom you throw out of the human family? Should we not send them
missionaries? They didn't do 2d art for their entire history. Darn it.
This simply destroys your connection of art and humanity.
>Modern man can't HELP but express himself in art and worship and
>innovation.
So what of the Tallensi? Fortes writes:
"Tallensi culture, I should add, was at that time markedly lacking in any form
of art or developed decorative products. The women sometimes decorated the
walls of a room with lozenge-like blobs and irregular lines of chevrons, but
the nearest thing to a work of art would have been the spread-eagle flat bas-
relief of a crocodile of [or?] chameleon very crudely modelled in mud on the
surface of some ancestor shrines." Meyer Fortes, "Tallensi Children's
Drawings," in Barbara Lloyd and John Gay, eds. Universals of Human Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981),pp. 46-70, p. 46-47
With the exception of those mud things, the Tallensi seemed able to restrain
themselves quite nicely. Are you saying they aren't modern?
>And sometimes it is in the WORST conditions that his BEST
>expressions emerge! Do you know that some of the greatest, most
>heart-rending human art has come from suffering? And you expect us to
>believe that for 4.5 million years the man who was capable of giving us the
>Sanctuary of Le Trois Freres left us NOTHING like this?
>
I have already noted the phonolite pebble of which you seem to know more
about than Mary Leakey.
>You know what the problem is? It's not that you overvalue hominids (though
>you do); it's that you don't value modern man enough. For you to think that
>modern man could exist without significant innovation and expression for so
>long is astounding.
This is because many modern cultures, like the Tallensi and Tasmanians,have
been static to decreasing in levels of innovation. Since I beleive they are
modern, (I guess as opposed to your belief) this means that modern man does
not require innovation to be modern. You mistakenly and without Biblical
support add innovation to the definition of spirituality. Of course you
won't answer this but where in the Bible does it say that innovation is part
of spirtuality?
>I guess you're going to keep repeating this canard until someone believes
>it. And so I'll keep reminding you, as I've done every time you've tried
>this one, of the NUMEROUS messages I left you on the tribal v. species
>distinction, along with the specific example I gave you of Ishi. If you
>choose to suppress that memory, I can't help you. You don't need a lawyer,
>you need a hypnotist.
Why don't you explain it again for this slow-witted Texan? Besides there are
some lurkers who weren't here during our discussion last. No I will do it
for you (you had your chance, now I get to explain your position) :-)
On Thu, 05 Sep 1996 21:28:48 Jim Bell wrote:
>That old Mortonian understatement again. The flaw in your argument, ofcourse,
>is the confusion of capacity with practice. Any one of these fully human
>beings has the capacity to move beyond their tribal restrictions. They've
> done it. The most famous example, of course, was Ishi. Surely you've read
>about him.
So as I replied to this useless criteria last time, How do you know that
Neanderthal and Homo erectus weren't capable of similar feats? When did you
(or anyone)take one of them and teach him modern human culture and then find
that they were INCAPABLE of learning it? You have assumed the result of an
experiment which has NEVER been performed. I guess when you have no
evidence for your position, it is convenient to make up a mythical
experiment and then tell us what the outcome was.
The fact that Homo erectus left at least three pieces of sophisticated art:
the Berekhat Ram figurine which is a depiction of the human form (330 kyr),
a drawing of a quadrupedal animal at Bilzingsleben (400 KYR)
the Olduvai phonolite pebble depicting a hominid face (1.6 MYR)
says that they are quite capable of doing more than you and your mythical
experiment assume.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm