Latest news with #LatePaleolithic
Economic Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Economic Times
12,000 years of art? Ancient Mongolian elk carvings morph into mysterious wolf symbols
Live Events When did elk art become abstract and why? What does this change say about ancient Mongolian life? FAQs (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The Altai Mountains in Mongolia have ancient rock carvings that tell a story that goes back 12,000 years. This started out as realistic pictures of elk and has turned into abstract, wolf-like images in 12,000 years of Altai rock art in western Mongolia have undergone an incredible transformation, according to a recent study by Dr. Esther Jacobson-Tepfer published in the Cambridge Archaeological did elk carvings begin and how realistic were they?The new study of rock art in western Mongolia shows that elk images have changed over the past 12,000 years, going from realistic carvings to abstract, symbolic figures that look like change in art style shows how the climate, mobility, and cultural identity in the Altai region have changed a lot over the years. Over the course of thousands of years, both people and animals evolved at the same the Late Paleolithic (around 12,000 BP) to the Bronze Age and into the Early Iron Age, the Altai region, which is where Mongolia, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan converge, has one of the longest continuous rock art traditions in the world. Elk (Cervus elaphus sibiricus) carvings were unique among prehistoric carvings, as per a report by Archaeology were depicted in their natural settings in the earliest paintings, occasionally alongside their young or alongside other extant creatures like woolly rhinos and mammoths. A profound observational understanding of the natural world was demonstrated by these early representations, which were carved in profile with proportional realism and vestigial time, particularly during the Bronze Age, they underwent significant evolution. Elk grew more active and were incorporated into more and more human activity contexts, like later Bronze Age saw the transition from realism to abstraction, with the elongated elk, exaggerated antlers, and distorted facial details into shapes resembling snouts or beaks. Over time, elk lost much of their resemblance to the actual animal and instead became a symbol, perhaps of spirituality, clan identity, or would be impossible for painted images to survive outdoors in the Altai Mountains due to the climate and the significant amount of time that has passed since the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The only known surviving painted elk image is located in Khoit Tsenkir cave in Khovd and environmental change seem to be closely linked to this symbolic development. Forests, which were desirable habitats for elk, receded as the Eurasian steppe cooled and dried during the elk moved west, the changing terrain led to a rise in the number of people practicing pastoralism. As carvings emerge at higher elevations over time, rock art itself bears witness to this Jacobson-Tepfer's extensive fieldwork experience in the area highlights the impact of climate and movement on everyday life and discovered a huge glacial boulder that overlooked a wide valley floor in 1995 while surveying Tsagaan Salaa IV. Among hundreds of them, one distorted, unearthly image of an elk was carved on its described the boulder as more than just an artifact; it was a symbol of changing cultural identity, writing, "It seemed to reflect a complex interweaving of deep geological time, iconography, and its social implications."Eventually, horseback riding altered how people interacted with the outside world. Symbolizing new social hierarchies and mobility, art featured stylized animals on personal a living component of the natural world, the elk has evolved into a symbolic animal. It vanished entirely from the tradition of art by the time of the shift reflects environmental change, increased pastoralism, and a changing cultural likely to be symbols of status, clan identity, or spiritual belief than actual animals.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
12,000 years of art? Ancient Mongolian elk carvings morph into mysterious wolf symbols
The Altai Mountains in Mongolia have ancient rock carvings that tell a story that goes back 12,000 years. This started out as realistic pictures of elk and has turned into abstract, wolf-like symbols. Elk images in 12,000 years of Altai rock art in western Mongolia have undergone an incredible transformation, according to a recent study by Dr. Esther Jacobson-Tepfer published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Select a Course Category Design Thinking Healthcare Technology PGDM Leadership Product Management Data Analytics Data Science Degree Management Operations Management Project Management healthcare Digital Marketing Artificial Intelligence CXO others MBA MCA Data Science Finance Others Public Policy Cybersecurity Skills you'll gain: Duration: 25 Weeks IIM Kozhikode CERT-IIMK PCP DTIM Async India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 22 Weeks IIM Indore CERT-IIMI DTAI Async India Starts on undefined Get Details How did elk carvings begin and how realistic were they? The new study of rock art in western Mongolia shows that elk images have changed over the past 12,000 years, going from realistic carvings to abstract, symbolic figures that look like wolves. Live Events This change in art style shows how the climate, mobility, and cultural identity in the Altai region have changed a lot over the years. Over the course of thousands of years, both people and animals evolved at the same time. ALSO READ: Astronomer CEO scandal fallout hits Dublin man with same name - Wife demands flowers after husband mistaken for Andy Byron From the Late Paleolithic (around 12,000 BP) to the Bronze Age and into the Early Iron Age, the Altai region, which is where Mongolia, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan converge, has one of the longest continuous rock art traditions in the world. Elk (Cervus elaphus sibiricus) carvings were unique among prehistoric carvings, as per a report by Archaeology Mag. Elk were depicted in their natural settings in the earliest paintings, occasionally alongside their young or alongside other extant creatures like woolly rhinos and mammoths. A profound observational understanding of the natural world was demonstrated by these early representations, which were carved in profile with proportional realism and vestigial legs. When did elk art become abstract and why? Over time, particularly during the Bronze Age, they underwent significant evolution. Elk grew more active and were incorporated into more and more human activity contexts, like hunting. The later Bronze Age saw the transition from realism to abstraction, with the elongated elk, exaggerated antlers, and distorted facial details into shapes resembling snouts or beaks. Over time, elk lost much of their resemblance to the actual animal and instead became a symbol, perhaps of spirituality, clan identity, or status. It would be impossible for painted images to survive outdoors in the Altai Mountains due to the climate and the significant amount of time that has passed since the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The only known surviving painted elk image is located in Khoit Tsenkir cave in Khovd Aimag. What does this change say about ancient Mongolian life? Social and environmental change seem to be closely linked to this symbolic development. Forests, which were desirable habitats for elk, receded as the Eurasian steppe cooled and dried during the Holocene. As elk moved west, the changing terrain led to a rise in the number of people practicing pastoralism. As carvings emerge at higher elevations over time, rock art itself bears witness to this change. Dr. Jacobson-Tepfer's extensive fieldwork experience in the area highlights the impact of climate and movement on everyday life and art. She discovered a huge glacial boulder that overlooked a wide valley floor in 1995 while surveying Tsagaan Salaa IV. Among hundreds of them, one distorted, unearthly image of an elk was carved on its surface. She described the boulder as more than just an artifact; it was a symbol of changing cultural identity, writing, "It seemed to reflect a complex interweaving of deep geological time, iconography, and its social implications." Eventually, horseback riding altered how people interacted with the outside world. Symbolizing new social hierarchies and mobility, art featured stylized animals on personal items. Once a living component of the natural world, the elk has evolved into a symbolic animal. It vanished entirely from the tradition of art by the time of the Turks. FAQs Why did ancient elk carvings change so dramatically over time? The shift reflects environmental change, increased pastoralism, and a changing cultural identity. What do the abstract elk images depict? More likely to be symbols of status, clan identity, or spiritual belief than actual animals. Economic Times WhatsApp channel )
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
Oldest-known whale bone tools discovered in a Spanish cave
Prehistoric stone tools are among some of the oldest and important pieces of evidence we have of a time when our species began to evolve a higher level of intelligence. Many of these tools were also made from animal bones–including the bones of some of the biggest animals on the planet. New research finds that humans living up to 20,000 years ago may have been making tools out of whale bones. The discovery not only adds more to the story of early human tool use, but gives a glimpse into ancient whale ecology. The findings are detailed in a study published May 27 in the journal Nature Communications. 'That humans frequented the seashore, and took advantage of its resources, is probably as old as humankind,' Jean-Marc Pétillon, an archaeologist at the Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France and study co-author, tells Popular Science. 'There is evidence of whale scavenging at the site of Dungo 5 in Angola dating to 1 million years.' For our Paleolithic ancestors living in coastal areas, the sturdy bones of large whales were potentially an excellent resource for various tools. However, many prehistoric coastal archaeological sites are fragile and are at risk of rising sea levels, making reconstructing the past interactions between marine mammals and humans a challenge for scientists.. 'The tools were dated between 20,000 and 16,000 years before [the] present, a period way before the invention of agriculture, and during which all human groups in the world lived a life of nomadic hunter-gatherers,' says Pétillon. 'Climatically, this is the last part of the last glaciation, with a climate much colder than today.' That colder climate brought a sea level that was roughly almost 400 feet lower than it is today. With this change in sea level, we have no direct evidence of the human occupations on the shore, since the rise in sea level either wiped them out or the settlements lay buried under 300 or so feet of water. With this lack of evidence Paleolithic people have historically been viewed as inland hunters. Those living in present day western Europe would have hunted red deer, reindeer, bison, horse, and ibex. While they did hunt inland, there is a growing body of evidence from the last 20 years showing that they also took advantage of the Paleolithic seashore. 'There are studies showing that people also gathered seashells, hunted seabirds, fished marine fish, etc., as a complement to terrestrial diet, and these studies were made possible because Paleolithic people carried remains of marine origin away from the seashore, into inland sites,' explains Pétillon. 'Our study adds whales to the lot. It is one more contribution showing that Late Paleolithic humans also regularly frequented the seashore and used its resources.' [ Related: Ice age humans made needles from animal bones, archeologists discover. ] In the new study, the team analyzed 83 bone tools that were excavated from sites around Spain's Bay of Biscay and 90 additional bones uncovered from Santa Catalina Cave in Spain. They used mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating to identify which species the bones belonged to and estimate the age of the samples. The bones come from at least five species of large whales–sperm, fin, blue, gray, and either right whales or bowheads. The latter two species are indistinguishable using this technique. The oldest whale specimens are dated to roughly 19,000 to 20,000 years ago, representing some of the earliest known evidence of humans using the remains of whales to make tools. Some of the whale bone points themselves were over 15 inches long. 'Most of the objects made of whale bone are projectile points, part of the hunting equipment. They can be very long and thick, and were probably hafted on spear-style projectiles rather than arrows (and the use of the spearthrower is documented in this period),' says Pétillon. 'The main raw material used to manufacture projectile points at that period is antler, because it is less brittle and more pliable than bone, but whale bone was preferred in certain cases probably because of its large dimensions.' Most of these whale species identified in this study are still found in the Bay of Biscay and northeastern North Atlantic to this day. However, gray whales are now primarily limited to the North Pacific Ocean and Arctic. Additional chemical data from the tools also suggests that the feeding habits of the ancient whales were slightly different than those living today. According to the authors, this is likely due to behavioral or environmental changes. That the whales in the area have stayed relatively the same was particularly intriguing for Pétillon. 'What was more surprising to me—as an archeologist more accustomed to terrestrial faunas—was that these whale species remained the same despite the great environmental difference between the Late Pleistocene and today,' he says. 'In the same period, continental faunas are very different: the ungulates hunted include reindeer, saiga antelopes, bison, etc., all disappeared from Western Europe today.' Importantly, the findings here do not imply that active whaling was occurring. The techniques at the time would not allow humans to hunt sperm, blue, or fin whales and the team believes that these populations took advantage of whale strandings to harvest the bones for tools. 'The earliest evidence of active whaling is much younger, around 6,000 [years] before present in Korea (site of Bangudae) and maybe around 5,000 before present in Europe (Neolithic sites in the Netherlands),' says Pétillon. Future studies could look at the systematic way that these ancient Atlantic Europeans systematically used the seashore and how they developed their ocean hunting techniques.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Archaeologists Just Found the Oldest 3D Map in the World
Experts just found a 3D map that was carved into quartz sandstone likely 13,000 years ago. Located within the famed Segognole 3 rock shelter, researchers believe the map shows the local landscape of the Paris Basin. It's also thought to highlight natural water flows and geomorphic features, as the direction of water flow was of critical importance for the Paleolithic people. Researchers from the University of Adelaide recently announced the discovery of a 13,000-year-old 3D map, now thought to be the oldest 3D map in the world. The team discovered this remarkable artifact carved into a block of quartz sandstone in the Segognole 3 rock shelter—a site that has long been known for artistic engravings in a Late Paleolithic style. The map depicts what is now known as France's Paris Basin and the surrounding landscape, with the particulars revealed in a study published by the Oxford Journal of Archaeology. It was found, according to the authors, alongside a 'female sexual configuration associated with a horse engraving, stylistically attributed to the Upper Palaeolithic,' both of which were discovered in the 1980s. 'What we've described is not a map as we understand it today—with distances, directions, and travel times,' Anthony Milnes, co-author of the study, said in a statement, 'but rather a three-dimensional miniature depicting the functioning of a landscape, with runoff from highlands into streams and rivers, the convergence of valleys, and the downstream formation of lakes and swamps.' 'For Paleolithic peoples,' Milnes continued, 'the direction of water flows and the recognition of landscape features were likely more important than modern concepts like distance and time.' The new find bests the previous oldest-3D-map record-holder—a Bronze Age engraving on a portable slab, which showed a local river network with the surrounding landscape and was likely used for navigation—by about 10,000 years. The study authors wrote of the newly-discovered map that a network of channels engraved onto the shelter floor form a 'functioning representation of watercourses. The carved motifs and their relationship with natural features in the sandstone of the shelter can be compared with major geomorphological features in the surrounding landscape.' 'Our study demonstrates that human modifications to the hydraulic behavior in and around the shelter extended to modeling natural water flows in the landscape in the region around the rock shelter,' Milnes said. 'These are exceptional findings and clearly show the mental capacity, imagination, and engineering capability of our distant ancestors.' Medard Thiry, who lead the project, noted that the creators of the map opened fractures in the stone to direct water through the site. He concluded that several fine-scale morphological features in the sandstone could not have formed naturally, showing that Paleolithic humans sculpted the stone to define specific flow paths for rainwater—something that hadn't been recognized previously by archaeologists at the site. The ancient landscape map was certainly about water, but in a way, we still may not fully grasp the true fullness of its meaning. 'The fittings probably have a much deeper, mythical meaning, related to water,' Thiry said. 'The two hydraulic installations—that of the sexual figuration and that of the miniature landscape—are two to three meters [6.5 to 10 feet] from each other and are sure to relay a profound meaning of conception of life and nature, which will never be accessible to us.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
