Blombos Symbolism

Previously, researchers believed that cave paintings and other symbols were only found in Europe from around 40,000 years ago. However, that thought has been majorly challenged after researchers found hand stencil and a nearby painting in Indonesia dating 39,900 and 35,400 years old respectively. They were able to date the calcite, which contains trace amounts of steadily decaying radioactive uranium. Another team found incredibly compelling evidence of symbolism in South Africa's Blombos cave. They unearthed a 100,000-year-old animal bone paintbrush and corresponding items, as well as an ocher slab with 75,000-year-old geometric carvings. The article also talked about how bonobos can form simple sentences using pictograms and researchers trained capuchin monkeys to purchase food using aluminum discs. Hominins created symbols and recognized them in nature, as displayed by the hominin who carried a stone resembling a face back to their cave. Most importantly, hominins were able to create an ax from rock dating back to 1.76 million years ago. Chimps also use the same mental process when they create fishing rods from twigs. There was once a time where we thought …show more content…
Researchers now believe that symbolic creativity was part of our cognitive abilities as we spread from Africa. Once again, unique human identity is challenged by apes and monkeys, but humans still maintain their advanced cognitive level by being able to make symbols from scratch, which the others cannot. Early hominin tool making reveals the cognitive ability to see a future finished product from a current raw material. Furthermore, they went beyond the minimum required process for a tool to work by decorating and making the tools beautiful in some cases, mixing the functional with the