200,000-year-old cave art made by children my be the oldest found so far

[FfFfFfFF 58,081]

A team of Chinese researchers has discovered cave art that estimated to be between 169,000 and 226,000 years old. It was discovered, of all places, in the perilous mountains of Tibet. 

The artwork — a series of deliberately arranged hand and footprints — was recovered from a hot spring at Quesang, a village located on the Tibetan Plateau at an altitude of 4,269 meters above sea level. The imprints mark the oldest evidence of human settlement on the Tibetan Plateau.

Based on the size and shape of the imprints, researchers inferred that they couldn’t have been made by adults, making this one of few pieces of cave art that is believed to have been produced by children.

“This remarkable discovery adds to the body of research that identifies children as some of the earliest artists within the genus Homo,” the archeologists wrote in an article published in Science Bulletin.

Parietal art — an umbrella term for different types of prehistoric artwork, including cave paintings, rock carvings, and sculptures – enables us to see the world through the eyes of our ancestors.

The creative traces of their existence did not fossilize by accident, like the citizens of Pompei, whose buildings and bodies were frozen in time by the ashes of Mount Vesuvius. Ancient art was left behind, presumably, so future generations could see it.  

Source - https://bigthink.com/the-past/oldest-cave-art-2/

[badfaith 5,716]

It's so surreal seeing this and thinking how long we've come so far and how back then, we didn't even know sh*t about the world just yet.

[GovernmentHookah 910]

34 minutes ago, badfaith said:

It's so surreal seeing this and thinking how long we've come so far and how back then, we didn't even know sh*t about the world just yet.

And we still don’t know ****. 

[Helxig 45,334]

Ancient art always feels so sacred

[Guest]

adorable

[salty like sodium 2,259]

3 hours ago, badfaith said:

It's so surreal seeing this and thinking how long we've come so far and how back then, we didn't even know sh*t about the world just yet.

judging by how we're destroying the ecosystem now, we clearly know even less now than we did back then tho. 

[sarahb 17,187]

Idk why but it still weirds me out that different species of human used to exist 

[FfFfFfFF 58,081]

17 minutes ago, sarahb said:

Idk why but it still weirds me out that different species of human used to exist 

What's more is that if you have white/ Caucasian ancestry or Asian, parts of yourself are genetically a different species (Neanderthal or Denisovan)

[sarahb 17,187]

13 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

What's more is that if you have white/ Caucasian ancestry or Asian, parts of yourself are genetically a different species (Neanderthal or Denisovan)

I hope I'm making my Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestors proud

[A MESS 3,938]

keep the threads coming, I'm so interested in all this stuff you're posting lately!

 

(also, a joke: watch as we dig and dig until we find some ancient developed civilization that died by their own hands prophesyzing our destiny)