The art behind modern behavior

The conclusion has important ramifications for understanding human evolution and for theories about the spread of humans from Africa. .

Thirty years ago, scientists drew up criteria for modern behavior. If ancient people could make bone tools, use those tools to fish, and create art, scientists believed they must have had the capacity to reason, organize, and communicate.

While archaeologists generally agree that art indicates the ability for modern thought, there is less consensus on what actually constitutes art. There is a rich collection of European art beginning about 50,000 years ago, which includes elaborate cave paintings, the use of ornaments for personal decoration, and the burial of dead with ceremonial objects.

Among the most spectacular of these finds are the cave paintings in the Grotte Chauvet caves in France, which at 32,000 years old are claimed by the French to be the oldest human art ever found. The paintings are clearly meant to represent living things: lions, rhinos, cave bears, and pregnant women.

While there have been other artistic finds that predate the European art of this period, most have been controversial. In 1980, for example, researchers found a piece of hardened volcanic lava, more than 250,000 years old, that appeared to be engraved with a female figure. While scientists now generally accept that the engravings were intentional, dispute remains about whether they are intentionally representational.

While there has been little debate about the age of the Blombos Cave pieces, some scientists, such as Stanford archaeologist Richard Klein, say they are mere doodles with little or no meaning.

Dr. Klein has long maintained that modern behavior developed between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago as the result of biological or genetic mutation. Although Klein admits there is no fossil evidence indicating a change of this nature, he believes that no other explanation adequately explains the explosion of symbolism in Western Europe after that date. He also says that occasional pieces like the Blombos ocher engravings and similar pieces found elsewhere may simply be aberrations.

Hensilwood, however, believes that even the ability to doodle requires a certain abstract ability. He also argues that because the pieces were found with other artifacts, such as the bone tools, they indicate the existence of a modern society at Blombos.

Hilary Deacon, a professor at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, has long argued that early Africans behaved like modern people at least 120,000 years ago. He says the Blombos carvings provide the most incontrovertible evidence yet.

He has long believed that ocher powder was used ornamentally. "If it only has a practical purpose, there's no need to import it in such large quantities," he says.

Archaeologists acknowledge that the African fossil record is thin and more sites need excavation. The debate over Blombos and origins of modern behavior "isn't going to be over any time soon," Hensilwood says.

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