Is this a woman? A person? Or just a random rock? It’s the 250,000 year old “figurine,” found at the Berekhat Ram site in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in 1981. Microscopic scrutiny has revealed etch marks that appear to have been made by a tool. It’s one of the artifacts that archaeologists are debating about within a larger discussion of the origins of art.
For those who would like to delve further into this topic, Science magazine has a wonderful article in the February 6, 2009 issue, On the Origin of Art and Symbolism, by Michael Balter. Does the crafting of sophisticated tools require the capacity to hold an abstract concept in one’s mind while changing the raw material to conform to that mental template? There are large tools called Acheulean hand axes found in Africa that date from 1.7 million years ago. Probably made by H. Erectus, there is debate about whether making them required abstract thought. Given my experience as an artist, I would think so (at least most of the time!) A related blog post by the same author can be found here.
So whatever you are creating, keep at it...your ancestors would certainly be impressed.
Did you know that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy? My post about it here on I.N.K. includes several web links about a passing comet you can see next week(!), star parties, NASA resources, plus recommendations for great books for kids on the topic.
I wanted the artistic readers of my studio blog to know about a good resource for celestial images. From Earth to the Universe puts up a new image of planets, nebulae, or galaxies every day on their home page. They have desktop images in various sizes such as the one above (look under the For Visitors button.) If you click on Tour the Images, a page with dozens of thumbnails of beautiful images will come up. It takes a while to load, but it’s worth it. The colors are fantastic and the thing is, they’re really out there! This is W49B, a supernova that’s 35,000 light-years beyond our solar system.
Credit: Image made by J. Keohane et al in x-ray light for NASA / Chandra X-ray Center and infrared light for Palomar / SSC
I haven’t done a lot of peering into telescopes myself, but did have one memorable experience some time ago. A local astronomy club has open viewing events where members bring their ‘scopes and you can walk around and see what’s on view. These are not dinky telescopes either, some are several feet long. One guy had his focused on two galaxies that are (were?) colliding. It was quite compelling to see it with my own eyes. So if you get a chance, check out the International Year of Astronomy web site, and see if you can attend a star party near you.
Is this a woman? A person? Or just a random rock? It’s the 250,000 year old “figurine,” found at the Berekhat Ram site in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in 1981. Microscopic scrutiny has revealed etch marks that appear to have been made by a tool. It’s one of the artifacts that archaeologists are debating about within a larger discussion of the origins of art.
