archeology - world's oldest rock art might be in Australia

If what scientists suspect is true then a cave in West Arnhem land might predate Lascaux



The bird depicted is suspected to be Genyornis or the "Thunder bird" a species of megafauna thought to have become extinct around 40,000 years ago



The cave these paintings were found in is covered with rock art and has been described as one of the best examples on the continent

 

Pretty interesting Bowerbird. Thank you.

The detail and quality is astonishing. Whenever I see something like that I realize that there were countless other preceeding paintings by the same person where the painting skills were developed and refined.

 

Interesting- do you have a link to more information on these cave drawings?

 

Thanks Bower!

Does anyone have any idea what the second picture is?
My wife thinks its a boat.
There could be a story here. I imagine a disater at sea. But I have a big imagination.

 

Wow.. How fabulous.. Thanks.

 

Certainly Jeff - and an apology to all the Jawoyn people whose courage has allowed these paintings to be known to the rest of the world for mentioning them before this

http://www.spiritsinthestone.com/

 

Actually it is a Barramundi!!

Barra is the world's best tasting fish


http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/201009295197/Rock-art-rediscovered-within-Jawoyn-land.html

 

Never tasted a Barra but it would have to really be good to compete with the bluegill...or bream as they call it down south.

 

If your Bream is the same as ours then it does beat it hands down BUT it must be Aussie Barra preferably caught in "The Gulf" (of Carpentaria - that square looking bit missing from the top of the continent) and saltwater not fresh water. Barra is a bit odd in that it has to swim to the ocean to change sex and the ones we catch here in fresh water taste a little "muddy" whereas the ones that are caught say at Kurrumba are deeeeelicious!!
http://www.nativefish.asn.au/barramundi.html
http://www.taste.com.au/search-recipes/?q=barramundi+recipes

 

When I lived up north (Indiana) you could say the same thing about the Trout. The ones caught in the lakes were terrible (farm raised) but the ones caught in the wild were fantastic.

I can see the fish in the drawings now.

The art is beautifull...I have never seen any better cave drawings.

But I am just a working slug.

 

Well, if you ever get a chance try some!! Australia has more unique taste sensations coming your way!! We are producing 'Roo meat commercially now and that market will only grow, although it is a very "gamey" meat with a very strong flavour

Back to the topic though, there is more rock art to be found around Australia but we have to be careful as, being what it is it is very very vulnerable to graffiti - remember going to Carnarvon Gorge and seeing someone had put their signature over the rock art - it was the camera man from National Geographic back in the 1920s from memory

 

It is a different Bream in Australia. I googled it.

I also googled the link you provided. It was interesting.

Digs have to be approached with care and I hope you can keep the tourists out.
They trash everything.
When I get a chance I will do a little "homework" on it. But its my bedtime now and I have to (sigh) work tommorrow.

 

When this shows up on 'Ancient Aliens'...I'm sure that they'll be interpreted as being 'proof' that the drawings represent 'spaceships'...ancient alien spaceships.

 

Sorry but this is almost a poster child for a right wing post

Everyone else (nearly all liberal) have come onto this thread to talk about the content - the new findings about the oldest culture in the world. A finding that will assist to give back to a people something very very precious that was stolen from them - their self esteem

The first right wing post though is a gripe about "them" it does not really matter who "them" is but they are inferior to "us"

Sort of says it all really...........

 

they would need to firmly establish when that bird went extinct, mammoths were thought to have gone extinct at least 10k years ago but newer evidence shows them around 3K ago...so dating by the presumed extinction event of the bird is questionable...

and it may be all irrelevant as recent finds point to Neanderthals in Spain having produced the first cave art 43,500 and 42,300 years old.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21458-first-neanderthal-cave-paintings-discovered-in-spain.html

 

MAAAAAAATE!!


There are hints a suspicions that the Australian aboriginal might have been here up to 125,000 years ago

 

well I can tell you that's wrong...maximum estimate is 70K, 60-70K is the earliest accepted estimate as well for sapiens leaving Africa for the first time, most likely earliest settlement for Australia is 60Kbp, so it's possible there was art produced 60K ago but dating any found with certainty would be extremely difficult....before now there was no evidence of Neanderthal art work, as they were much much older than Sapiens so it's quite possible they produced art long before Sapiens appeared, finding it is problematic...

 

See, we are not sure and the date keeps being put back -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mungo_remains

http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/stories/s10572.htm

http://australianmuseum.net.au/The-spread-of-people-to-Australia

Truth is we do not know but there are some skull remnants that point to waves of hominid colonisation maybe even colonisation by Homo Erectus

 

Have they done any DNA studies?

I have seen the native Australians on TV. And I have always been curious about the light hair color I have seen.

Is this a result of breeding with white people or has it always been that way?

I mean before white people showed up.

 

their hair colour is normal, blonde and red hair are not exclusive to Sapiens of European origin...

 

the date has been stretched as far back as the evidence allows, 70K is the outside number, until there is verified evidence homo sapien left africa earlier than 70K ybp that's where it stays, unlikely first sapiens reached Australia 70K ago...

the real truth is speculation isn't evidence let alone truth...aborigines are Sapiens not homo erectus descendents...let me know when verified homo erectus remains turn up...I think I'll be waiting a long while for that, erectus wasn't big on ship technology...

 

No but it is not all that common among dark skinned people

Our Central Australian Aboriginal people are some of the few in the world where dark skin and blonde hair are common (although the hair tends to go dark at puberty. As a result the children are beautiful looking kids - mind you the hair has less to do with that than the glorious sunrise smiles they all seem to have



But some melanesian people share the same trait - as shown below



More than you ever want to know http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/08/blonde-australian-aboriginals.php

The blonde hair tends to be more prevalent in the central Australian Aboriginal people - but they all share the same bloody wicked sense of humour!!

 

Ha! Finally found it!

So There Wyly! Nyah Nyah!

And yeah ! I know this is only back as far as 75,000 years but I think there are more questions on this continent than answers particularly in light of

Kow Swamp man



This and other skulls and fossils found around Australia may indicate that Homo Erectus also walked this continent
http://www.canovan.com/HumanOrigin/kow/kowswamp.htm
http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~pbrown3/ausindex.html

Ans hère I have to write a rider on this. In challenging these fossils to be Homo Erectus or one of the Hominids I in no way whatsoever mean to indicate that the present people of indigenous descent are in any way inferior to anyone else. They may have uniquenesses though that could and should be a source of pride.

 

my point was light hair colour was not unique to europeans...there are natural blondes in sub-saharan africa as well...

 

hmm how does that change what I posted, the article posted speculated sapiens left africa 64,000-75,000 yrs ago, 70,000+- 5,000yrs is the accepted mean/median...and that doesn't indicate that aborigines reached australia at that time but the approximate time they left africa...

ya but you included in your links a hypothesis that aborigines are possibly descended from homo erectus...there is still no evidence that h. erectus ever advanced further than Flores/Indonesia...