The global evidence of early human symboling behaviour

Abstract

A model of art origins based on the author’s first-hand studies is presented, which differs significantly from the dominant paradigm of these developments. The earliest known evidence for art, art-like or presumably non-utilitarian activities collectively provide the principal information about human symboling behaviour. These corpora are systematically considered from each continent, including rock art and various surviving forms of portable art. The immense age of some of this evidence is illuminated, and the record’s poor resolution with increasing age is presented as an essentially taphonomic phenomenon. It is shown, nevertheless, that the available record provides a considerably broader basis for hypotheses about symbolism, language and cognitive evolution than is often assumed, and that the evidence favours a model of comparatively early origins of the human capacity of concept-mediated thought and culture. These beginnings may be found in the endeavours of Lower Palaeolithic hominids to create taxonomic systems of physical reality. The available record renders it likely that such capacities existed several hundred thousand years ago.