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Ancient Cave Art May Depict Giant Bird Extinct For 40,000 Years
grrlscientist writes "Recently studied Australian Aboriginal rock art may depict a giant bird that is thought to have become extinct some 40,000 years ago, thereby making it the oldest rock painting on the island continent. The red ochre drawing was first discovered two years ago, but archaeologists were only able to confirm the finding two weeks ago, when they first visited the remote site on the Arnhem Land plateau in north Australia. 'Genyornis was a giant flightless bird that was taller and heavier than either the ostrich or emu. It had powerful legs and tiny wings, and probably closely resembled ducks and geese, its closest living relatives. ... Interestingly, Genyornis bones have been excavated in association with human artifacts in Cuddie Springs in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is likely that humans lived alongside these birds, and some scientists think that humans may have contributed to their extinction."
Jamie recalled that in the essay "A Lesson from the Old Masters," in the volume Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, Stephen Jay Gould thanks our ancestors who drew Irish Elk on cave walls for "providing the only possible evidence for a hump that would otherwise have disappeared into the maw of lost history."
Who is to say that the descriptions of the bird were not passed down in legends? It seems entirely possible to me that the bird was painted after they had become extinct.
I have mod points but thought I would comment instead.
To you and the clueless fucks who modded you up to +5 Insightful: Yes, you must think you are brilliant. Of course the archeologists have no idea that cave drawings represent reality. This is an absolutely new concept to them.
It could have nothing to do with verifying that, yes indeed, this animal did go extinct in the time period they thing it did. It has nothing to do with showing the relationships the people had with the bird (was it food? was it considered to be good luck?) or how accurately the drawings represented the actual bird (based on fossilized remains). Or probably a dozen other insights that I would never think of.
But yes, you oh brilliant 13 year old on Slashdot because Mom won't let you go out and play in the rain have skewered their efforts completely.
Frankly, it is the +5 Insightful that set me off. How stupid can you be?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Of course not. There could have been a 35000 year-old member of the tribe who painted the picture.
There has been a steady stream of evidence for human civilization much much earlier than is currently accepted. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that in my lifetime, there's going to be a revision of just how old humanity really is. Since anthropologists went way out on a limb 100 years ago and tied their estimates for the beginnings of human civilization to some notion of biblical "history" they have been working very hard to protect themselves from any challenge. Any evidence for civilization going back 25,000 or 55,000 or 150,000 years is simply ignored as being an "outlier". It must be spurious, they say, because it does not fit with our current theories. If those theories were to fall, so would the doctoral dissertations and published manuscripts of hundreds and hundreds of highly respected members of their fraternity.
Every so often, someone like, say, Michael Tellinger, or Robert Bauval, who is a member in good standing of the club, dares to present evidence suggesting that the current estimates of human origins are way off. Those people are quickly and efficiently made to not exist in the collective consciousness of anthropology. When it comes to dealing with people who challenge conventional wisdom, anthropologists can be practically Stalinist in the ruthless way they can forget formerly prestigious fellows ever existed.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Now my question is, was this bird really extinct 40k years ago? Or is it an estimation? Because, maybe, they could have lived on longer than they thought.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
What is really interesting about this is the age of the rock art, which would seem to be as old as any human art anywhere and make the case for the Jawoyn Aborigines having one of the oldest cultures in the world. .
from the original article
The Jawoyn people say they are excited the painting could be Australia's oldest dated rock art. The Jawoyn are a group of Indigenous peoples who are the traditional owners of the land in Australia's Northern Territory...
What leads you to believe that as successive waves of humans entered Australia that the current occupants are in any way related to the painting's creators? Were the original inhabitants pushed further south,overrun,wiped out,walked to Tasmania? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070509161829.htm
"At the time of the migration, 50,000 years ago, Australia and New Guinea were joined by a land bridge and the region was also only separated from the main Eurasian land mass by narrow straits such as Wallace's Line in Indonesia. The land bridge was submerged about 8,000 years ago...
Given 30,000 years plus at the front door entrance to Australia I think the Jarwoyn are the least likely descendants of the original artists.