42,000-year-old paintings : 'The oldest work of art ever' discovered

reply to post by smurfy


They should definitely date the pigment itself, rather than the soot around it. It may well turn out to be our art, but we know Neanderthals ate seals, but then again we probably did too.

reply to post by Nicolas Flamel


I think some guy created a hoax in order to keep his business a float during hard times by faking a cave painting. This is the type of thing that happens when sites are not protected in any way. Just think of all the things that would be carved onto or painted on the pyramids every time a new movie came out with a conspiracy around the pyramids if they were not protected in some way. This is just a hoax to promote tourism and make money or they want some kind of funding from a university to do studies and thought the hoax would help get a grant.

reply to post by JBA2848


Could be a hoax. But Professor Jose Luis Sanchidrian is risking his career because other scientists will want to take a look and want more evidence. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Originally posted by JBA2848
reply to post by Nicolas Flamel

 

I think some guy created a hoax in order to keep his business a float during hard times by faking a cave painting. This is the type of thing that happens when sites are not protected in any way. Just think of all the things that would be carved onto or painted on the pyramids every time a new movie came out with a conspiracy around the pyramids if they were not protected in some way. This is just a hoax to promote tourism and make money or they want some kind of funding from a university to do studies and thought the hoax would help get a grant.

edit on 8-2-2012 by JBA2848 because: (no reason given)

I don't think it is as simple as that, the caves are run by a foundation, but also must be government sourced as the president of the foundation is a government official.

www.malaga.us...

You can see from that link, that the on-site museum seems to be well sourced. I don't know why there should be a shortage of funds for the caves themselves for testing the paintings.

www.nerjatoday.com...

Either way, stalactites grow over time. And they grow by entire layers, not just growing at the tip. Once they meet the stalagmite and become a column, they don't STOP growing, they just get thicker and thicker.

Over 40 thousand years, chances are they would grow somewhat, unless this cave is in the middle of a desert and there has been no rain for thousands of years. Any paintings that old would be buried under thousands of years of growth.

Also, they dated some stuff they found NEAR the paintings, not the paintings themselves. Proves NOTHING, really.

Also, there have been homo sapiens skeletons found as much as 100 thousand years old. Who says Neanderthals made this? In fact, who says ALL cave paintings were NOT made by Neanderthals? Maybe they were the only ones who made paintings, and that's why the Cro-Mags killed them all. Nobody knows.

www.eurekalert.org...

This website is really good. I do not agree with their Bible thumping conclusions, but, they do a good job of proving a lot of the hogwash that is archaeology. Anything that does not agree with their theories is called "out of context" and swept under the rug. For example, near here(the Yucatan) they recently found a skeleton of an adolescent boy, definitely Asian, dated at over 14 thousand years old. He obviously didn't swim from China to the Caribbean. Yet this destroys their Clovis theory of people in the Americas coming over the Bering landbridge. Betcha haven't heard a peep about them finding that skeleton, eh? It's called "out of place" or "out of context', and therefore ignored.

Originally posted by Jassu
reply to post by isyeye

 

Is it just me or does the above image look like the DNA double helix?

S&F for you OP

i thought the same thing

reply to post by JBA2848


Seeing the forest through the trees - a very admirable quality.

reply to post by JBA2848


Human touch can greatly affect the formation of stalactites.

The natural oils in our skin will rub onto the formation leaving a light coating of oil. While one touch has minimal effect, many deposits of oil over time prevent any further growth. When calcium solution runs over the formation it normally leaves a layer of calcite behind.

However, the human oils create a coating that the calcite cannot cling to. In a sense, the formation is now dead. We can see this same effect when washing a car that is waxed - the water beads up and runs off. Whereas, when washing a car that is not waxed, water tends to cling to the car. It is very important that people do not touch any surface in a cavern.

Link

reply to post by CaptChaos

Also, there have been homo sapiens skeletons found as much as 100 thousand years old. Who says Neanderthals made this? In fact, who says ALL cave paintings were NOT made by Neanderthals?

Homo sapiens is probably closer to 200,000 years old:

www.sciencedaily.com...

Usually they find other artifacts like tools or fossils which indicate who probably did the paintings. At the famous Chauvet Cave, they found, along with the hand prints:

The remains of hearths, an ivory spearhead and a human footprint have all been identified within the cave's deposits.

archaeology.about.com...

The link below seems to claim there was a neanderthal presence at the Nerja caves before we arrived. It's in spanish translated by yahoo and has more information than most websites so far:

Cordoba article

I could be mistaken but those of you saying DNA / Double Helix, may be right. I count 23 lines in the drawings.

The human (Homo sapiens) genome is stored on 23 chromosome pairs and in the small mitochondrial DNA. Twenty-two of the 23 chromosomes belong to autosomal chromosome pairs, while the remaining pair is sex determinative.

HUMAN GENOME WIKI

I always look for the number 33 (the number of vertebrae in a human spine) since it pops up in a lot of old objects, but the 23 is even more interesting.....could be a fluke I guess

When I first saw these images, I initially though "So long and thanks for all the fish!"

Darn you Douglas Adams (or whoever wrote "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy)

I honestly can't tell why they think of them as "seals" some kind of marine animal sure, but what is so distinctive? (rhetorical question)

for some reason, the words "neandertals" and "art" are juxtaposed just enough to get my attention.

Thanks, I love constantly revising the status quo. a lot of what we are led to believe is a hoax!

(they are calling this art, after all.)

I agree they look more like helix s.

Originally posted by iamhobo
reply to post by JBA2848

 

Human touch can greatly affect the formation of stalactites.

The natural oils in our skin will rub onto the formation leaving a light coating of oil. While one touch has minimal effect, many deposits of oil over time prevent any further growth. When calcium solution runs over the formation it normally leaves a layer of calcite behind.

However, the human oils create a coating that the calcite cannot cling to. In a sense, the formation is now dead. We can see this same effect when washing a car that is waxed - the water beads up and runs off. Whereas, when washing a car that is not waxed, water tends to cling to the car. It is very important that people do not touch any surface in a cavern.

Link

edit on 8-2-2012 by iamhobo because: (no reason given)

Interesting that the largest stalagmite should be the one that was uniformly "waterproofed" by the Neanderthoil. I'd like to know how high this art is too, as there's no mention in the article.

It looks like a dna strand to me.
Thanks for sharing

Hard to tell if it is a hoax or not but i feel like any evidence would point towards this being fake. if its that old how can the paintings still be so bright and clear? either way cool post.

If that's the best Neanderthals could do in art class, it's no wonder they failed the evolution exam.

Excellent, I've been in those caves a couple of times. There was always closed off areas that were still being explored, so I'm delighted to hear this is what was behind them. Hope to get back there and see them first hand one day.

Upright it does look like DNA, pretty cool if the estimated date is correct.

Originally posted by JBA2848
This is one of the comments frpm the article. They say it better then I can.

A known fact is that Stalactites which are formed by fast flowing water rich in calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide, can grow anywhere from 0.12 of an inch to a full half inch per year. These cave drawing are said to be over 42,000 years old. Now do the math. Are we to believe these drawing "STRETCHED" along with the 42,000 year growth of the Stalactites they were drawn on? At the least growth of these Stalactites at 0.12 of an inch per years, this particular one these drawing are on would have to be, at least, 420 feet long. Do the math. Now half that twice for thickness of it's growth and you get 105 feet long. While. also, in all these 42 thousands years these drawing have never lost their bright umber pigment color? Nor have they faded in all that time! Does any of this make sense to you. How could this be possible? Drawings that "Stretch"? Being a mural artist myself...I'm not buying it.

And thinking about that comment. The build up from the calcium would build a layer over the drawing as it aged. The drawing would be buried under the calcium over time and no drawing would be left to see.

That was my very 1st thought when I saw them...

I'm not buying into this, it just doesn't seem right.

I found a video discussing this discovery. Unfortunately, it is in Spanish, but it shows the work being done in and around the paintings:



www.typicallyspanish.com...