4 ms·

I think that the sample is a little small to call it "abstract" art. It seems as if it could easily be part of a larger figurative drawing.

• tyingq 8y ago
  That's what I thought as well. Some fragment of a drawing of a basket or netting?
• dmazin 8y ago
  It's possible, but would be surprising. The earliest drawings of any kind are tens of thousands of years younger than this find.
  • bunderbunder 8y ago
    I was thinking along similar lines. It seems less extraordinary to think that the development of art would progress simpler stages - scribbling, then symbols, and so on - and only later get to the level of refinement we see at places like Lascaux. Also that we wouldn't necessarily see much of that in the archaeological record, because you've probably got to have advanced to the point where your art is very serious business before you're doing something as difficult and potentially dangerous as putting it deep inside a cave. So, assume that people probably were drawing on rocks for a long time before the earliest cave paintings we know of. And assume that, for much of that time, it's typically quite a bit less refined than what we typically see in caves. Ask any kid, and even most adults - making beautiful figurative art is hard, and takes a lot of practice. I agree that we can't know for sure that this isn't a fragment of some larger piece of representational art. But I can't fault these researchers for going with the simplest available hypothesis.
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