Early Dates for Artistic Europeans
New radiocarbon dates of artworks found in a cave in southwest Germany suggest to some researchers that certain artistic behaviors emerged first in Europe rather than Africa. The earliest known musical instruments—flutes of bird bone and mammoth ivory—were found in prehistoric caves in southwest Ger...
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Published in | Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 336; no. 6085; pp. 1086 - 1087 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
01.06.2012
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | New radiocarbon dates of artworks found in a cave in southwest Germany suggest to some researchers that certain artistic behaviors emerged first in Europe rather than Africa.
The earliest known musical instruments—flutes of bird bone and mammoth ivory—were found in prehistoric caves in southwest Germany, as were the earliest mythical figurines. Now new radiocarbon dates put modern humans in one of these caves, Geissenklösterle, several thousand years earlier than previously thought. As far back as 42,000 years ago, while the last Neandertals were hanging on in western and southern Europe, modern humans were carving sculptures and making music in central Europe. The early dates, published online last month in the
Journal of Human Evolution
, also suggest to some researchers that certain artistic behaviors emerged first in Europe rather than Africa. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0036-8075 1095-9203 |
DOI: | 10.1126/science.336.6085.1086 |