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When I started writing this blog a couple of weeks ago my intent was to uncover why people like to create art. I asked Gallery Moab artists to tell me what drives them to paint or make pots or jewelry or whatever their art is. To preface this discovery, I wanted to give a little historical overview of the "first art" made by humans. Little did I know I'd be peering into caves thousands and thousands of years old to attempt that task. I also didn't expect to be so fascinated with the subject and how complicated and controversial the topic of "first art by humans" is within the archaeological and anthropological kingdom. Wow. Did I get an eye opener!

Great Gallery Photo: Credit www.smithsonianmag.org

Here in southeastern Utah we are surrounded by rock art left by Ancestral Puebloans. We stand in awe looking at these images wondering what they mean and why they were pecked or painted onto the rock. While archaeologists hypothesize what they mean, these scientists are the first to say that we don't really know for sure. It's certainly clear that many of them are representational art. They depict something that exists in real life. And while these canyon country sites date as far back as 2,000 years ago, the first rock art and oldest in the world is estimated to be between 40,000 and 51,000 years old, depending on whether archaeologists and anthropologists consider it "art."

Archaeologists disagree as to whether nonfigurative or nonrepresentational expression created over 50,000 years ago is "art." Pigment as old as 164,000 years ago has been found in South African caves, but scientists hesitate to call it art. According to Wil Roebroeks, archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, scientists are left to guess if it is nothing more than meaningless doodles or even mosquito repellent. (Jo Marchant, smithsonianmag.com, Jan/Feb 2016)

"There's a big problem in studying Paleolithic art in that we don't know what art is," explains evolutionary cognitive archaeologist Dietrich Stout at Emory University. (PNAS, Vol 118 Nov 44, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pnas.org, 2021). Stout sees different camps in archaeological research and each has a slightly different interpretation as to "what is art?" The most common criterion for what's considered art is behavior without any apparent practical use. (McDermott, pnas.org, 2021) But even that simple definition can be suspect. The rock art was created with red pigment ochre, which could have also been used as face paint. But ochre also had other practical uses, such as processing animal hides. Another camp of archaeologists want to see stronger evidence that the art was intended to convey some kind of aesthetic meaning. (McDermott, pnas.org, 2021) ) Beads were decorative, but could also identify membership of a group.

Chauvet France rock art. Credit: Claude Paris/AP

Until 2017 the oldest art was believed to be in in the Chauvert Caves in Southeastern France. In 2014 a team of scientists from Griffith University in Australia discovered, among other drawings, what is now known as the Sulawesi pigs located in the Leang Tedongnge Cave in

Color image of Sulawesi pigs photo. Credit: A.A. OktavaniaSulawesi, Indonesia.

The pigs, thought to be Sulawesi warty pigs, are depicted in red ochre. Two of the pigs appear to be fighting while another pig looks on. The two fighting pigs have deteroriated quite badly, but the large pig is in astonishing condition for a drawing done almost 46,000 years ago. Scientists continued to work on dating the art and in 2017 developed a new method of dating. Two human hand prints accompany the rock art panel were dated to 39,900 years ago. Perhaps these were the very hands that painted the pigs.

Ochre etching of Sulawesi pig. CREDIT:  Maxime Auber

It gets way more complicated for a less than scientific mind like my own. Some archaeologists suggest that the creation of art did not begin with the human species. Abstract images date as far back as 500,000 years ago when homo erectus etched zig zag lines into a sea shell in Java. (Marchant, pnas.org, 2021). Carvings with an estimated age of 51,000 years have been found in a Neanderthal cave dwelling in Germany. This leads to the argument as to who was capable of creating "art." Benjamin Smith, rock art scholar the University of Western Australia, writes, "We couldn't conceive of art or conceive of the value of art until we had higher order consciousness."

Joordens engraving. Credit:  Wim Lustenhouver, VU University Amsterdam, www.earthmagazine.org