The Caveman
I was reading an exchange between two cunters in which they revealed their unconscious dogma. That we moderns are the flower of humankind after a million years of Evolution. Our ‘brains are bigger’ one post ended.
Brought to my mind The Caveman. Yes there he is Homo Erectus in his animal skins and club in hand. The club of course for knocking ladies on the head with and ‘carrying them off’. His other weapon he has made for himself is a sharp flint knife to mark each conquest on his bedstead. To show his mates I suppose. How he communicates with these mates I don’t know-because he seems not to have the gift of language. He just grunts and and shakes his hand and points it seems from tv, movies.
The Caveman is not very refined is he. He lacks culture is the assumption. He’s a bit thick. We are far more developed than him.
Wayne and Waynetta come to mind. Slouched on the sofa with their takeaway watching the huge LED TV set on the wall. Mmm…what is on the wall in the Cave? Well we have evidence -indeed the only evidence we have of these people who lived so long ago, namely; the paintings on the cave wall.
There isn’t one of a male human figure under huge swans’ wings. But there are beautiful painting of horses and deer and bulls. (I am thinking of the Lascaux caves in southwestern France). And animated as well. You can see The Artist has gone to great lengths to capture the disposal of the legs in a deer cavorting. Or the shape of the back in a horse bucking.
Yes a True Artist-with his love of the long flowing sinuous line. This is somebody who has really studied the horse. The quality of the work is as good as George Stubbs’s paintings of horses in the 19thCentury.
Picasso was good at this before he went nuts. His early drawings of animals are quite exceptional. That was before he started painting them in straight lines a la Cubism.
Anyway my point here you could say rather than there being a development in Art since the Stone Age there has been a decline. Or The Stone Age should be seen as the Avant guarde.
Back to Wayne and Wayneyetta. What do we say on here? ‘Darwin in reverse’. But it is such a simplistic way of seeing things. It isn’t Darwin in reverse or Darwin fast-forwarded. Its just humans. Living at different times.
I haven’t mentioned Fred Flintstone. YABBA DABBA don’t. Yes It was Wilma for me.
Nominated by: Miles Plastic
Useful link supplied by: Ruff Tuff Creampuff
Look at the LGBQTCUNT and XR evolution is going backwards. Extinction of the humans beckons.
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Totally agree. These cavemen were artists. Only intelligent, sophisticated beings capable of observation and reflection create art. Art is what makes us different to animals, none of whom have art.
Our brains have not evolved since these primitive artists. We have simply learnt more. They were the pioneers that set us of on our present course.
That some humans have evolved to a point lower than these prehistoric artists is not a reflection on our remote ancestors.
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‘Art is what makes us different to animals’
‘Art is the signature of man’
Chesterton.
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Indeed. Art and religious belief are unique human characteristics and indicative of superior intelligence.
Get ready for ripostes about “sky fairies”.
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It’s our extraordinary brainpower that distinguishes us from other animals. It’s not rocket science.
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The assumption of cave men being thick comes from the Victorian view of Neanderthals. We have Neanderthal dna, sub saharan Africans dont. Who’s created the modern world, and who’s is stuck in the stone age.
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Indeed. Neanderthals were highly intelligent. They were just fucking ugly.
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Raquel Welch is my favourite cavewoman.
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But strong!!
A neanderthal diet was 80+percent meat.
Those cave paintings in France Miles?
One of the images “the sorcerer of Lascaux” is the image of a man with antlers and tail.
They say its either a depiction of a shaman or a god worshipped by the painters.
A wild god, a god of hunting.
I like it !
Flaming torches in a cave, deerskin robes, shagging, dancing …
Proper religion that!!😀👍
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There is a fascinating literature of Neanderthals (not written by them).
William Golding’s The Inheritors depicts them as a gentle lot ruthlessly hunted down by Homo Sapiens.
And sci-fi writer Philip Jose Farmer wrote a terrific short story called The Alley Man in which he imagines a pure blood line of Neanderthals that has managed to survive in the 20th century. Jose-Farmer’s Neanderthal is exceptionally intelligent but lives as a type of rag and bone man. He has a rose garden which he created as a retreat to go and reflect in. He is still quite a bastard though, but no more than anyone else.
I have often wondered if our fascination with Neanderthals must reflect some inherited ancestral guilt about how we treated them.
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The other thing about Jose-Farmer’s Neanderthal is that women were irresistibly attracted to him. He could have any woman he wanted, including sophisticated, intelligent college totty. Lucky bastard.
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Those of us that left Africa have Neanderthal genes which may be the defining difference.
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I go with the Shaman theory Miserable. Dressing up as a stag doing some ritual dance. And yes I can imagine it being like a nightculb (the Cavern comes to mind). Everyone hot and sweaty. The whole place ‘buzzin’ during some special celebration.
All very human.
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All very sexy too!
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Surely the art of such as Tracy Emin is a huge step forward from Lascaux? I have seen pictures of these undoubtedly beautiful drawings but where are the soiled knickers and condoms?
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In spite of contradicting what I said above, I believe Tracy Emin is a Neanderthal. She certainly looks like one.
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@MMCM
It says on Wikipedia that Neanderthals were a ‘species or subspecies of early humans’. Mmm…
That they are now ‘extinct’.
Do you think they were human?
I can imagine a species of dogs say or a subspecies of the dog….
But a species of human or a subspecies of human I find very difficult to believe in.
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I’m no evolutionary biologist, but “sub-species” sounds like the wrong word. Perhaps better to say a “variety” or “variation”, although it does not sound very scientific. The evidence is that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals interbred, so they don’t sound like a separate species to me.
However, I remember discussing this with a colleague who was a specialist and he said that despite the fact we could interbreed, he regarded them as a separate species that branched of long before. The jury is out, I think.
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Miles
MMCM
They say human evolution is like a tree branching out.
Neanderthals being about at the same time as our ancestors and Denisovans.
That the neanderthal went extinct through our outhunting and superior tool making etc.
Except he didn’t.
He was absorbed through breeding,
We are part neanderthal.
Which explains my liking of stig of the dump as a kid.
I recognise myself.😁
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Sub-species in taxonimic terms pretty much means that two populations are chemically interfertile but genetically, morphologically and presumably behaviourly distinct enough from each other that they are essentially sub species.
This is also reflected in the trinominal nomenclature used by taxonomists:
Genus-Species-Subspecies Identifier.
Denisovans:
Homo Sapiens Denisova (Wise Man of Denisova)
Neanderthals:
Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis (Wise Man of Neanderthal)
Anatomicallly-modern Humans:
Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens (Wise Wise Man)
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I think I read that their brains were too big and the extra metabolic demand required to feed this was in part to blame for their eradication.
However I may have made that up.
That hunter gatherers were capable of art with all the other demands of their existence is a testament to the human spirit.
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Neanderthals had smaller forebrains which are responsible for higher order thinking, problem-solving, articulated speech etc but had larger rear brains which are responsible for bodily maintenance so they were likely fitter and stronger but not sure about the metabolic demands.
As I understand it, Neanderthals were much more robust in physical stature and a larger surface area would be less beneficial in freezing cold conditions.
Due to the periods of glaciation and the subsequent scarcety of resources, competition for those limited resources would have more likely been won by the people who possessed a higher degree of problem-solving skills, cooperation and more advanced language skills.
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Point of order: Stubbs’ horses were often anatomically incorrect; the head and neck gave him trouble. William F Calderon, later, less intoxicated by line than attention to detail, is much less known, but far better.
Less romantic, too. Not many artists tried their hand at a shite day at work, like this one:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/William_Frank_Calderon00.jpg/609px-William_Frank_Calderon00.jpg
He’s nailed those dreary minutes between the sky brightening as the shower moves away and the icy rain actually stopping. Does a fine pissed-off dog, too.
His father was a priest who converted to Anglicanism, btw.
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There seems to be discoveries in parts of Asia and Israel of new species of homo, looks like it was right mixed bag back in the Stone Age
The link provided by RTC, scrolling down there is an artists impression of Benjamin Zephaniah, I never knew he was that old.
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Music to accompany the Nom
https://youtu.be/eEep67akIn4
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You vile racist.
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Yes Ive got confused with the Apeman and the Caveman. I wonder did they ever meet? The Troglodyte looking out of his Cave at the Apeman. ‘Look at those tree swingers over they’ll never amount to anything’.
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Artists are lazy cunts who want grants and sometimes become homicidal dictators.
Seems some of the cunts thought they were Banksy. Art didn’t build civilisation, war and conquest did.
Cunts
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Most real artists are selfish. The art they produce is usuallly personal.
Then there are those who wear the mantle and bamboozle the average idiot for personal gain
The latter are truly cunts of the first order.
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The Ancient Greek’s were of the thinking that mathematics was the purist form of Art
They were also aware of the Arch as a support in construction but chose not to incorporate it in there building preferring lines of symmetry in there complex calculations
Surely that was a advance forward from the caveman
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If Neanderthals at least possessed some form of rudimentary intelligence then how exactly many rungs down the evolutionary ladder is Stormzy?
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Stormzy is the one at the far left of the header picture
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They were just as intelligent as us, and far better connected into the real world
And being hunter gatherers, had an endlessly interesting life as they followed the seasons solving different sets of problems all the time.
Unlike our regimented battery hen lives.
And none of the bullshit overheads eg scribes Pharisees medicine men emperors soldiers (and their modern day equivalents telling them what to do.
I’m thinking atavistic thoughts as I write this
What a life
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If we had The Time Tunnel
We in the present wouldn’t
last a couple of day’s should we go back
Battery living, we are indeed 👍
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The Flintstones got it all wrong didnt they?
I like to think of Fred bashing Barneys skull in and taking Betty by force.
Maybe making her do depraved acts on Wilma?
Hot red cro magnon snatch!!!
👍
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Once they settled in stone houses with stone takeaways cars and various dino powered appliances they had reached a dead end of human enlightenment.
Hence the need for depraved excitement that would make Garry glitter or the Wests blush
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Dead by thirty in pain. All human life was shit until 1950. Louis 14th had only 6 meals to choose from. Queen Victoria shat into a wooden box.
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@ Admins Going by the contents of this nomination, I think it’s been misnamed.
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You don’t have to be Intelligent to be artistic.
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‘yeah I know yeah.’
Andy Pipkin.
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There is an abundance of beautiful artwork produced from the Renaissance until the early 20th century. I’d rather look at anything from that wide period than these modern ‘installations’ like the shark tank, fallen down telephone boxes, elephant dung, toilets and mucky bed.
On the other hand if the Tate want to pay me 50k+ for my ‘Used cat litter box vs full bag of dog poo on a branch’ installation, I’m free next Monday to set it up and write some bollocks for them which will include the word ‘juxtaposition’ and some waffle about humans and their relationship with nature. If its a success I can always follow it up with ‘Battery Chicken’ – an empty hen cage spattered with blood, a few feathers scattered about and a whole egg in the middle of the cage. Maybe an empty egg carton or two will add to the ‘drama’.
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I love Art ologist, I really do sincerely
I saw with my own eyes a Picasso still life of a vase and nothing else in the composition
Everyone else couldn’t get enough of the Guernica in the Madrid modern art house and most missed the Gems
It was exceptional and nobody was in your way
It was only about ten feet behind the que from the triptych that was Guernica
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I doubt anyone will wax lyrical about my ‘Cat Litter vs Dog Poo’.
Actually it is quite something to remember that you’ve been up close to famous art, relics or in historic buildings. On a non-art note, I visited the Titanic Exhibition – they had a giant piece of the hull on display; I touched it!
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I’m sure touching it meant nothing and why should it
You have no connection to the star line and neither has most
Art however is something that touches us all whether we are aware or not
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I love Betjeman’s poetry, and Bernard Buffet’s paintings. The latter appeal to my depressed side. The bloke even managed to make a beautful building look suicidal.
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