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Whether early hominids really saw this object as a face, as well as whether they had magical speculations towards this object or just enjoyed the pebble, remains unclear. Factors adding to the uncertainty surrounding the piece is that we do not know exactly where in the cave it was found, nor the
121:(who had first seen it shortly after it was found) published a new interpretation. While Eitzman had already suggested the pebble was brought to the cave because of the resemblance to a face, Dart recognized other faces when the stone is viewed from different angles.
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might have recognized it as a symbolic face, in possibly the earliest example of symbolic thinking or aesthetic sense in the human heritage, and brought the pebble back to the cave. This would make it a candidate for the oldest known
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and not made. Nevertheless, that an australopithecine may have recognized a face would reveal that early hominids had capacity for symbolic thinking, necessary for the development of art and language.
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by a local school teacher
Wilfred Eitzman. Importantly, it was found at 4.8 km/3 miles from the nearest possible natural source (or 32 km/20 miles according to Dart). The site also contained bones of
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hominid species the bones are from, nor whether these bones had been brought into the cave by animal scavengers.
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Robert G. Bednarik (International
Federation of Rock Art Research): "Manuports and very early palaeoart"
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The
Makapansgat pebble is a 260-gram, 8.3 cm long, 7 cm wide, and 3.8 cm thick, reddish-brown
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Though the pebble is definitely not a manufactured object, it has been suggested that some
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484:"The invisible frontier. A multiple species model for the origin of behavioral modernity"
437:"The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior"
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The pebble had been described in literature and featured in the television program
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191:"The waterworn Australopithecine Pebble of many faces from Makapansgat"
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267:"Reminiscences of Makapansgat limeworks and its bone-breccial layers"
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processes; no traces of artificial modification have been detected.
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221:"The 'Australopithecine' Cobble from Makapansgat, South Africa"
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in
November 1967, before it gained new attention in 1974 when
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if a usual definition of the term is used, as the object was
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The pebble and all its markings are formed naturally by
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The pebble was found in 1925 in a dolomite cave in the
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Don
Hitchcock (Don's Maps): "The Makapansgat pebble"
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435:Mcbrearty, Sally; Brooks, Alison S. (2000-11-01).
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377:Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History
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543:James B. Harrod (OriginsNet): "Makapansgat"
295:"Emergence of higher thought 3.0-0.2 Ma BP"
580:Archaeological discoveries in South Africa
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605:Archaeological history of Southern Africa
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124:The Makapansgat pebble cannot be seen as
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225:South African Archaeological Bulletin
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342:"Pleistocene Palaeoart of Africa"
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271:South African Journal of Science
195:South African Journal of Science
595:1925 archaeological discoveries
600:Archaeology of Southern Africa
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482:d'Errico, Francesco (2003).
340:Bednarik, Robert G. (2013).
299:Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B
265:Eitzman, Wilfred I. (1958).
219:Bednarik, Robert G. (1998).
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575:Archaeology of South Africa
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441:Journal of Human Evolution
373:Kleiner, Fred S. (2011).
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570:Archaeological artifacts
560:Prehistoric South Africa
453:10.1006/jhev.2000.0435
319:10.1098/rstb.1981.0029
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565:Cultural anthropology
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161:Venus of Berekhat Ram
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80:australopithecines
30:Makapansgat cobble
26:Makapansgat pebble
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136:Controversy
48:Description
554:Categories
167:References
91:geological
36:3,000,000
508:1520-6505
461:0047-2484
66:north of
54:jasperite
610:Geofacts
585:Pliocene
469:11102266
412:Cave art
327:84923046
145:See also
108:manuport
103:hominids
84:hominins
68:Mokopane
42:manuport
516:1904963
307:Bibcode
245:3889256
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57:cobble
512:S2CID
323:S2CID
241:JSTOR
130:found
504:ISSN
465:PMID
457:ISSN
416:ISBN
391:ISBN
346:Arts
277:(7).
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24:The
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
