gems, archaeology, archaeogemology, anthropology, prehistory, language, Africa

The appearance of cave paintings thirty to forty thousand years ago at the two extremities of the Eurasian continent (Spain/France and Sulawesi/Borneo²) but not in between appears as though it might be the consequence of incomplete data, sampling error, or similar, as may indeed be the case. Yet this is the data available to us (as of late 2019), and we should also consider that it might actually represent the reality of the matter. If so, an explanation would be required. In speculating on this matter, let us first assume that rock-paintings were already being made by our ancestors before they left Africa. This has not been demonstrated, but it seems safer than assuming otherwise. Early groups of our ancestors may have left Africa and migrated north in an effort to learn the “immortalizing secret” of the storks or cranes who would annually leave Africa and then return, seemingly born again, as I have proposed elsewhere.³ On reaching southern Europe or the Middle East, our ancestors would have discovered the disorienting ornithological truth. At that point, our ur-religion, if we may call it such, may have undergone a schism, as have all religions since, with some of our ancestors following the stars to the west and others heading east toward the birthplace of the life-giving Sun.