Re: How art invented humanity

On 7/31/2026 5:36 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Jul 2026 23:46:11 -0000 (UTC), Tara <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> 
>> Noah Sombrero <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Fri, 31 Jul 2026 22:23:00 +0000, Creon <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> At Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:52:45 -0000 (UTC), Tara <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In 1940, rumours of secret passageways to an old manor lured four teenage boys
>>>>> into a hole in the ground near the village of Montignac in southwestern
>>>>> France. Instead of a tunnel laden with gold, they found a series of natural
>>>>> chambers bejewelled with exquisite paintings: horses and elk, ibex and bulls,
>>>>> almost perfectly preserved on the limestone walls. Experts examining the
>>>>> Lascaux caves in subsequent years using radiocarbon dating estimated that the
>>>>> paintings had been made some 19,000 years ago. Today, the images are believed
>>>>> to be around 20,000 years old. But Lascaux is far from the oldest example of
>>>>> human art. Since 1940, many other caves have been found in Europe, Australia,
>>>>> Indonesia and Africa containing art no less astounding. Some of it is more
>>>>> than twice the age of the Lascaux murals.
>>>>> Cave painting of prehistoric animals in earthy tones on a textured rock
>>>>> surface.
>>>>>
>>>>> These discoveries have turned the questions of when and why humans invented
>>>>> art into central problems of the human sciences. As fair and poignant as such
>>>>> questions may be, they leave unaddressed the deeper mystery of what art is in
>>>>> the first place, where it comes from in the human soul, and what it might
>>>>> reveal to us about the nature of reality.
>>>>>
>>>>> Popular legend holds that when Pablo Picasso visited the Lascaux cave a few
>>>>> years after its discovery, he emerged exclaiming: ?We have invented nothing? ?
>>>>> art had appeared full-grown from its earliest instance. The common
>>>>> interpretation is that Picasso was humbly attributing the invention of art to
>>>>> our prehistoric ancestors rather than claiming it for himself and his
>>>>> contemporaries, or any human of the modern age. But perhaps this apocryphal
>>>>> story conveys a weirder truth, namely that no one really invented art.
>>>>> Instead, it was the other way around: art invented humanity..........
>>>>>
>>>>> Art has never been a celebration of humanity, but always an exploration of
>>>>> those borderlands where the human ends and something else begins. This applies
>>>>> even to art dealing with seemingly human ideas, feelings and things. Only
>>>>> through art can a city become a jungle, a house an alien structure, a sadness
>>>>> a kind of weather event....................
>>>>>
>>>>> https://aeon.co/essays/humans-did-not-invent-art-it-was-the-other-way-around?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=48f001c5bc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_07_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-49ad69cbc2-71577312
>>>>
>>>> Which brings to mind a question I've seen before...
>>>>
>>>> Which came first:  music, or speech?
>>>
>>> There is a peculiar form of singing among indigenous inuit.  I can't
>>> think of what they call it now.
>>
>> Throat singing
> 
> That's it.
 >
The very first sound made by man was a whistle to call his dog. The 
first utterance by man probably came during the hunt with his dog:

"Git!" - followed by "Good boy!"