Another new phase...

26/10/09 - Out with the old and in with the new...

Regular visitors will have noticed that yet again I have changed the web site around (the clue was in the colour of the background), others may have noticed "strange" occurrences whilst I jiggled pages in the transition period... please accept my apologies if these changes caused any inconvenience or confusion and my reassurance that things have settled down now. Going forward I will simply append new material to the end of each of the four pages as and when I produce it. I hope you like the changes, email me and let me know what you think if you get time.

 

Old palaeoart blog

30/06/09 - Blowing hot air...

More hot air this week under the guise of a discovery of Upper Palaeolithic "bone flutes" - again from the Hohl Fels site. Chris Stringer never seems to miss an opportunity to infer from remnants of the past anything that will vaguely support his pet theory - a theory which has been refuted thoroughly by Robert Bednarik in his publication "Mythical Moderns" (2008). Perhaps Chris didn't read the Venus article in Nature properly?

Last paragraph Conard states:

"No diagnostic human remains have been found in these strata27,28.
Although I, as well as many other researchers, assume that the
Aurignacian artworks were made by early modern humans shortly
after their migration into Europe, this assumption can neither be
confirmed nor refuted on the basis of the available skeletal data from the Swabian caves."

In other words it is speculation to suggest that these "artworks" and "musical instruments" were the handy work of Modern Archaic Humans.

Far more interesting are the announcements of primate fossils with the potential to require a review of the "molecular clock" and necessitate more than a little revision of dates and assumptions. Let's see....

 

20/06/09 - Appeals to authority?

I've been busy, not with the web site directly but researching, taking photographs, illustrating, and even attempting to reach out to the priesthood.. oops.. I mean archaeological authorities. I don't know why I waste my time really since I have already demonstrated that the assemblage is cultural and not one of them has been able to refute it to date. Wishy-washy claims that it is natural just don't consitute satisfactory refutation by anyones standards. And then I get accused of making appeals to authority!!!! - the irony of it - not only am I not appealing to subjective views, but actually it is "they" that are appealling to the authority of each other..

The web site is consistently receiving hits from around the world and the UK. Not big numbers, but then Palaeoart is a specialist subject I guess.

28/05/09 - Change is good...

More changes to the lithic industry page based on incisive insight and feedback gratefully received, thanks James Harrod, Alan Day and Ursel Benekendorff.

27/05/09 - Update

I have added a further page focusing on the cultural aspect of the assemblage and demonstrating the falsity of claims that it is the result of "natural processes".

20/05/09 - Venus Envy...

I haven't worked on the web site for months now, and I can clearly see this when I review it now!!!! Still, visitors have continued to trickle in from around the world, and I hope that I have at the very least intrigued a few interested in the subject. I am really keen to hear feedback on the experience, so please do let me know what you think; my email address is palaeoart AT ntlworld.co.uk - replacing the AT appropriately of course.

The announcement of the latest "venus" by Nature as a "prehistoric pin-up" demonstrates incredible naivety from what is supposed to be a prestigious journal but is more likely another bad advert for closed peer review. This is not to mention the "grotesque" remark which clearly belongs in the dark ages from whence it came and anyone remotely informed on the subject of Palaeoart knows. Prof. N. J. Conard's team from the Institute of Prehistory and Protohistory of the University of Tuebingen, Germany, discovered the venus belonging to the Upper Paleolithic and he pieced it together and identified with SEM that it had been made by human agency; something most of us could have deduced at a glance surely? Great what you can do if you have the resource available to plunder.... and here I am just needing to raise a little over a thousand pounds to fund 2 OSL datings... The paper is yet another good example of archaeology failing dismally to add real value to society whilst systematically destroying 80% of the evidence by using a means that is incredibly outdated - excavation. Indeed the publication in this journal could be perceived to be little more than an attempt by proponents of the short-term theory to reinforce the idea that "an artistic awakening" occurred around about 40kya, despite as we know, the massive body of evidence indicating that the cognitive development alluded to was over a much longer period than suggested by mainstream archaeology.

My own interest in Palaeoart and the Palaeolithic was borne from a chance occurrence coupled with a life long and innate interest in "reality" and the perception of it. It is all the more frustrating therefore to contemplate how this perception of reality vis-a-vis our past, is manufactured by an elite club of archaeologists - especially here in the UK.

28/11/08 - Out with the old and in with Oldowan

Another revamp of the web site.

1. Got rid of that drab colour scheme... perfect for the archaeology types maybe, but boring as hell and I don't know quite why I wanted to pander to them anyway.... Like all good art, I borrowed the idea for the colour scheme from another web site.

2. Reduced the number of pages in an attempt to focus attention on the "core" bits of interest.

3. Tried to make things more succinct... correct more of those silly mistakes, poor grammar, and all those other little bugs that creep in when locked away on a computer for too long - with a "load of old rocks".

Condensed, improved, deteriorating? let me know what you think. web site email