Nelson Mandela University researcher Charles Helm and his colleagues have found an intriguing rock about 30 km (18.6 miles) east of the South African Blombos Cave, which is renowned for its paleoart. The object is unusually symmetrical and is shaped like a stingray (minus the tail). According to the archaeologists, the object may be oldest example of humans creating an image of another creature.
The upper (a) and lower (b) surfaces of the purported sand sculpture from South Africa. Image credit: Helm et al.
“We posit that it represents a sand-sculpture of a blue stingray (Dasyatis chrysonota),” Dr. Helm and co-authors said.
“We believe that the sculpture might have begun with tracing a specimen in the sand.”
“Why do we use words like ‘posit’ and ‘believe,’ rather than being more confident and assertive?”
“Firstly, we cannot prove our interpretation, and others cannot falsify it. It therefore represents speculation — although it is highly informed speculation based on our understanding of many tens of thousands of such rocks.”
“Secondly, ancient paleoart is rare in the archaeological record, and may be harder to recognize than more recent art: we really don’t know how much we don’t know.”
“However, if our interpretation is correct, there are a number of implications,” they added.
“Making sand sculptures or ‘sand castles,’ as many of our children love to do on dunes and beaches today, is an activity that dates back at least to the Middle Stone Age, around 130,000 years ago.”
“This would be the oldest known example of humans creating an image of a creature other than themselves — a form of representational art.”
“Tracing may be a stepping stone to later emergence of representational art in caves.”
According to the team, the stingray ‘sculpture’ dates to the Middle Stone Age, most probably the Marine Isotope Stage 5e (between 124,000 and 119,000 years ago).
“Viewing the rock from behind shows further symmetry as well as evidence of what looks like a tail stub,” the scientists said.
“We find no evidence that the tail portion broke off recently, and speculate that it may have been intentionally ‘amputated’ when the sculpture was created.”
“We contend that either the artist was phenomenally gifted in recording such detail or that the image was traced.”
“If it was traced, the disk width of less than 30 cm (11.8 inches) implies that it was made from a male or small immature female.”
“The notion of tracing is related to both the size of the feature (similar to that of a stingray) and its near-perfect shape.”
“In addition, the multiple levels of symmetry occur not only in the outline of the rock and in areas corresponding to the fins, but also in the pattern engraved on its surface.”
“So, where does our postulated sand sculpture fit into the emergence of art in the ancient record?” they said.
“The magnificent corpus of western European rock art, beginning about 40,000 years ago, seems to emerge abruptly, as if out of nowhere, preceded mostly by abstract symbols from diverse global locations.”
“There is an interval of around 90,000 years between when this purported stingray sand sculpture was created and the emergence of those works of art on the walls of caves in Europe, the most famous of which is France’s Chauvet Cave.”
“The concept of the world’s original art being in sand, and sand thus being the original canvas, provides ample time for these skills to be honed over the intervening millennia.”
“The absence of such art in the archaeological record can simply be attributed to the absence of suitable rocks preserved from the intervening ages.”
“Indeed, ammoglyphs (patterns made in sand by ancestral hominins and now evident in rock) have only been reported from the Cape south coast.”
“This is a reminder of the rarity of ancient paleoart and the reality of taphonomic bias: leather and wood decay faster than bone, which decays faster than rock, and ancient paleoart may have been more common than is suggested by the sparse examples in the archaeological record.”
“Moreover, it reminds us that there are more forms to ancient rock art than engraving and painting or drawing.”
“We suggest, therefore, that tracing in sand might form a possible ‘stepping stone’ between abstract images and images of creatures created ‘from scratch’.”
“A flattish animal such as a stingray would have provided a suitable model for tracing, compared with more three-dimensional varieties.”
“We have tentatively suggested a sequence of progression of representational paleoart from initial tracing in sand, to the creation of images in sand (through copying or from memory), and then to rock art.”
The findings are published in the journal Rock Art Research.
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Charles W. Helm et al. 2024. A purported Pleistocene sand sculpture from South Africa. Rock Art Research 41 (1): 58-73