R G Bednarik
Biographic Data
| ID | 25184 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R G Bednarik |
| GIVEN NAMES | R G |
| FAMILY NAME | Bednarik |
| SIGNATURE | BEDNARIK R G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebei Normal University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6388-0725 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 123 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 662 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 123 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Shamanism and Brain Illness in Rock Art Production
Among the many generic explanations offered over the past two centuries for rock art production, those involving several brain illnesses and shamanism are selected for detailed analysis. These proposals are reviewed in light of the aetiologies of the psychiatric conditions linked to rock art. Some are related to the assumption that palaeoart was introduced through shamanism. Although no simplistic link between shamanism and brain disorders has be…
Hominin musical sound production: Palaeoecological Contexts and Self Domestication
In this article we seek to integrate theories of music origins and dance with hominin fossil anatomy and the paleoecological contexts of hominin evolution. Based on the association between rhythm in music, dance and locomotion, we propose that early bipedal hominins may have evolved neurobiological substrates different from other great apes due to the rhythmic aspects of bipedal walking and running. Combined with the emancipation of the hands res…
The hand and footprints at Qiusang in Tibet: Recommendations for dating rock art by U–Th
About the Origins of the Human Ability to Create Constructs of Reality
An etiology of human modernity
Following the refutation of the replacement hypothesis, which had proposed that a ‘superior’ hominin species arose in Africa and replaced all other humans existing at the time, the auto-domestication hypothesis remains the only viable explanation for the relatively abrupt change from robust to gracile humans in the Late Pleistocene. It invokes the incidental institution of the domestication syndrome in humans, most probably by newly introduced cu…
Direct Dating of Chinese Immovable Cultural Heritage
The most extensive corpus of ancient immovable cultural heritage is that of global rock art. Estimating its age has traditionally been challenging, rendering it difficult to integrate archaeological evidence of early cultural traditions. The dating of Chinese rock art by ‘direct methods’ began in the late 1990s in Qinghai Province. Since then, China has acquired the largest body of direct dating information about the rock art of any country. The …
Rock art dating by 230Th/234U analysis: An appraisal of Chinese case studies
Australian Paleoart
Rock art of Heilongjiang Province, China
First Pleistocene rock art found in central Europe
Ekkehart Malotki and Ellen Dissanayake. Early Rock Art of the American West: The Geometric Enigma
Article Ekkehart Malotki and Ellen Dissanayake. Early Rock Art of the American West: The Geometric Enigma was published on December 1, 2019 in the journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture (volume 3, issue 1)
Daraki-Chattan Rock Art Constrained Osl Chronology and Multianalytical Techniques: A First Pilot Investigation
Paleoart Studies: Scientific Methods
Equine petroglyphs in Europe
Aniconism and the origins of palaeoart
Contrary to the widely held belief that iconic palaeoart precedes aniconic during the early history of humans, palaeoart commenced as non-iconic forms, and in most parts of the world then settled by hominins continued as such during the Pleistocene. The forms, development and global distribution of such palaeoart are presented within the framework of hominin evolution. Attention is given to the question of the continuation of aniconism after the …
The Earliest Known Logboats of China: Notes
The Science of Cupules: The science of cupules
As the apparently simplest of all petroglyphs, cupules are shown to be scientifically and culturally very complex phenomena. Despite being the most common motif in rock art, their meaning or purpose remains largely unknown. This paper explores their physical and production properties, including their technology, taphonomy, morphology, biomechanics and energy investment involved, leading to the formulation of the production coefficient. The variou…
The Significance of the Earliest Beads
This paper attempts to explore beyond the predictable and banal archaeological explanations relating to early beads and pendants. It recounts replication experiments to establish aspects of technology so as to better understand what can be learnt from the quantifiable properties of these artifacts. The article also scrutinizes the available empirical record in the light of taphonomic logic to translate the known spatial and temporal distributions…
The Beginnings of Maritime Travel
Navigation of the sea is shown to have commenced in the order of one million years ago. The earliest evidence for it appears to be that available from Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, but seafarers colonized also numerous other islands and one continent during the Pleistocene. These early technological feats of hominins provide a reliable measure of their technological limits, and indirectly about their cognitive faculties as well. To explore these aspe…
Pleistocene Palaeoart of the Americas
In contrast to the great time depth of Pleistocene rock art and mobiliary ‘art’ in the four other continents, the available evidence from the Americas is very limited, and restricted at best to the last part of the final Pleistocene. A review of what has so far become available is hampered by a considerable burden of literature presenting material contended to be of the Ice Age, even of the Mesozoic in some cases, that needs to be sifted through …
Pleistocene Paleoart of Australia
Pleistocene rock art is abundant in Australia, but has so far received only limited attention. Instead there has been a trend, begun over a century ago, to search for presumed depictions of extinct megafauna and the tracks of such species. All these notions have been discredited, however, and the current evidence suggests that figurative depiction was introduced only during the Holocene, never reaching Tasmania. Nevertheless, some Australian rock…
Pleistocene Paleoart of Europe
As in Australia, Pleistocene rock art is relatively abundant in Europe, but it has so far received much more attention than the combined Ice Age paleoart of the rest of the world. Since archaeology initially rejected its authenticity for several decades, the cave art of France and Spain and the portable paleoart from various regions of Europe have been the subjects of thousands of studies. It is shown, however, that much of the published informat…
Doing with less: Hominin brain atrophy
From Human Past to Human Future
This paper begins with a refutation of the orthodox model of final Pleistocene human evolution, presenting an alternative, better supported account of this crucial phase. According to this version, the transition from robust to gracile humans during that period is attributable to selective breeding rather than natural selection, rendered possible by the exponential rise of culturally guided volitional choices. The rapid human neotenization coinci…
Typological Context of the Lower Palaeolithic Lithics from Daraki‐Chattan Cave (India)
In addition to housing some of the oldest known rock art in the world, Daraki‐Chattan is also an important Palaeolithic site because it is one of the very few Indian locations where Mode 1 (pre‐Acheulian) occupation evidence has been excavated in a stratified context. Overlain by a typical Acheulian with hand-axes, this deposit has yielded very simple, Oldowan-like stone artefacts made mostly of the local quartzite. This very early cupule site is…
The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art [and Comments and Reply]
Concept-Mediated Marking in the Lower Palaeolithic
The Dating of Rock Art: A Critique
A Figurine from the African Acheulian
Palaeoart and Archaeological Myths
This article addresses the question of human symbolic behaviour in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. Bednarik argues that the case against such early symbolic behaviour usually relies on untestable propositions about the stages of human cognitive development, and that too little attention has been paid to the full range of evidence for Lower and Middle Palaeolithic symbolism. He urges that the same criteria should be applied in assessing this ev…
The Côa petroglyphs: An obituary to the stylistic dating of Palaeolithic rock-art
The Côa petroglyphs, seen in the established framework of rock-art studies, belong in the corpus of west European parietal art of late Pleistocene age, as found in scores of caves and some open-air locations. One of the four researchers who this summer studied the age of the figures using 'modern rock-art science' summarizes the group's' conclusions, and states how they kill off the stylistic dating of Palaeolithic rock-art
The Pleistocene art of Asia
The 'Australopithecine' Cobble from Makapansgat, South Africa
The Mythical Moderns
Pleistocene Palaeoart of Africa
This comprehensive review of all currently known Pleistocene rock art of Africa shows that the majority of sites are located in the continent’s south, but that the petroglyphs at some of them are of exceptionally great antiquity. Much the same applies to portable palaeoart of Africa. The current record is clearly one of paucity of evidence, in contrast to some other continents. Nevertheless, an initial synthesis is attempted, and some preliminary…
Middle Pleistocene Beads and Symbolism
Anthropos , Seite 537 - 552
On Neuropsychology and Shamanism in Rock Art
A taphonomy of palaeoart
As one digs back through the archaeological record, art and other evidence of symbolic behaviour becomes scarcer, so it is much disputed just when human marking behaviour and human language began. Is the fading away a real fact of prehistory, or a distorting effect of selective survival
Pleistocene Palaeoart of Asia
This comprehensive overview considers the currently known Pleistocene palaeoart of Asia on a common basis, which suggests that the available data are entirely inadequate to form any cohesive synthesis about this corpus. In comparison to the attention lavished on the corresponding record available from Eurasia’s small western appendage, Europe, it is evident that Pleistocene palaeoart from the rest of the world has been severely neglected. Souther…
An experiment in Pleistocene seafaring
Seafaring in the Pleistocene
Archaeological data from Wallacea (Indonesia) and elsewhere are summarized to show that the history of seafaring begins in the Early Pleistocene, and that this human capability eventually led to Middle Palaeolithic ocean crossings in the general region of Australia. To understand better the technological magnitude of these many maritime accomplishments, a series of replicative experiments are described, and the theoretical conditions of these exp…
Pleistocene Paleoart of Europe
As in Australia, Pleistocene rock art is relatively abundant in Europe, but it has so far received much more attention than the combined Ice Age paleoart of the rest of the world. Since archaeology initially rejected its authenticity for several decades, the cave art of France and Spain and the portable paleoart from various regions of Europe have been the subjects of thousands of studies. It is shown, however, that much of the published informat…
The Human Condition
Doing with less: Hominin brain atrophy
The earliest evidence of ocean navigation
European Palaeolithic Art ‐ Typical or Exceptional
The recent discovery of the first Palaeolithic art object from China is discussed in the context of relevant Chinese and other Asian evidence, and considered within the framework of current models of very early art evolution as they pertain to Eurasia. It appears that these are biased in favour of selective evidence from western Europe, by ignoring that in most regions where Pleistocene art exists it is largely, if not entirely, non‐figurative. I…
A New Method to Date Petroglyphs
A new calibrated method based on erosion phenomena is presented for the dating of petroglyphs (rock carvings and engravings) and geomorphic surfaces. In contrast to previous methods of petroglyph dating, which sought to determine the age of various mineral and organic deposits coating the art, microerosion analysis attempts to ascertain the time of mark production itself, by creating a geomorphologically based time frame. The method involves the …
Daraki-Chattan Rock Art Constrained Osl Chronology and Multianalytical Techniques: A First Pilot Investigation
On the Pleistocene settlement of South America
Australia and the Americas provide the two case-studies of the late human settlement of a continent by, it seems, Homo sapiens sapiens. At one time the corollaries of first occupation of the Americas, at perhaps 12,000 b.p., were a similarly late settlement of Australia and the need for a land-bridge across the Bering Straits. But now the pattern of occupation in New Guinea and its offshore islands proves that a long sea-crossing was made there b…
Rock art dating by 230Th/234U analysis: An appraisal of Chinese case studies
Debitage
Debitage
The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art [and Comments and Reply]
The First Aura Congress
Perspectives of Koongine Cave and Scientistic Archaeology
Frankel's (1986) paper in this journal reports some preliminary results of his archaeological investigation of caves in the lower southeast of South Australia. His project is a major, long-term endeavour to examine the regional prehistory, date the recently discovered cave art, and investigate chert sources, stone-working techniques and economic systems of the area. Such a comprehensive study is long overdue in a region that possesses the largest…
On the Pleistocene settlement of South America
Australia and the Americas provide the two case-studies of the late human settlement of a continent by, it seems, Homo sapiens sapiens. At one time the corollaries of first occupation of the Americas, at perhaps 12,000 b.p., were a similarly late settlement of Australia and the need for a land-bridge across the Bering Straits. But now the pattern of occupation in New Guinea and its offshore islands proves that a long sea-crossing was made there b…
On Neuropsychology and Shamanism in Rock Art
The Stuff Legends in Archaeology are Made of: A Reply to Critics
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A New Method to Date Petroglyphs
A new calibrated method based on erosion phenomena is presented for the dating of petroglyphs (rock carvings and engravings) and geomorphic surfaces. In contrast to previous methods of petroglyph dating, which sought to determine the age of various mineral and organic deposits coating the art, microerosion analysis attempts to ascertain the time of mark production itself, by creating a geomorphologically based time frame. The method involves the …
Palaeoart and Archaeological Myths
This article addresses the question of human symbolic behaviour in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. Bednarik argues that the case against such early symbolic behaviour usually relies on untestable propositions about the stages of human cognitive development, and that too little attention has been paid to the full range of evidence for Lower and Middle Palaeolithic symbolism. He urges that the same criteria should be applied in assessing this ev…
Geoarchaeological dating of petroglyphs at lake Onega, Russia
This article introduces a new quantitative method of dating petroglyphs and describes its initial application. First, the major recent developments in the field of rock art dating are briefly reviewed, and the continuing difficulties in the dating of petroglyphs are elucidated. The archaeological background of the Lake Onega art, its geological setting and archaeogeophysical dating are explained. The theory of microerosion dating is described, to…
Debitage
About Palaeolithic ostrich eggshell in India
European Palaeolithic Art ‐ Typical or Exceptional
The recent discovery of the first Palaeolithic art object from China is discussed in the context of relevant Chinese and other Asian evidence, and considered within the framework of current models of very early art evolution as they pertain to Eurasia. It appears that these are biased in favour of selective evidence from western Europe, by ignoring that in most regions where Pleistocene art exists it is largely, if not entirely, non‐figurative. I…
The oldest art in the world
Despite the fact that nearly all the rock art of the worId remains undated, and that not even an approximate estimation of antiquity has been established for many major corpora of rock art, claims to have located or dated the oldest rock art in the worId have been made in respect of every continent except North America and Antarctica. Admittedly, the notion that northeast Brazilian paintings may date from before 32,000 years BP (GUIDON and DELIBR…
Some Deontological Home Truths In Archaeology
The epistemic and deontological merits of adopting the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) code of ethics in the Australian Archaeological Association (AAA) are discussed
Archaeology: Empiricist Determinism or Cultural Synthesis
On the scientific study of palaeoart
L'auteur etudie quelques aspects des methodes archeologiques en prehistoire, qu'il considere en declin, les relations entre ces methodes et celles employees lors des analyses de l'art prehistorique, et la maniere dont de recents developpements de la recherche ont pu influer sur une «archeologie cognitive». Il explique ensuite comment cette derniere peut survivre a la crise epistemologique de l'archeologie, et ainsi subvenir a une etude scientifiq…
The Pleistocene art of Asia
A taphonomy of palaeoart
As one digs back through the archaeological record, art and other evidence of symbolic behaviour becomes scarcer, so it is much disputed just when human marking behaviour and human language began. Is the fading away a real fact of prehistory, or a distorting effect of selective survival
Rock art conservation in the upper Lena basin, Siberia
The measures employed in a current Siberian rock art conservation project are briefly described; and preliminary results are examined. The future development of the project is considered, and specific noninterventionist methods are suggested in an effort to contain contamination of the rock art, and so to avoid the destruction of its remaining research potential. The main site among the series of sites being discussed has suffered extensive damag…
Metamorphology: In Lieu of Uniformitarianism
Since the advent of the discipline of archaeology, its underlying theory has been a particular brand of uniformitarianism: the idea that existing forces and patterns have applied uniformly in the past. This paper proposes the introduction of an alternative unified theory, one that lends itself to falsification and logical quantification. Metamorphology is explained by first reviewing the principles of taphonomic logic, and by then extrapolating t…
The Côa petroglyphs: An obituary to the stylistic dating of Palaeolithic rock-art
The Côa petroglyphs, seen in the established framework of rock-art studies, belong in the corpus of west European parietal art of late Pleistocene age, as found in scores of caves and some open-air locations. One of the four researchers who this summer studied the age of the figures using 'modern rock-art science' summarizes the group's' conclusions, and states how they kill off the stylistic dating of Palaeolithic rock-art
Concept-Mediated Marking in the Lower Palaeolithic
Only Time Will Tell: A Review of the Methodology of Direct Rock Art Dating
Epistemology has not kept pace with the progress experienced in the direct dating of rock art. This paper reviews the experimental methods that have been developed in recent years. While many do provide important information about the possible age of rock art, it is of concern that the precipitate archaeological interpretations these data are used for are often not warranted. Some are attributable to not understanding the severe qualifications th…
Archaeology (85 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (81 works) · History (67 works) · Geography (65 works) · History (46 works) · Geology (42 works) · Rock art (37 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (36 works) · Pleistocene (34 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (33 works)