The mystery bracelet
This bracelet fragment is surpassingly strange, although it may not be clear why on first viewing:
Here’s a reconstruction of what it probably looked like when worn:
Here’s the explanation:
It is intricately made with polished green stone and is thought to have adorned a very important woman or child on only special occasions. Yet this is no modern-day fashion accessory and is instead believed to be the oldest stone bracelet in the world, dating to as long ago as 40,000 years.
Unearthed in the Altai region of Siberia in 2008, after detailed analysis Russian experts now accept its remarkable age as correct…
The bracelet was found inside the famous Denisova Cave, in the Altai Mountains, which is renowned for its palaeontological finds dating back to the Denisovans, who were known as homo altaiensis, an extinct species of humans genetically distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.
Made of chlorite, the bracelet was found in the same layer as the remains of some of the prehistoric people and is thought to belong to them.
What made the discovery especially striking was that the manufacturing technology is more common to a much later period, such as the Neolithic era. Indeed, it is not clear yet how the Denisovans could have made the bracelet with such skill…
The ancient master was skilled in techniques previously considered not characteristic for the Palaeolithic era, such as drilling with an implement, boring tool type rasp, grinding and polishing with a leather and skins of varying degrees of tanning.
Chlorite was not found in the vicinity of the cave and is thought to have come from a distance of at least 200km, showing how valued the material was at the time.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
IMO the point to consider here is that even in such a rudimentary “society,” where there is absolutely no guarantee of food, shelter or life from day to day, energies that could have been used to provide those necessities were turned to creating items of artistic value.
The arts were necessities even at mankind’s early stages of existence. By contrast in our culture the arts are too often seen as ancillary to our lives. Then again, they have become so bastardized and prostituted that perhaps they have become ancillary to lives.
When we visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, I was surprised at the number of objects from the Bronze Age that were for cosmetics and jewelry.
“more things in heaven and earth” than any of us dream of, indeed…
Hunter gatherer tribes producing objets d’art, which would be at home in an agricultural civilization?
Whatever the mystery, it is as T notes, a tribute to the human desire to express the beautiful inherent in human existence. I had not heard of Denisovans before, now I will have to learn more.
All that humans had ever endeavored, created, erected, built, will always be a surprise to many — humans being, to their mind, stupid, benighted, superstitious, etc. Humans have made their way from pond scum to the stars but there’s always some stupid notion to explain the brilliance of the human mind and its capacities. From Eric von Daniken (beneficent space aliens instructed humans) to genetically scripted pan evolutionism, there’s always a reason for human success… other than they were made in God’s image and are, for that reason, creative, loving, and aware, vitally aware, of beauty.
For early figurative craft, see also the Hohle Fels Venus, some 5-10,000 years younger (c. 35,000 – 40,000 yrs ago).
Anybody can, with sufficient practice and a bit of coaching to start, polish things. You just have to know that the last abrasive leaves marks too small to interrupt the light reflection.
What the original article marveled at was the hole. They believe it could only have been drilled on a complicated drill apparatus. This is surmised from the regularity of the hole. IOW, the bit didn’t flop around, shift angles as the guy shifted his grip. So we are to speculate about what a Denisovan drill press looked like. It can be done, if you know what to do–I don’t–but as a practical matter you set up a stable platform and brace the drill so its only possible motion is up and down. No sideways. Then, probably with somebody else using a bow-type of device to impart rotation, off you go. While adding sufficient water to prevent heating and cracking.
No problem at all, as long as the culture has developed this from a fever dream through a hundred different versions to a state where its use is expected. Generation after generation getting to this situation. Interesting picture for a bunch of cave men.
Or you can figure somebody with sufficient coaching has the skill and steadiness to do this free hand.
Which is a different kind of wonder.
I hunt for flint and shale tools and have a small collection. This lead me to learning how to make spear points and arrow heads. Our ancestors were artists.
The vise was likely between the soles of the feet. They’re very “handy” that way, feet.
I have noticed one thing over the years from being a creator and maker of stuff and working with a lot of old timers as a kid is that academics who cant screw in a freaking lightbulb have an aweful habit of claiming ancient people cant do anything and so are constantly surprised when they find one that did.
while their main focus is on tech that has gone around the world, the earlier you get the more isolated the tech. ie. a great invention dies with the local inventor.
however, one thing i have noticed with my family, which is a bit odd, is that we are a family of makers. that many people thought us wealthy… why? cause dad can paint like a rembrandt, a degas, and others…. that is we have works on the wall you wuld think belong in a museum, but dad or i are the makers.
same with lots of other things we have. and when i was younger we reinvented how chainmail eas constructed… so i made a chain mail shirt and coif…
the greater point is that ancients were not stupid… not by a long shot… in fact in many ways, a lot smarter and generally capable than your average academic… i know, as i am the engineer that makes the academic seem like they are able and who doesnt get credit.
the classical example was how many years did they not figure out how to move large stones to make pyramids.. while they could see huge stone slike stone henge be moved to… and because academics who dont build or do much, could not figure out how to do that, they kept coming up with really crazy ideas… like spaceships, or pyramid power
one of the most interesting versions of this that have them still stumped is a bit of work by a man namded edward leedskalnin… yes a latvian… but thats just luck that had me notice..
anyone know of him? do they know about his sweet 16? how about his walk around the US and the eventual building of a huge place by one man out of coral blocks that until recently were too heavy to move by classical equipment…
an eccentric Latvian emigrant to the United States and amateur sculptor who single-handedly built the monument known as Coral Castle in Florida. He was also known for his obscure theories on magnetism.
putting aside his claim that he knew how the pyramids were built and other things… just look at his work..
Over 20 years, Leedskalnin putatively constructed and lived within a massive coral monument he called “Rock Gate Park”, dedicated to the girl who had left him years before. Working alone at night, Leedskalnin eventually quarried and sculpted over 1,100 short tons (997,903 kg) of coral into a monument that would later be known as the Coral Castle. He used various basic tools, several made from timber and parts of an old Ford; first he built a house out of coral and timber, then he gradually built the monuments for which he is famous.
When people asked Leedskalnin how he had moved all of the stone by himself, he refused to give over his method and would only reply to whoever was asking with the same statement: “I understand the laws of weight and leverage and I know the secrets of the people who built the pyramids (being those at the site at Giza in Egypt)
Many of the features and carvings of the castle are notable. Among them are a two-story castle tower that served as Leedskalnin’s living quarters (walls consisting of 8-foot-high pieces of stone); an accurate sundial; a Polaris telescope; an obelisk; a barbecue; a water well; a fountain; celestial stars and planets; and numerous pieces of furniture.
With few exceptions, the objects are made from single pieces of stone that weigh on average 15 short tons (14 t) each. The largest stone weighs 30 short tons (27 t) and the tallest are two monoliths standing 25 ft (7.6 m) each.
now, how does one small man, without help, move a 54,000 lb block, carve it and place it?
this was back between 1920 and 1950…
A 9-short-ton (8.2 t) revolving 8-foot tall gate is a famous structure of the castle The gate is carved so that it fits within a quarter of an inch of the walls. It was well-balanced, reportedly so that a child could open it with the push of a finger. The mystery of the gate’s perfectly balanced axis and the ease with which it revolved lasted for decades until it stopped working in 1986. In order to remove it, six men and a 50-short-ton (45 t) crane were used. Once the gate was removed, the engineers discovered how Leedskalnin had centered and balanced it. He had drilled a hole from top to bottom and inserted a metal shaft. The rock rested on an old truck bearing. It was the rusting out of this bearing that resulted in the gate’s failure to revolve. Complete with new bearings and shaft, it was set back into place on July 23, 1986
this is the part about people academics and others fail to know about… or even consider… its what makes for a bracelet like that, or metal work… before the time…
remember, he did not have heavy building equipment and at the time of his work, there were no cranes or lifts that could move 54,000 lbs on a work site…
by the way… i cut stones… i would show some but neo doesnt put any up or anything… the material that bracelet is made from is not hard to carve…
even jade a hard stone gets carved by ancients using sand and a whole lot of time… and you can polish stones by having them in your pocket and rubbing them with your finger over the course of 50 years or so. modern people have no patience, so modern people are ALWAYS amazed by things that take patience.
they are also amazed more if the patience is combined with an art form that blows the mind away…
i was recently in an art shop looking at some very early jade work from china… the bowl i was holding was made a very long time ago… worth over a million, and was carved from one stone.. feicui..
i could tell you all kinds of things about how things are made and such that are “not in the books”
sdferr
Back in the day, I tried a couple of things like that. Not a big deal, just trying to drill out a piece of lumber.
According the experts, the hole in the bracelet shows absolutely no sign of the shifting of the drill axis, which would be unlikely to be the case even if feet were used. What braces the top end?
If the experts are to be believed about the perfection of the hole, everything was clamped down; drill top and bottom, piece, and locked into…rock? Stuck into clay-ey soil which had been watered and rammed?
Hunter gatherers have a lot of time sometimes, and not so much other times. If you don’t live on the edges which is where the relicts today have been pushed–outback, Kalahari, arctic–you live in pretty fat territory, supposedly. And once you bring down a big animal which will feed folks for a couple of days, there’s no point in hunting more, since you can’t preserve it. Except in winter, I suppose. If there’s a stream nearby and you can spear a couple of ten-pounders every day, there’s no point in spearing twenty. So you do your thing, come back for lunch, lie around or make tools requiring increasing levels of skill.
“Chlorite was not found in the vicinity of the cave and is thought to have come from a distance of at least 200km, showing how valued the material was at the time.”
Or stolen from H sapiens. Them Denisovians are natural born thieves.
I don’t think the drill necessarily skews, is the thing. It’s a very slow drill after all. There’s no need to imagine it’s going fast, so it would be simple to adjust incrementally as it works. Too, the magnified hole doesn’t show a prior guide hole, which can be made with a smaller bit, which also takes the guess work out of the final.
It’s difficult to know what has not survived the ages. And even when certain things are found, there is debate over the dating as well as over whether they are real or not.
For my money, The Lion-man is one of the more interesting and surprising artifacts discovered. As well as the famous, but suspect Cro-Magnon head from Czechoslovakia. Search: “Mammoth Ivory Male head from Dolni Vestonice”
Steatopygous Venus figurines are a dime a dozen; more or less.
I’m not sure what they mean by a shifting of the axis in the case of a piece of stone like that. Presumably they mean that there is little noticeable ovality caused by a tool point wobble, or that the angle of attack remained normal to the surface throughout: since the idea of a drill bit as we know them going off course because the drill is too long to remain rigid given the depth of the hole and (lack of) diameter of the bit, doesn’t make sense here. They would not have any such bit: not even a spoon drill.
The hole was probably just made by repeatedly twisting a flake back and forth over time. Once you got it started, it should be self-guiding. They say not and that the hole was drilled high speed. On what basis lack of chatter or stop and start marks? http://www.donsmaps.com/images26/drillimg_0899.jpg
Of course the cave men could have used a bow drill and fixturing devices like leather throngs, and gum could be used. I guess you could even use a hollow reed as a pilot bushing. If the bit were very much harder than the material, a light touch should give you a pilot hole to work with. Hell they could even make a vise out of two flat stones or a crack in a log wedged out and the let back.
It’s hard to imagine anyone more primitive than Australian Aborigines, but the current view is that 50kya they had to negotiate some open sea even during the ice ages and they have hand drills at least.
And as others here have pointed out, the men who made the bracelet had no obvious deadlines.
The guys commenting on this will probably enjoy the vids available on YouTube on GD&T runout and concentricity.
My first impression is that it is a COLLECTIVE asset — and was used during marriage ceremonies.
The bride would wear the bracelet.
A leather strap would lead off to a captive ring — or perhaps a larger (male) bracelet.
The peak of the ceremony would be when man and wife both were so joined.
The green color was that of the evergreens — and was tree symbolic for ever life.
It’s usage went on for generations — hence the labor investment.
Variations on green worship// a prayer for newborns is embedded into the ancient past.
In the modern day we still think of laurel leaves — the original crowns of deep ancient culture.
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My second take on it is that the shaman would wear the ring and the patient would wear a corresponding ring — leather attached.
And when so joined — the life force of the healer was to transmute to the infirm.
This mythic trope is seen everywhere from Avatar on back into ancient times.
Expressions such as “knock on wood” are legacies of tree idolization… which was taken to the limit with Avatar.
parker Says:
February 18th, 2016 at 4:48 pm
I hunt for flint and shale tools and have a small collection. This lead me to learning how to make spear points and arrow heads. Our ancestors were artists.
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My house lot used to be a knapping sight. I have no end of crude stone tools dug up during gardening operations.
Many show plenty of wear — and that my ‘find’ is their garbage pile. Some look like pre-forms that were abandoned — probably during the 19th Century gold rush.
The site has a fantastic (40-mile) view of the valley below, with shade trees and seasonal running water. So it’s plain as day that it was a routine pit stop during their seasonal hunts.
You can spot them because manipulated stones have unnatural shapes — and the stone type is truly alien — imported from locations hundreds of miles up the valley.
And someone had to walk it up to the top of the hill. There is no other way to explain the strange deposit.
In the Sacramento valley, chert — not flint — was the stone of utility. Think of this chert as red obsidian.
The ancients toted chert pre-forms ALL over the Sacramento valley.
The knapped off flakes litter the ground near the Cashe Creek casino. ( Winters, California ) That chert had to hauled in from quite some distance.
A good friend of mine began his working life as a sixteen year old apprentice machinist in an aircraft factory in Great Britain during WW II. As his first exercise he was given a block of aluminum and a file and told to make a perfect cube with no other tools. It took a while but he did it with some patience and care. As Artful says, people have lost touch with the mechanical arts. There’s not much you can do if you live in an apartment and only have a few hours of the day left after work.
Unfamiliar with chlorite I looks it up on the wiki, which says it’s so soft it can be scratched by a fingernail. In which case, it may be that a sharpened bone would suffice to drill it through 0.9 cm.
Hope that ancient dude got laid for his efforts.
Paul in Boston:
I’ve read similar about file and making a perfect cube in a book by someone who started out as an apprentice at Leitz Wetzlar (AKA Leica) in the 1930s. It was Day 1, Task 1 for anyone setting out to become a Feinmechaniker – and the Germans were (and arguably are still) the best in the world at this.
Our persistent contemporary arrogance is undiminishing:
How could the Denisovians have made that? The source of the chlorite was 200km away?
Naah, no tools, no trade, no travel, no esthetic appreciation. Mere cave dwellers glad to gnaw on something.
We know next to nothing, but think we know everything.
Perhaps it is the influence of the Darwinians…we, great and noble beings, must have evolved from a lesser life form. Darwin said that’s how it works.
Kinch Says:
February 18th, 2016 at 10:11 pm
INRE the cube.
Werner von Braun had to endure the exact same ritual.
Was a report some time back about a pre-Sap–maybe Erectus–base camp someplace in Africa. They used stone available a week’s hike away.
So a week’s hike–with problems of food and predators–was preferable to moving the base camp. Okay, I can see that.
That’s two weeks–plus either digging up or picking up–useful pieces–these guys are gone from the band which has to get by without them. And they’d probably be the best prepared for the hike, which is to say to provide for the band.
And, because they didn’t have the ball point pen they’re dumb?
Look up “Sché¶ningen Spears” for an interesting read.
When I was a kid, with a perhaps out of place interest in prehistory, the conventional wisdom on the Mesolithic and Neolithic was pretty different.
What’s especially fascinating to this layman are the cultures of the Danube, Southern Russia, the Black Sea, and Anatolia.
If we had a clear idea of what Atlantic Europe, Southern Spain, and the area between the Carpathians and the Adriatic looked like in 3,000 BC we would probably be rocked back on our heels.
“Cucuteni-Trypillian culture”
This bracelet reminds me of why I break out laughing when anybody talks about “Global Warming.” Our ancestors survived the Ice Age with stone axes and flint knives and you’re worried about a 2C rise in temperature? Seriously?
Heh. Or [and], it is hypothesized, survived or were bottle-necked to evolve into our genetic forebears by the eruption of the supervolcano Toba c. 75,000 ybp.
Richard Saunders.
Well, there’s indoor plumbing we might have to give up. Or, no, that’s the EMP.
Anybody know what was so bad about the Medieval Warm Period?
Richard Aubrey — the people living in Malibu Colony might have to add another row of blocks to their sea wall — the horror! But they’ll hire illegals to do it, so they won’t have to miss the $40,000 a plate dinner where Obama lectures them about income inequality.
Some might be interested in this … from a couple of angles.
Bayesian computer modeling plus language diffusion assumptions equals historical stuff and nonsense.
https://youtu.be/hrQ_vgfkxNg?t=2