New find destroys Eurocentric origin of abstract thinking
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2026 12:30 pm
European professors always say the first cave paintings were made in Europe, therefore Europe was where humans first started thinking about something other than eating, hunting, f--king, and fighting.
Wrong. More academic Eurocentrism. Even the BBC says so:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx1pnlzer5o
Wrong. More academic Eurocentrism. Even the BBC says so:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx1pnlzer5o
A stencilled outline of a hand found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is the world's oldest known cave painting, researchers say.
[...]
The find also strengthens the argument that our species, Homo sapiens, had reached the wider Australia–New Guinea landmass, known as Sahul, by around 15,000 years earlier than some researchers argue.
Over the past decade, a series of discoveries on Sulawesi has overturned the old idea that art and abstract thinking in our species burst suddenly into life in Ice Age Europe and spread from there.