The Makapansgat pebble or Makapansgat cobble (

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3,000,000 BP) is a pebble with natural chipping and wear patterns that make it look like a crude rendition of a human face, in fact at least two possible faces. Some scholars argue that it is the oldest known

manuport A manuport is a natural object that has been deliberately taken from its original environment and relocated without further modification. Typically moved by human hand, some manuports are the result of other hominins. Common manuports include stones ...

Description

The Makapansgat pebble is a 260-gram, 8.3 cm long, 7 cm wide, and 3.8 cm thick, reddish-brown

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...

ite

cobble Cobble may refer to: * Cobble (geology), a designation of particle size for sediment or clastic rock * Cobblestone, partially rounded rocks used for road paving * Hammerstone, a prehistoric stone tool * Tyringham Cobble, a nature reserve in Tyr ...

. The pebble was found in 1925 in a dolomite cave in the Makapan Valley north of

Mokopane Mokopane, also known as Potgietersrus, is a town in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The town name was changed to Mokopane in 2003 in honour of a local Ma Nrebele leader, King Mghombane Gheghana , who ruled the area before being conquered ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

by a local school teacher Wilfred Eitzman. Importantly, it was found at 4.8 km/3 miles from the nearest possible natural source (or 32 km/20 miles according to Dart). The site also contained bones of

Australopithecus ''Australopithecus'' (, ; ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genus ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans) emerged within ''Australopithecus'', as sister to e.g. ''Australopi ...

(later this attribution was widened to

australopithecines Australopithecina or Hominina is a subtribe in the tribe Hominini. The members of the subtribe are generally ''Australopithecus'' (cladistically including the genera ''Homo'', '' Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus''), and it typically includ ...

or other early

hominins The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The t ...

). The pebble and all its markings are formed naturally by

geological Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...

processes, no traces of artificial modification have been detected.

Interpretation

Though the pebble is definitely not a manufactured object, it has been suggested that some

hominids The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...

might have recognized it as a symbolic face, in possibly the earliest example of symbolic thinking or aesthetic sense in the human heritage, and brought the pebble back to the cave. This would make it a candidate for the oldest known

. The pebble had been described in literature and featured in the television program ''The Roots of Art'' in November 1967, before it gained new attention in 1974 when

Raymond Dart Raymond Arthur Dart (4 February 1893 – 22 November 1988) was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of ''Australopithecus africanus'', an extinct homi ...

(who had first seen it shortly after it was found) published a new interpretation. While Eitzman had already suggested the pebble was brought to the cave because of the resemblance to a face, Dart recognized other faces when the stone is viewed from different angles. The Makapansgat pebble cannot be seen as

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

if a usual definition of the term is used, as the object was found and not made. Nevertheless, that an australopithecine may have recognized a face would reveal that early hominids had capacity for symbolic thinking, necessary for the development of art and language.

Controversy

Whether early hominids really saw this object as a face, as well as whether they had magical speculations towards this object or just enjoyed the pebble, remains unclear. Factors adding to the uncertainty surrounding the piece is that we do not know exactly where in the cave it was found, nor the hominid species the bones are from, nor whether these bones had been brought into the cave by animal scavengers.

References

External links

Robert G. Bednarik (International Federation of Rock Art Research): "Manuports and very early palaeoart"
{{coord missing, South Africa Prehistoric South Africa Cultural anthropology Archaeological artifacts Archaeology of South Africa Archaeological discoveries in South Africa Pliocene Pliocene Africa 1925 archaeological discoveries Archaeology of Southern Africa Archaeological history of Southern Africa Geofacts

Description

Interpretation

Controversy

See also

References

External links