Page 59 - Research & Innovation Report 2020

SCIENCE

fifteen years they have discovered over 300 fossilised vertebrate “A key indication of human cognitive development is self-
tracksites, including four sites with human footprints from the same expression through symbolism such as art, adornment and body
era on the southern Cape coast. painting,” says De Vynck. “Another of our most provocative finds
to date is the ‘stingray’. If our speculation is correct, then this is
The burning question about the triangles and circle is why these the oldest example ever found of a human creating an image
early modern humans would have created geometric drawings. of another creature.” They are currently having all these works
De Vynck and Helm are extremely cautious about interpreting precisely dated at Leicester University in the United Kingdom.
the ‘why’ but venture that hominin appreciation of pattern and
symmetry could have been derived from the natural world around De Vynck explains that pre-1990, modern human culture was
them. Another notion is that the triangle may be a female fertility thought to have developed in Europe some 40 000 years ago, but
symbol. there is far earlier evidence of this on South African shores from the

“If our speculation is correct, then this is
the oldest example ever found of a human

creating an image of another creature.”

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