MP Gallery - Markings, Signs, Graphemes; a) laferrassie60bccm6

Middle Paleolithic symbol making continues the Early Paleolithic tradition of making cupules. Middle Paleolithic examples include:

• Daraki-Chattan, Indragarh, Chambral Valley, India; MP [MP in India generally dated 150,000-40,000 BP]; 498 cupules on cave walls, some in pairs, associated with MP tools
• Auditorium Cave, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India, minimum MP based on micro-erosion [MP in India generally dated 150,000-40,000 BP]; 9 cupules on flat panel on side of Chief's Rock at center of four-directions cross-corridors; Chief's Rock has overall shape of an elephant
• La Ferrassie, France, c. 60,000; 18 cupules on underside of a roughly triangular rock slab over burial 6, Neanderthal child; all except two cupules are arranged in pairs; all cupules of similar size, except of of the two unpaired, which is significantly larger; iterative lines on bone from another burial (Capitan & Peyrony 1921; Marshack 1991)
• Granilpi and Jinmium, Australia, latter first thought to be TL-dated to 75-58,000 BP but OSL minimum dated to before 3,000-6,000 BP; cupules in rows and groups on complexes of panels

The example from La Ferrassie is shown below.

Illustration © Robert Bednarik. Bednarik, R. (1995). Concept-mediated marking in the Lower Paleolithic. Current Anthropology 36,4:605-634; figure 6.