Rob van Kan🔻
Yesterday in the National Museum in Reggio Calabria I found myself wondering how a people from 7500-8000 years ago came up with geometric shapes to decorate their earthenware with. @mrundkvist
Apr 7 at 10:43amMastodon for Android
Show threadMartin Rundkvist18h ago

@edgeofeurope

My guess is that there is no way to find out. And by find out I mean propose an interpretation that everyone accepts and which is then never successfully challenged.

One of my core tenets as an prehistorian is "Assume that it's unknowable until you're forced to abandon that idea". I am not a friend of untethered speculation.

Show threadMetin Seven 🎨17h ago
@mrundkvist @edgeofeurope My guess would be that simplification of shapes automatically happened once humans wanted to depict things. And some shapes are already elementary, like the sun and a crescent moon.