Literally All Of Europe Can Entirely Suck It

by Mallory Ortberg · October 9, 2014

caveLITERALLY ALL OF EUROPE CAN ENTIRELY SUCK IT:

For decades, the only evidence of ancient cave art was in Spain and southern France. It led some to believe that the creative explosion that led to the art and science we know today began in Europe.

But the discovery of paintings of a similar age in Indonesia shatters this view, according to Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London.

“It is a really important find; it enables us to get away from this Euro-centric view of a creative explosion that was special to Europe and did not develop in other parts of the world until much later,” he said.

The discovery of 40,000-year-old cave paintings at opposite ends of the globe suggests that the ability to create representational art had its origins further back in time in Africa, before modern humans spread across the rest of the world.

1. I hope this starts an enormous ART FIGHT between international art historians that results in the vandalization and theft of multiple significant Neolithic sites

2. I hope this means Werner Herzog has to make a new version of Cave of Forgotten Dreams

3. SUCK IT EUROPE, YOU THINK YOU’RE SO GREAT BUT YOU DIDN’T EVEN INVENT ART AND YOUR DRYERS ARE LAUGHABLY SMALL, YOU CAN BARELY FIT TWO SHIRTS AND A PILLOWCASE INTO YOUR DRYERS SO YOU HAVE TO SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE AND HAVE THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS BY USING BOTH A DRYER AND A CLOTHESLINE FOR THE SAME LOAD OF LAUNDRY

4. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, PROBABLY NONE OF THE SCIENTISTS HANGING OUT AT LASCAUX OR WHEREVER SNOOTILY LAUGHING THEIR FRENCH LAUGHS ABOUT INVENTING HAND STENCILS OR WHATEVER

The artworks are in a rural area on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi.

Until now, paintings this old had been confirmed in caves only in Western Europe.

Oh, so maybe the paintings are like, pretty close in the same age range, maybe it’s not so bad, Western Europe?

“The minimum age for (the outline of the hand) is 39,900 years old, which makes it the oldest hand stencil in the world,” said Dr Aubert.

“Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one,” he told BBC News…

Compare the painting above from Bone with the one immediately below, which is from El Castillo cave in northern Spain, and dated to be 37,300 years old by researchers at Bristol University.

OH DIP WESTERN EUROPE, OH DIPSICLES THAT IS NOT EVEN CLOSE, THAT IS 3000 YEARS OF MORE HAND ART THAT YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE, AND I GUESS I SHOULD SAY WE BECAUSE WHILE I WAS NOT BORN IN WESTERN EUROPE IT PRODUCED MY CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THAT’S WHERE MY PEOPLE ARE FROM, WE CAN ALL SUCK IT BECAUSE WE HAVE SHITTY RECENT BABY DRAWINGS OF WILD BOARS AND WHATNOT AND WE DID NOT INVENT ART, NOT EVEN POINTILLISM I BET

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70 Comments

  1. sarahsaysssoo +60

    i enjoyed this on twitter yesterday and i enjoy it here today even more. i hope art history brawls break out at conferences and we get scandalized reports in art journals and competing articles that cast subtle aspersions on other scholars’ credentials

    1. anon210 +16

      Based on that Wikipedia article: maybe the distinction is that the art discovered in Indonesia has been confirmed as being 39,900 years old, whereas Australian aboriginal art has been estimated as being 40,000 years old? Or maybe it’s just that the Indonesian art is the oldest of its style (hand stenciling).

      1. brigidkeely +12

        Aboriginal art includes hand stenciling and depictions of animals, in addition to unique art forms.

        1. anon210 +6

          But perhaps the discrepancy is that the earliest documented examples of aboriginal hand stenciling are dated later than the hand stencils newly-discovered in Indonesia. The article does say the new find includes the oldest hand stencil in the world.

    2. icebergmama +31

      I was definitely going to mention this, p sure indigenous Oz art is way the fuck older than that

    3. Stellmaria_ +19

      YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU I was so confused reading Mallory’s tweets yesterday because I thought that Australian indigenous art was some of the oldest/oldest in the world, what was this nonsense about Europe, why was it not even mentioned??? Usually I think that Australians (self included) have just got a bit of inferiority complex going on but no, sometimes we are COMPLETELY IGNORED.

    4. clairebm +12

      I had the exact same thought! haha, all the Australian Toasties are getting all huffy about our Indigenous art being overlooked

  4. scullymurphy +66

    Some of the dryers are also washing machines, which means NEITHER function works well. How can a washing machine also be a dryer, I ask you!??

    And those hand prints just slay me – especially the tiny ones.

    1. CleverManka +38

      Dude, for REAL about those dryers. I am unfortunately stuck in the Americas for the rest of my days because of Europe’s ridiculously small household appliances. Don’t even get me started on their refrigerators OH MY GOD.

    2. CaroWR +16

      My boss (who is Irish) purposefully installed one of those in his new condo. Clearly I should have done something else to dissuade him besides saying ‘….oooookay,’ and looking at him askance.

    3. houblonchouffe +3

      IN FAIRNESS, we used the combo washer/dryer at my MIL’s house and it worked fine, probably better than my current set, but that may have more to do with my current set than the combo kit.

    4. wallofillusion +17

      Wait wait, tell me about these washer/dryer combos. Do they, like, automatically start a drying cycle after a washing cycle, or do you have to press an extra button? Because if they prevent the “…crap I was supposed to move laundry from one machine to the other forty minutes ago” moment, I *might* be convinced.

      1. scullymurphy +29

        No, unfortunately they are entirely manual. And they never actually get your clothes dry. So you end up with the combo Mallory mentions of a drying cycle but also having to hang them on the weird wooden racks that hang from pulleys on many European kitchen ceilings.
        I did this for 6 months with a small baby, the being most likely to create lots of dirty clothes. UNFUN.

        2. bookwormV +4

          My parents’ kitchen has a drying rack hanging from the kitchen ceiling. Excellent for when it’s raining and you can’t put the washing outside!

      2. turanga_leela +6

        We had one of these in an apartment we rented in Ireland. We used it once to try and dry our cloths after being caught in the rain. After drying for about 3 hours the cloths were still pretty damp. We looked at the times on the dial and I think it would have taken about 12 hours for a wash/dry cycle. So, pretty much slow and tiny.

        1. daisicles +15

          I don’t think it’s actually possible to fully dry clothes in Ireland. You just sort of forget what non-damp clothes feel like.

          (I had a separate dryer in my flat in Belfast and that sucker still took an eternity to dry a tiny load of clothes. I eventually resigned myself to hanging jeans on the radiator after I pulled them out of the dryer, to give the still-damp denim more time to dry.)

      3. LadyBaneOnMobile +1

        I’ve got a washer/dryer combo in my apartment, but I’m currently living in the US! We got it last year when the owner wanted to test out the machines for use in the laundromat and my roommate wad in the office at the right time! We love it because it means we don’t have to walk five feet to the laundromat and risk getting our clothes stolen (my roommates clothes were stolen at the beginng of last year). Its rather finicky though and it took us a while to figure out the settings enough to get our clothes dry.

    5. TheAntiHumorEquation +20

      Neither works well, and I bet you can’t even start the next load in the washer while the first is in the dryer since THAT IS WHY THEY ARE TWO SEPARATE MACHINES DAMN YOU EUROPE I’M NOT SPENDING THREE HOURS DOING TWO LOADS

    6. Mary +10

      In fairness, we all hate the combined ones too. But there’s nothing wrong with our separate ones! Or with drying things on the line! Don’t your massive ones work on higher temperatures and wear clothes out really quickly or something?

      1. Teka Lynn +3

        Thought it was the other way around, that European dryers have higher temps. I could be wrong.

  5. osutein +130

    Werner Herzog checks the news. He despairs. “Will the world never end its malicious campaign to blight my happiness? First I am bound spiritually to the madman Klaus Kinski, and now this. May I not make one movie in a pleasant place of such little fecund horror as is possible, such as the South of France? Without its entire premise being undermined by some discovery in a remote forest full of vile fornication and murder? Must I be summoned again into a wilderness darker than any madman’s heart? GERTRUDE! Pack my cameras and book me a ticket to Jakarta. No, no, Business Class for God’s sake. A man must seek his comforts where he can in this whirlwind of sordid atrocities.”

    2. raqueue +13

      Real question: will there be albino crocodiles in “Cavd of Forgotten Dreams: the long-awaited sequel”

      1. osutein +39

        I assume Herzog kidnapped one from that zoo in France and now carries it around in his camera bag, so yes.

        1. raqueue +29

          The crocodile will require an airline that has lie-flat business seats so it can stretch out for the entire trip.

      2. Gzortenplatz +5

        If there are no albino crocodiles, it will be a travesty deserving only our derision. In fact, Werner Herzog should be required by law to feature albino crocodiles in every movie he makes henceforward.

    4. mbculver +20

      “A man must seek his comforts where he can in this whirlwind of sordid atrocities.” Truer words, Wernie baby, truer words.

  6. threatqualitypress +50

    HAHAAHA FUCK YOU EUROPE!

    [edit: Oh, dang, sorry, that was excessive. I just got really worked up for a second there, sorry.]

  7. fireblargg +29

    Oh dispsicles indeed. Now there is literally no reason to respect Europe anymore. This was the last thing they had.

  8. Briony_Fields +52

    Dang, those hand outlines are eerie. They look like they could’ve been done yesterday, but those people have been dead for sooooo loooong! *brain explodes*

  9. cosmia +24

    Even before you mentioned Werner Herzog I’d already started reading this in Werner Herzog’s voice.

    1. Abby +1

      I really hope you mean Paul F. Tompkins’s Werner Herzog voice (see Comedy Bang Bang or Doug Loves Movies for some really excellent Werner).

  10. queenofbithynia +189

    those aren’t hand tracings that is a flock of turkeys. don’t art historians know anything about representational art

  11. cosmia +29

    Also guys, if I may put on my “guilty pleasure fiction” hat, may I propose that the result of two series’ of cave paintings across the globe from each other done in roughly the same time period = the redheaded twin witches from Queen of the Damned are real? Anyone? Just me? Okay!

    1. PunnyDreadful +9

      I mean, I attribute all archaeology news to the Witch-Cult Hypothesis already, so this was definitely witches. Those could be hands, or they could be dozens of little horns of tiny little demons. Yes, yes *strokes chin* definitely witches.

      1. threatqualitypress +24

        The hands are from the captured souls of stone-age children who did not eat all of their supper.

      2. Old_Girl +6

        The Witch-Cult Hypothesis immediately made me think of the truly excellent misandry that is the Ur-Witch and Queen of Death and Leopards from Çatalhöyük:

        1. jenavira +5

          QUEEN OF DEATH AND LEOPARDS.

          I spent several hours last week trying to come up with ominous and mysterious titles (shush I’m doing NaNo I had a good reason) and this beats them all.

  14. turanga_leela +15

    Speaking of horrible European driers, my mother-in-law in Croatia has one that is not only small and takes forever to work but the water accumulates in a drawer that you have to empty about 2-3 times before the cloths are dry. She has not used it in years.

    1. brigidkeely +9

      My MIL fled Austria/Serbia (to the USA) when she was 5 & later married a guy from Montenegro. She adamantly refuses to visit his family in Montenegro anymore and I’m pretty sure the laundry facilities are part of it.

  15. projectbeks +9

    This is all so freaking cool. I am just way too excited for coherent sentences. YAYYYYY *muppet flailing* SUCK IT YOU PRETENTIOUS EURO-ART DIRTBAGS
    Ahem.

  16. Chrisbookarama +8

    Those hands freak me out though. Like those people are trapped inside that rock and want out!!!!

  17. projectbeks +8

    I got into UCL by the skin of my teeth, which was made quite clear to me by my advisor right after the start of my first semester. Intense!
    My undergrad wasn’t at UCL, it was in the States, where we all know the Heart of Craziness likes to make its home. The art history courses could be bad, but it was the regular history courses, and even the archaeology courses, that really pushed my buttons. Like, you know it’s bad when someone starts spouting racist garbage in a Native American History course. Thankfully, most of my UCL classmates were a more reasonable folk. Archaeology grad students are hilarious as a general rule, and most of them were all about challenging stereotypes and the status quo, so I consider myself very lucky in that arena. Good classmates are hard to come by sometimes.

  19. bookwormV +23

    Not all of us have laughably small dryers! Some of us have no dryers, thank you very much.

  20. theharpoon +18

    official collective nouns for turkeys according to Wikipedia are apparently a “gang” or a “rafter” which is wonderful

    um this is supposed to be a reply to the comment about representational turkey art

  21. Megano! +3

    Hmmm pretty sure there is cave art in China of people doing it to each other, but the Chinese just don’t really let Westerners study it.

    Oh never mind, they’re petroglyphs

    1. Unreadaethel +12

      It’s sort of a technological-development equivalent to Rule 34: if it exists, it has been used to make porn.

      Also: though to the side, a prone bisexual has an obvious erection.

    2. jenavira +7

      One male seems to have his arm around another while a loner near the bottom seems to be masturbating as a parade of tiny infants streams from his erection. It looks a lot like a frat party.

      I love archaeology writing.

  26. bookwormV

    Yeah, of course! I might not be around straight away (I'm at work from 5 to 7), but I'll have a look when I get home. (Only being a few weeks in, I might not have much useful information, but I will do my best.)

  27. Dave S.

    By way the fuck older do you mean roughly the same dating based on a hazy estimate of when some animals that may or may not be depicted may or may not have gone extinct?

  30. Carrie

    Most of these appear to be left hands, suggesting the artist(s) was right-handed… interesting. I wonder how many are of each hand?