Five years ago I published a comprehensive study of potential Oldowan art, both graphic and figurative. Article Palaeoart at Two Million Years Ago? A Review of the Evidence (2014)
I'm an elder now, and before my time comes, I'd love to see someone do a decent examination of these objects. In my published paper I treated them all as 'putative', in order to get through peer-review. Personally, I find Mary Leakey's description and interpretation of the Pecked Cobble acceptable -- both graphic markings and possible overall figurative representation; also the grapheme (dot/meandering line) on another Olduvai artifact. I myself paid a student under Fidelis Masao, Univ of Tanzania, to pull all the drawers and photograph relevant artifacts. The two just mentioned artifacts were missing. This would require some detective work, travel to Nairobi Museum search, etc., talk to surviving Leakey's. Where the hell are those two artifacts, photographed at end of Leakey's Olduvai Gorge volume? The student did photograph from same site storage tray as Pecked Cobble a second worked stone with a stunning somewhat similar shape. This has never been reported by anyone. Microscopic re-examination of these artifacts could be a major contribution to evolution of culture theory, origins of art and paleoanthropology.
Are there any volunteers for such a project?
Personally, I’m finding it helps to live with samples, to learn of their nature, not simply make photographs of them and number them. That is intuition, leading to questions posed. We are posers of questions. I like the invitation. (And maybe I’m just too green to be afraid of skepticism.)
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