VISUAL PRESENTATION: Tacon presenting his talk entitled ‘Caves, Cognition, Animals and Artists: An Illustrated Journey Through Time, Space, Rock Art and The Human Mind’ at Dewan Tun Abdul Razak, Sarawak Museum.
KUCHING: An educational talk on human evolution and ancient art by international experts at Sarawak Museum received good response from the public.
The talk which was presented on Wednesday by Professor Paul S.C Tacon and Associate Professor Darren Curnoe was attended by over 60 history enthusiasts at the museum’s Dewan Tun Abdul Razak.
In his talk entitled ‘Caves, Cognition, Animals and Artists: An Illustrated Journey Through Time, Space, Rock Art and The Human Mind’, Tacon presented a highly visual presentation on paintings, drawings, engravings, stencils, prints and rock markings across the globe.
HUMANS WERE ALL FROM AFRICA: Curnoe delivers his talk on ‘The Early Peopling of East and Southeast Asia: An Emerging Story of Complexity in Later Human Evolution’.
According to him, the art of animal depiction was an important part of early hunter-gatherer behaviour which actually developed in Africa rather than Europe.
“The practice was subsequently exported by different waves of modern humans to other parts of the globe.
“This form of depiction was an essential human hunter-gatherer way of transforming natural landscapes into places with human meaning and history,” he explained.
Meanwhile, second speaker Curnoe in his presentation ‘The Early Peopling of East and Southeast Asia: An Emerging Story of Complexity in Later Human Evolution’ revealed that humans were all from Africa.
His talk reviewed discoveries from the past half-decade, with focus on the Red Deer Cave people from Southwest China who might be a very early member of homo- sapiens.