5. The Lascaux Cave
A vast cave complex in southwestern France, Lascaux is best known for its many Paleolithic cave paintings. The Lascaux Cave was discovered by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas on September 12, 1940. There are nearly 2000 figures of animals, humans and abstract signs inside the cave. The animals that were painted include stags, cattle, bisons, felines, a bird, a rhinoceros and a bear. Lascaux doesn’t seem to have been occupied but rather visited periodically just for the purposes of painting. In 1948 Lascaux was opened to the public but the amount of daily visitors to the cave were changing the atmosphere inside the cave so it was closed in 1963 and 20 years later an exact replica, Lascaux II was opened. Today the cave is under attack by a series of molds, fungi and bacteria threatening to erase this priceless work of Prehistoric art.
Importance
The Lascaux Cave is not only the largest Prehistoric cave in France, but the most well preserved. One of the paintings called “The Crossed Bison” shows the skill of the cave painters to capture realism. The ability to use perspective was not used again until the 15th century. From these paintings we can also determine what type of animals were available and important to the painters.
4. Peking Man
Peking Man or Beijing Man was a previously unknown type of Prehistoric man discovered by Canadian anatomist Davidson Black in a cave at Zhoukoudian, China in 1927. Between then and 1937, 14 partial craniums, 11 lower jaws, many teeth, and skeletal bones were found at the site. It is believed that the cave was home to about 45 individuals. From extensive studies of the remains made by Black and his
predecessor German anatomist Franz Weidenreich, we know that Peking Man stood erect, made stone tools, understood how to use fire, had a heavy brow ridge and large teeth. In 1941, while being shipped to the United States for safety during World War II, the original fossils disappeared and have yet to be found. However, casts and descriptions remain and since the end of the war, other Peking Man fossils have been found at the site and at other sites throughout China.
Importance
Before Black had uncovered Peking Man, many scholars believed that the remains of Java Man were actually the remains of a deformed ape. The finding of tool usage and fire at Zhoukoudian proved that both Java Man and Peking Man were members of the same broad stage of human evolution and thus filled out the edges of our evolutionary picture.
3. The Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a black basalt stela (an ancient upright stone slab bearing markings) that dates back to 196 BC. An Egyptian decree honoring King Ptolemy V is carved into the stone in Greek, Demotic Egyptian and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The stone would have originally been displayed in a temple and was later moved and used as building material in a fort at the village of Rashid (Rosetta). It was discovered there by Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard on July 15, 1799, during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. Attempts to decipher it were first made by Thomas Young, who translated the Demotic text, and by French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion who is generally known as the translator of the Rosetta Stone. Champollion used the Coptic language to realize that hieroglyphs served as a spoken language and not just symbols.
Importance
The discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the realization that it is the same passage written in three languages allowed scholars to get a glimpse into a civilization that for a long time had been a mystery to scholars. Egyptologists have been able to figure out the entire Ancient Egyptian language from its inscriptions.
2. The Behistun Rock
Discovered by Englishman Robert Sherley in 1598 while on a diplomatic mission to Persia, the Behistun Rock is a multilingual inscription authored by Darius the Great. The inscription begins with Darius’ autobiography and goes on to describe several events following the deaths of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II. Much like the Rosetta Stone, the Behistun Rock includes the same passage in three cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. The text was translated in stages by Georg Friedrich Grotefend (Old Persian), Sir Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, Julius Oppert, William Henry Fox Talbot and Edwin Norris.
Importance
Not only does the inscription give us a look into the mind of Darius the Great, but it was also instrumental in opening up the cuneiform script. Archeologists gained a greater understanding of civilizations like Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Akkadia, Persia and Assyria by being able to decipher cuneiform.
1. The Olduvai Gorge
An Ancient lake basin in northern Tanzania, the Olduvai Gorge has yielded the remains of more than 60 hominids as well as the two earliest stone tool traditions ever found (Oldowan and Acheulian). The gorge was discovered by German entomologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel in 1911 when he fell into it while chasing a butterfly. This inspired Hans Reck to lead an expedition there in 1913 but his work was ended by World War I. Excavations of Olduvai began in 1931 by Lois Leakey and his wife Mary. Three separate species of hominids have been found at Olduvai over the years, including Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Animal remains have also been found at the site including large antelopes, elephants, hares, guinea fowl, giraffes and hipparions (extinct three-toed horses).
Importance
The Olduvai Gorge contains the longest sequences of cultural remains ever found and the discoveries there have strengthened the argument that the origins of humanity are in Africa. These finds also give us an insight into how these hominids lived. For example, Mary Leakey found hominid footprints in 1975, which proved that they walked on two feet- one of the greatest paleoanthropological discoveries of the past century.
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