Origins of Creativity
There is a mighty chasm between perceptions of our species’ origins (and the origins of our ancient predecessors) and the observed data. The Origins of Creativity interview series questions distinguished practitioners in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and philosophy—among others—about what our ancestors were capable of, how they lived, what they made, and how they used those things. This series by long-time contributor Will Corwin seeks to explore how and why we became the creative and artistic species we are today. Once we peer through the veil of assumptions specific to our time and culture, we may begin to answer a series of questions. What was the purpose of cave painting? Did artistic activity serve an evolutionary purpose? When did our ancestors begin to converse in articulate language?
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Karen Holmberg: Archaeology in an Emergency
In Part Two of this two-part conversation, Karen Holmberg discusses the seemingly intractable problem of convincing people that they are in danger, or helping them to see that the world is changing around them and encouraging them to mitigate, or prepare for, those changes.
Karen Holmberg: Archaeology in an Emergency
In Part One of this two-part conversation, Will Corwin and Karen Holmberg discuss her fascination with volcanoes, her discovery of mysterious “spider vulva” petroglyphs, and consider whether these images can still speak to us.
Yohannes Haile-Selassie: Ancient & Unexpected Neighbors
The conversation touches on the evolutionary uses of creativity, raising problematic questions about why we are creative: is it only to get ahead and create more viable offspring, or is there something more?
We Were Creative Before We Were Human
Freshly back from excavating in the Afar desert of northeast Ethiopia, Yonas Beyene PhD sat down in his Addis Ababa office to discuss the origins of human creativity.
Gender and Artistic Practice in the Ice Age
Keeper of antiquities and curator of the blockbuster 2013 exhibition “Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind,” Jill Cook explains the idea of spiritual landscapes, the surreal continuity between ancient and modern artistic practice, and gender equality in the Paleolithic.
Colin Renfrew: Where Are We Going?
An archaeologist at the University of Cambridge known to ask big-picture questions, such as “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we going?,” answers some of ours.