The Missing Link : What if "The Road" continues with "Cave of Forgotten Dreams."

Repost from IO.1 / Wednesday, September 15, 2010


Three weeks ago I saw The Road, a movie that pushed me to the edge of my emotional state of being. That's because prior to watch this movie I've had so many conversations with my friends about how we should react in case of disaster, when your ultimate goal in life is to survive...years, months, days, seconds .



wikiPLOT

The Road shares the premise of the novel on which it is based: a father (Mortensen) and his young son (Smit-McPhee) struggle to survive a number of years after an unspecified, devastating cataclysm has destroyed civilization, killed all plant and animal life, and obscured the sun; only remnants of mankind remain alive, reduced to scavenging or cannibalism. Man and boy are traveling southward, in the hope that it will be warmer. Along the way, they search for shelter, food, and fuel, and avoid bands of cannibals while trying to maintain their own sense of humanity. The man carries a revolver, but has only two bullets which he wants to keep in case they need to commit suicide. Flashback and dream sequences spaced throughout the narrative show how the man's wife, who has a much more expanded role in the film than in the book, committed suicide after delivering the child and losing the will to go on in a seemingly doomed world.

Events occur along the way that add additional stresses to the man and his son. After shooting a member of a cannibal gang, the man is left with only one round in his gun. Later, the pair enter a large house, and discover it to be inhabited by cannibals who are keeping live victims in the basement and farming their limbs; believing they will be caught, the man prepares to shoot his son, to spare him the torments, but the cannibals are distracted and they escape. Further down the road they find a house with an underground shelter full of canned food, which they feast on, but the man is too nervous to stay in one spot for long. They later encounter an old, dying man (Duvall), and the son encourages his initially reluctant father to converse with the man and feed him. Arriving at the coast, they are robbed; they catch the thief and the man forces him to strip, leaving him naked by the road. As they pass through a ruined town, the man is shot with an arrow and he kills his attacker.

The father suffers from persistent coughing during the film eventually coughing up blood. After they reach the coast his condition deteriorates and he realizes he is likely to die soon. On his death bed he again emphasizes to his son the values of self-preservation and humanity. After the father dies, the son is approached by another family—a father (Pearce), mother, two children and a dog—who, it is revealed, have been following the man and his son for some time out of concern for the boy. The Boy agrees to join them.

And ?

How this film should continue ? How the modern mankind would survive ?

Today ROGER EBERT has posted a new blog entry about Werner Herzog's latest film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams " and suddenly I had a revelation ...

"About 32,000 years ago, in a limestone cave above the Ardèche River in Southern France, humans created the oldest cave paintings known to exist. They spring from the walls with boldness and confidence, as if the artists were already sure what they wanted to paint and how to paint it. Perhaps 25,000 years ago, a child visited the cave and left a footprint, the oldest human footprint that can be accurately dated. "

What if the beginning of the world as we know it was in fact just another epic tale of survival, love and sacrifice ? What if The Boy was The Child of The Cave ?

This vison of the last scene from The Road and Ebert's first words about " Cave of Forgotten Dreams " is now for me a missing link of my primordial cinematographic memory.

" In times of utter devastation, memories are what we cling to." Roger Ebert , The Road

29.12.2010 - BBC update

Cave painters were realists, DNA study finds

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cave painters during the Ice Age were more like da Vinci than Dali, sketching realistic depictions of horses they saw rather than dreaming them up, a study of ancient DNA finds.
It's not just a matter of aesthetics: Paintings based on real life can give first-hand glimpses into the environment of tens of thousands of years ago. But scientists have wondered how much imagination went into animal drawings etched in caves around Europe.
The latest analysis published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focused on horses since they appeared most frequently on rock walls. The famed Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region of southwest France and the Chauvet Cave in southeast France feature numerous scenes of brown and black horses. Other caves like the Pech Merle in southern France are adorned with paintings of white horses with black spots.
Past studies of ancient DNA have only turned up evidence of brown and black horses during that time. That led scientists to question whether the spotted horses were real or fantasy.
To get at the genetics of equine coat color, an international team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany analyzed DNA from fossilized bones and teeth from 31 prehistoric horses. The samples were recovered from more than a dozen archaeological sites in Siberia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Iberian peninsula.
It turned out six of the horses had a genetic mutation that gives rise to a spotted coat, suggesting that ancient artists were drawing what they were seeing. Brown was the most common coat color, found in 18 horses.
Researchers who were not part of the study praised the use of genetics, saying it supports their observations.
Paleoanthropologist John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York said he was not surprised that cave artists were in tune with their surroundings since they needed to know all they could about their prey to hunt them.
"These artists were better observers of their natural environment than many humans are today," Shea said in an email.
Just because cave art was rooted in reality doesn't mean Ice Age painters lacked creativity.
Archaeologist Paul Pettitt of the University of Sheffield in England said ancient artists were "immensely creative," using techniques such as charcoal shading that are still found in modern art.



This undated photo provided by the Pech Merle Prehistory Center shows a cave painting of pair of spotted horses, found in the Pech Merle Cave in Cabrerets, southern France. Scientists estimate the drawing, measuring about 4 meters wide by 1.5 meters high, is about 25,000 years old. An ancient DNA study found that Ice Age artists drew horses based on their observations rather than imagination.



Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cave-painters-were-realists-dna-study-finds-200120657.html

New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis.

A once fertile landmass now submerged beneath the Persian Gulf may have been home to some of the earliest human populations outside Africa, according to an article published in Current Anthropology.

Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist and researcher with the University of Birmingham in the U.K., says that the area in and around this "Persian Gulf Oasis" may have been host to humans for over 100,000 years before it was swallowed up by the Indian Ocean around 8,000 years ago. Rose's hypothesis introduces a "new and substantial cast of characters" to the human history of the Near East, and suggests that humans may have established permanent settlements in the region thousands of years before current migration models suppose.

In recent years, archaeologists have turned up evidence of a wave of human settlements along the shores of the Gulf dating to about 7,500 years ago. "Where before there had been but a handful of scattered hunting camps, suddenly, over 60 new archaeological sites appear virtually overnight," Rose said. "These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world."

But how could such highly developed settlements pop up so quickly, with no precursor populations to be found in the archaeological record? Rose believes that evidence of those preceding populations is missing because it's under the Gulf.

"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."

Historical sea level data show that, prior to the flood, the Gulf basin would have been above water beginning about 75,000 years ago. And it would have been an ideal refuge from the harsh deserts surrounding it, with fresh water supplied by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Baton Rivers, as well as by underground springs. When conditions were at their driest in the surrounding hinterlands, the Gulf Oasis would have been at its largest in terms of exposed land area. At its peak, the exposed basin would have been about the size of Great Britain, Rose says.

Evidence is also emerging that modern humans could have been in the region even before the oasis was above water. Recently discovered archaeological sites in Yemen and Oman have yielded a stone tool style that is distinct from the East African tradition. That raises the possibility that humans were established on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula beginning as far back as 100,000 years ago or more, Rose says. That is far earlier than the estimates generated by several recent migration models, which place the first successful migration into Arabia between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago.

The Gulf Oasis would have been available to these early migrants, and would have provided "a sanctuary throughout the Ice Ages when much of the region was rendered uninhabitable due to hyperaridity," Rose said. "The presence of human groups in the oasis fundamentally alters our understanding of human emergence and cultural evolution in the ancient Near East."

It also hints that vital pieces of the human evolutionary puzzle may be hidden in the depths of the Persian Gulf.

Source: Since Daily

Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Journal Reference:
Jeffrey I. Rose. New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis. Current Anthropology, 2010; http://birmingham.academia.edu/JeffreyRose/Papers/359690/New_Light_on_Human_Prehistory_in_the_Arabo-Persian_Gulf_Oasis





About Dr. Jeffery Rose

Dr. Jeffrey I. Rose is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham. His areas of interest include prehistoric archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula, modern human origins, stone tool technology, human genetics, rock art, geoarchaeology, underwater archaeology, and geomythology. He holds a B.A. in Classics, an M.A. in Archaeology from Boston University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University.

Over the past 22 years, Jeff has conducted archaeological fieldwork in North America, Wales, Ukraine, Israel, Portugal, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. Since 2000, he has directed an ongoing archaeological survey and excavation project in southern Arabia to explore early human dispersals into Arabia. The project was recently featured in the 2009 BBC documentary series "Incredible Human Journey."

Jeff currently resides in Muscat, Oman where he runs the Dhofar Archaeological Project (DAP). DAP is a comprehensive investigation of prehistoric archaeology, palaeoenvironments, and human genetics in the Dhofar region of Oman (link to the project's website: http://dhofar.arabian-prehistory.org). You can also follow DAP on Twitter @dhofarproject for expedition updates during our annual winter field season.

The tree of life and the Jurrasic subway station from Bucharest

Last night I've seen Tree of Life and today I found out that somehow I walked for real on the step of evolution on my hometown .

Jurassic underground in Bucharest

Politehnica subway station in Bucharest, Romania, is paved with marble plates full of fossils, which lived on Earth during Cretaceous ( 145.5 ± 4 to 65.5 ± 0.3 million years ago.) The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate and high eustatic sea level. The oceans and seas were populated with now extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists; and the land by dinosaurs.
It seems that in a hurry to launch the subway station, the builders haven't paid much attention of what kind of marble they use. Since 1983, the marble extracted from Rosia Montana (Apuseni Mountains, Transylvania) is lying on the floor like a red carpet full of "crumbs" older than 80 million years. Epic.

More pictures and full article here. ( It is translated in English from Romanian with Google translate, that's why in the headline is written I <3 London instead of I <3 Bucharest )

The marble from the subway station


A scene from Tree of Life , the era of dinosaurs from where the marble comes.



and the same scene from the screenplay written by Terrence Malick

Secrets of the Black Sea - Uncovering the Roots of Early Civilization

Secrets of the Black Sea - Uncovering the Roots of Early Civilization
Documentary - 57 min

The Black Sea is a place of great mystery and antiquity. Ancient legends describe a time when the oceans rose above the land, causing an entire civilization to vanish beneath the cold waters of this ocean region. Could this be the great flood described in the Bible during the time of Noah?

Today scientists are beginning to discover what may have caused the oceans to rise and are developing new insights about an ancient advanced culture that existed in this mysterious part of the world. This program presents amazing archeological evidence of ancient advanced technology and a long lost advanced civilization that flourished in the Dead Sea region before the end of the last Ice Age.

Includes the facts about this amazing mystery and features, on-site investigations, ancient artifacts, under water archeology, and a fascinating series of spellbinding interviews with researchers, scientists, archeologists and the best-known most credible Black Sea authorities in the world today.

"Related to the flood is a short recent book with a lengthy bibliography written by Ioan Sorin Apan of Brasov, Romania. A student of Romanian folk customs and legends, he collected contemporary peasant stories handed down over the ages that still contain accounts of a great flood. His insights - triggered by the publicity surrounding the oceaneographic research of William Ballard in the Black Sea - is a significant contribution to the endurance of folk tradition and the passing, through stories passed on from one generation to the next, of ancient memories. "I always wondered why people far inland from the sea could be telling stories that spoke of a great and fearful flood."
SEE: Taina Marii Negre: oceanografie si folclor, Ion Sorin Apan (undated)"

http://www.roconsulboston.com/Pages/InfoPages/Commentary/Cradle.html

NASA - Black Sea