Prehistoric Spectral Map

Prehistoric rock painting from around 8000 BC, from South Africa




Since prehistoric times mankind has attempted to represent the surrounding world in a pictorial way in order to understand its present complexity and exploit its implications for the future.

The world appears as highly multivariate, but with proper analysis can often be described in terms of a few fundamental properties. Above we have defined the objectives of graphic analysis by the more modern terms of classification and prediction. Prehistoric wall paintings can be regarded from this perspective.

The figure shows a wall painting from the bush men in South Africa dating from around 8,000 BC. One may see (with some imagination) the strategic deployment of hunters with their specific weaponry (arrows, axes, javelins) around their preys.


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Date created: December 20, 2005         Date last modified: September 6, 2006