Art Predates Agriculture

Civilization began, it is widely believed, with the advent of agriculture.  The time was around 10,000 BC and the place was the Fertile Crescent, which is the present day Middle East.  Sheep and pigs were first domesticated, followed by plants such as flax, wheat, barley and lentils.  The nomadic hunter-gatherers settled into agricultural communities, developed irrigation systems and established permanent settlements.  

It should be noted that this definition of “civilization” speaks to the cultures of the Abrahamic religions (Muslim, Judaism and Christianity).  The Clovis culture, however, were precursors to the Indigenous peoples of the America’s, and between 15,000 to 20,000 years ago developed stone tools, as well as agriculture, engineering, astronomy, trade, civic and monumental architecture.  Some established permanent or urban settlements, but all did not forsake their nomadic lifestyle.  There is not one civilization, but many co-inhabiting this planet.  

However civilization may be defined, the plain fact is long before we worked the soil to plant seeds, the hunter gatherers were digging to get clay and earth based pigments for painting the caves at Altamira and Lascaux; art making predates agriculture, which is to say it predates civilization, which speaks to its fundamental role in shaping human life.  Mark making is meaning making, hard-wired in our DNA, the act of making is a core means of problem-solving, both utilitarian and ideational.

Ellen Dissanayake is an ethno-anthropologist whose writings synthesize disciplines ranging from evolutionary biology to cognitive and developmental psychology.  She lived for fifteen years in non-Western countries (Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, India and Nigeria) among indigenous pre-literate peoples and found that all shared the trait of embellishing their tools in non-utilitarian ways; the act of “making pretty” is consistent across the globe.  This lead her to develop “…a unique perspective that considers the arts to be normal, natural, and necessary components of our evolved nature as humans.”

Far more than practical, the act of making is healing.  Art therapy is based upon this insight, which, since the 1940s, has been used in conjunction with traditional psychotherapy, to provide a non-verbal avenue for exploring emotions and experiences. The simple act of making can help treat a wide range of mental health issues and support emotional well-being, based upon the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit. 

Works of art such as the Sistine Chapel, a human achievement of extraordinary scale, can be overwhelming and lead most of us to cower, and say “I can’t draw.”  But that seems ego-driven, as we are schooled in a comparative and competitive paradigm, which blocks the fact that art making is biologically and psychologically at the core of everyone’s individual life.  Art, and the act of making, become the great equalizer.  

One of the lessons of carpentry – which is to say making in the practical sense – is that adverbs and adjectives do not pertain; the wall is plumb or it is not, the corner square or it is not, the house will long endure or it will not.  There is something exquisitely liberating in that plain fact.  More “sophisticated” professions do not fall under this simple truth, for example, politics and the law are based upon argumentation and persuasion rather than objective truth.  The word “sophisticated” is derived from the Sophists, in Ancient Greece, who excelled in clever deception, using rhetoric to win arguments regardless of the truth.   

In a world that is increasingly argumentative, clever and AI-interconnected, the simple act of making can become a grounding and centering force.  Let us proclaim there are four necessities in life: food, clothing, shelter and beauty; “making pretty” creates beauty while making becomes the means to achieve all the former. And all of which become an act of healing. 

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Plants push up, fruit trees blossom, and pollinators abound!