The deep structure of Pleistocene rock art: the “Artification Hypothesis”

The artification hypothesis offers a new direction for describing and understanding non-iconic Pleistocene rock art by conceptualizing it as the product or residue of a behavior of “artifying”, rather than as a specific form of graphic paleoart. “Why did our ancestors make marks on (artify) rock surfaces?” becomes the appropriate first question, rather than “Are these marks symbolic (and hence art)?” The term artification refers to what I propose is an undescribed but biologically distinctive...