PAINTINGS of mythical animal-human hybrids are among the oldest surviving art
ever produced. New research suggests that minotaurs, satyrs, the werewolves
beloved of Hollywood and even Egypt鈥檚 animal-headed gods are latecomers to the
art scene compared with the 鈥渢herianthropes鈥� carved by the earliest artists on
bone and painted on stone.
鈥淭hey go back to the dawn of humanity, to the first fully modern people,鈥�
claims rock art expert Paul Ta莽on of the Australian Museum in Sydney. He
has found that in Australia and South Africa there are dozens of animal-headed
people in rock paintings and carvings more than 10,000 years old. Some may be
far older. The oldest was an androgynous feline-headed statuette from Germany,
thought to be around 32,000 years old.
Together with Christopher Chippindale at Cambridge University鈥檚 Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, Ta莽on conducted the first rigorous
worldwide survey of prehistoric therianthrope images. They surveyed nearly 5000
examples of rock art, most from northern Australia, Europe and South Africa.
They recorded the frequency and types of therianthropes portrayed, and reviewed
their age. Because many images have not been radiocarbon dated, the team also
assessed artistic style and content鈥攕ay, portrayals of extinct
animals鈥攁nd looked at whether motifs were superimposed on top of each
other.
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Ta莽on and Chippindale say that belief in therianthropes was common in
the distant past. Although they comprised only about 1 per cent of the works
studied, the researchers found examples worldwide, indicating that today鈥檚
fascination with hybrids such as werewolves is nothing new. Early humans were
just as fascinated by supernatural 鈥渃omposite鈥� beings who exist between the
everyday and spirit worlds.
Sven Ouzman of the National Museum of South Africa in Bloemfontein says it is
notoriously difficult to date rock art, so he is sceptical of the claim that
therianthropes were the first beings ever portrayed. 鈥淸But] what Paul and
Chris鈥檚 paper does do is set up a testable hypothesis,鈥� he says.