Dick Beeman led a wonderful class filled with discussion about how paleolithic people’s simple love of artistic expression enabled the invention of written language—how artistic depictions of people, animals and things – “graffiti” –  led directly to symbolic depiction, not just of animals and things, but also of intangibles such as ideas and emotions, i.e., how art crossed the boundary and bridged the gap between illiteracy and literacy.  (Which in turn fueled the rapid evolution of science and technology, and unleashed aspects of human potential that had lain dormant for eons.)  Thank you Dick for sharing with us (and for that lovely summary).

Students then tried their hands at creating “cave art.”​