www.paleoantropologia.it
Rocco Parziani - HUMANOPITHECUS Orbiped but not (yet) Cosmic
I really couldn’t tell either why or how I took it.
Nor I genuinely couldn’t explain why this old photograph sprang to mind when I read the theme of this year’s Paleoanthropology Summer School: Australopithecus – bipedal, but not (yet) humans.
The fact that a girl dancing (or orbiting?), with a Soviet Army Gas Mask on, resembles more an extinct species rather than some futuristic figment of our imagination is against all odds.
And yet there she is.
Biped. Resembling an ape, our ancestral species, through the very same instrument whose shape is generally assumed to eventually turn Homo Sapiens into Homo Cosmicus: a posthuman mask (its military or astronautics function doesn’t really make any difference).
Nothing can be more human than her - she’s dancing.
Standing on her own two legs.
And for the very same reason nothing can be more ancestral - she’s dancing!
Standing on her own two legs!
And a million years from today, at the “PaleoEarthers Summer School”, it’s not unlikely the students will look at her (or at some random dugout remains of some ancestor crashed with her spaceship geo-cosmic ages earlier on some forsaken planet) feeling at once so distant, so diverse, and yet so close and connected to her.
It is a strange and baffling coincidence indeed - the more sophisticated and evolutionary advanced we become, the more close to our animal ancestors we resemble.
What’s at stake now I guess it does not differ from what was at stake back then - trying to pass on whatever come next a bit of us. In the Australopithecus’ case a bit of animal instinct (and rhythm!), in our case a bit of humanity (dance, laughs, tears and many many many tales about our unforgivable mistakes as well as our joyful achievements).
Rocco Parziani - HUMANOPITHECUS Orbiped but not (yet) Cosmic
I really couldn’t tell either why or how I took it.
Nor I genuinely couldn’t explain why this old photograph sprang to mind when I read the theme of this year’s Paleoanthropology Summer School: Australopithecus – bipedal, but not (yet) humans.
The fact that a girl dancing (or orbiting?), with a Soviet Army Gas Mask on, resembles more an extinct species rather than some futuristic figment of our imagination is against all odds.
And yet there she is.
Biped. Resembling an ape, our ancestral species, through the very same instrument whose shape is generally assumed to eventually turn Homo Sapiens into Homo Cosmicus: a posthuman mask (its military or astronautics function doesn’t really make any difference).
Nothing can be more human than her - she’s dancing.
Standing on her own two legs.
And for the very same reason nothing can be more ancestral - she’s dancing!
Standing on her own two legs!
And a million years from today, at the “PaleoEarthers Summer School”, it’s not unlikely the students will look at her (or at some random dugout remains of some ancestor crashed with her spaceship geo-cosmic ages earlier on some forsaken planet) feeling at once so distant, so diverse, and yet so close and connected to her.
It is a strange and baffling coincidence indeed - the more sophisticated and evolutionary advanced we become, the more close to our animal ancestors we resemble.
What’s at stake now I guess it does not differ from what was at stake back then - trying to pass on whatever come next a bit of us. In the Australopithecus’ case a bit of animal instinct (and rhythm!), in our case a bit of humanity (dance, laughs, tears and many many many tales about our unforgivable mistakes as well as our joyful achievements).