Yosef Garfinkel / Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Halafian floral art from around 8,000 years ago.
Eight thousand year old Halafian bowls feature one or more flowers whose petals follow a geometric sequence: 4, 8, 16 and 32, in a deliberate progression of numbers strongly indicative of mathematical reasoning, which shows that mathematical thinking began long before writing.
The oldest known botanical art in the world, originating from Halafian culture from northern Mesopotamia around 6000 BC, hides fascinating cultural changes in its seemingly simple motifs, reveals a new report, recently published in the Journal of World Prehistory.
According to the study authors, decorated pottery marks an early appreciation of the artistic value of plants, and the precision in the number of petals of the flowers represented also demonstrates a way of thinking mathematics surprisingly sophisticated.
Not because our ancestors lacked the cognitive capacity for mathematics, but because there is no evidence of written numerical symbols until the emergence of proto-cuneiform numerical signs, between around 3300 and 3000 BC, thousands of years later, in sites in southern Mesopotamia.
“These containers represent the first moment in history when people chose to portray the botanical world as a theme worthy of artistic attention”, say archaeologists Yosef Garfinkel e Sarah Krulwichresearchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the university.
“This reflects a cognitive shift associated with village life and a growing awareness of symmetry and aesthetics,” the researchers add.
In their study, Garfinkel and Krulwich catalogued, compared and thoroughly analyzed the plant motifs in Halafian pottery of 29 archaeological sites. “Identifying artistic motifs always involves some degree of interpretation”, emphasize the researchers.
“Many of the ceramic fragments presented here as decorated with plant motifs were not recognized as such by archaeologists who published them”, note Garfinkel and Krulwich.
A meticulously executed drawing of a single large flower, represented in a symmetrical arrangement with 16 or 32 petals, and a cup with 64 (+ 12) flowers.
Based on their analysis, the researchers concluded that the plants depicted — flowers, shoots, shrubs, branches and towering trees — are probably not related to agriculture, as It’s not about food plants.
Instead, they argue that art can have roots in aesthetic appreciation of the beauty and symmetry of plants, emerging from an early awareness of mathematical patterns.
“The ability to divide the space in a balanced way, evident in these floral motifs, will have had practical roots in everyday lifesuch as sharing harvests or dividing community fields”, says Garfinkel.
This idea is evident in the way plants are represented — evenly distributed across the surface of the ceramic, motifs repeated in rigorous sequences and, perhaps in the most intriguing pattern, the number of petals in the floral motifs.
Researchers have found that many bowls feature one or more flowers whose petals follow a geometric sequence: 4, 8, 16 and 32. It is a deliberate progression of numbersstrongly indicative of mathematical reasoning. Some bowls even display 64 flowers, also following this sequence.
“These patterns show that the mathematical thinking began long before writing,” says Krulwich. “People visualized divisions, sequences and balance through their art.”
