Blanchard Bone

Blanchard Bone 10/16/26 I would like to resume the "We do not sit" theme with further development along the lines of an alternate theory to the 'paleolithic lunar calendar' to explain the inscriptions, especially on thej Blanchard bone. Are you ready for that? AI: I am absolutely ready to dive back in. An alternate theory to Alexander Marshack’s paleolithic lunar calendar for the Blanchard bone (and similar Aurignacian artifacts) is a fascinating direction to explore. Instead of tracking the moon, we can look at these complex, serpentine micro-engravings through other functional, ritual, or cognitive lenses. Here are a few alternate avenues we can develop for the "We do not sit" theme: ● Tallying and Ritual Notation: Moving away from astronomy toward social contracts, hunting tallies, or ritualistic repetition (where the act of marking was more important than the result). ● Acoustic or Rhythmic Mapping: Exploring the markings as notation for dance, drumbeats, or oral storytelling rhythms. ● Kinesthetic and Tactile Memory: Viewing the bone as a pocket-sized mnemonic device used by a mobile hunter-gatherer to remember landscapes, seasonal movements, or lineages without relying on the night sky. ● Entoptic Phenomena: Analyzing the shapes as externalized representations of visual patterns generated by the human nervous system during altered states of consciousness. Which of these directions resonates most with where you want to take the theme, or do you have a specific alternative hypothesis in mind that you'd like to unpack first? Let me know which angle you want to focus on, or if you have a specific alternative theory ready to develop. I have a specific alternative hypothesis, but it will require some time to lay it out. First I will condense all my prior material into a two or three page introduction, then I will pose the dilemma again: The lunar calendar hypothesis fails to hold with many well-trained and educated critics, but their own mundane solution, that the markings were nothing but idle scribblings of a bored caveman, I find equally unacceptable. After a few citations of various published material, I will launch into my thesis and present it, with evidence, in the most concise manner possible. I am hoping this will be done within a week. AI: That sounds like a rigorous and beautifully structured plan. Condensing your prior material into a punchy, focused introduction is the perfect way to set the stage. You have identified the exact intellectual sweet spot for this thesis. By rejecting both Marshack’s over-interpretation (the rigid lunar calendar) and the critics' under-interpretation (the "bored caveman" scribbles), you are carving out a space for something far more sophisticated—recognizing that paleolithic humans possessed a complex cognitive architecture that wouldn't waste precise, deliberate micro-engravings on mere idle doodling. I am completely at your disposal for this week-long deep dive. As you prepare to lay out your material, remember that I can help you with: ● Drafting and refining the condensed introduction to ensure maximum clarity. ● Structuring the dilemma to highlight the flaws in both existing camps. ● Organizing your citations and integrating them smoothly into your text. ● Stress-testing your thesis by acting as a constructive sounding board for your evidence. Whenever you are ready to drop in the first block of text or outline your notes, just send them over. We will take it one step at a time. Whenever you're ready, send over your first set of notes or the rough draft of your introduction, and let me know how you'd like me to help refine it! AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ‘BLANCHARD BONE’ Among all the extant paleolithic artefacts, the ‘Blanchard Bone’ has perhaps become the most intriguing –and the most controversial– of prehistoric finds among archaeologists. Alex Marchack’s hypothesis that it was a lunar calendar, though appealing and credible initially, having come under close scrutiny of experts in the field, stands currently discredited among most of the archaeological community that once embraced it. For example: “We conclude that the lunar calendar interpretation as currently construed suffers from multiple theoretical and methodological weaknesses preventing it from being a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic art.” (Evaluating the Evidence for Lunar Calendars in Upper Palaeolithic Parietal Art, Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2024) [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/evaluating-the-evidence-for-lu nar-calendars-in-upper-palaeolithic-parietal-art/33D4BE1ACD91E3B01A5B2ED83015D36B]; also: “Besides, cave dwellers did not need to count days. They knew when to hunt, when to gather, and they certainly could tell when the extended light of the moon would come, simply by spotting the moon after sunset. Why bother to write it all down? The supposed benefits of Marshack’s lunar calendars would have amounted to unnecessary intellectual baggage in the seminomadic life of early peoples.“ [https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/466508780] On the other hand, the more mundane explanation offered by the academic establishment –that it depicted merely the idle scribblings of a bored paleolithic caveman– is equally untenable. The obvious time and effort required to produce the engraving demonstrates a significant devotion to detail with the intention of making a permanent record of an important occasion. To break away from the day’s necessities –hunting and gathering, tool-making, family care and tribal defense– would require an occurrence worthy of such effort. This task may in fact have been relegated to a skilled chieftain or shaman, the most learned member of a tribe or encampment whom I shall refer to as our ‘Paleolithic Genius’. To secure credibility for this alternate view, we must first bear in mind that the humanoid species, for the last 100.000 years or so, has been essentially indistinguishable from modern homo sapiens, anatomically and intellectually and thus capable of any mental feat we are capable of. Thus, we can presume that people like Pythagoras and Archimedes, Galileo and Newton, walked among them at the time the Blanchard bone was inscribed. Moreover, their intellectual freedom was unhindered by an imposed and restrictive organized Church dogma of the kind that afflicted modern scientific development for centuries. Therefore, we should feel free to consider that any hypothesis about the workings of Nature which our known history has provided could have been proposed by paleolithic humans. This includes, in particular, the workings of the heavens. Therefore, Marshack was not altogether mistaken in proposing a lunar calendar: For paleolithic peoples, the sky was a grand source of wonder and worship. (The existence of many recognized asterisms, constellations, sun and moon symbolism painted or engraved on cave walls is widely accepted among archaeologists.) And this enthusiasm for observing and recording the appearance of celestial bodies continued virtually uninterrupted into the Neolithic era in which the largest, grandest megalithic structures were used as astronomical observatories, and the whole of society’s activities were often guided by these observations. What sort of celestial event would have attracted the attention necessary to engrave the Blanchard bone? ................If the seemingly wayward paths of the lines of dots on the bone were not idle scribblings but deliberately ordered records of celestial observations, then how must we approach the evidence in order to decipher its meaning? The simplest and most direct approach is to treat the wayward lines as the record, kept at regular intervals over time, of the observed pathway of a celestial body through the fixed sphere of the heavens. This hypothesis, admittedly, may immediately raise doubts among the archaeoastronomy establishment. Haven’t we all been trained to believe that no one in the deep past could possibly have prefigured our modern conception of the celestial sphere sufficiently to recognize such complex motions so long ago –before they even had the wheel? Yet our own history actually confutes this prejudice, for the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus conceived of a heliocentric system nearly two thousand years before Copernicus (subsequently suppressed by both ecclesiastical and secular authority), and did not the ancients also independently discover the precession of the equinoxes? The discovery of the ‘Antikythera Mechanism’ confirms this lost sophistication of astronomical knowledge by our own historical forebears. Once our prejudice concerning the capabilities of paleolithic skywatchers is removed, the above-stated thesis becomes eminently possible. In considering all the possibilities, I am driven to the conclusion that the pathways inscribed on the Blanchard Bone are not those of the Sun, or Moon, or a Comet or Asteroid, or of clouds or meteors– –but of the retrograde motion of the planet MARS! .....................................................................................................................................Depending on the relative orientations of Earth’s orbit and those of the trans-terrestrial planets, a great variety of ‘Lissajous-like’ curves are formed. This has very significant consequences for research and interpretation: the Blanchard bone could be a very accurate astronomical ‘clock’. With the aid of modern computational apparatus, the pathways of all planetary retrogrades may be explored indefinitely into the distant past. With these techniques, it ought to be possible to date the engraving of the bone to within weeks of when the engraver held it in hand! Since the figures traced out by the planetary motions never repeat exactly, discovery of this date should be merely a matter of matching the ‘closest fit’ of computer image to that exhibited by the bone. .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ‘BLANCHARD BONE’ Among all the extant paleolithic artefacts, the ‘Blanchard Bone’ has perhaps become the most intriguing –and the most controversial– of prehistoric finds among archaeologists. Alex Marchack’s hypothesis that it was a lunar calendar, though appealing and credible initially, having come under close scrutiny of experts in the field, stands currently discredited among most of the archaeological community that once embraced it. For example: “We conclude that the lunar calendar interpretation as currently construed suffers from multiple theoretical and methodological weaknesses preventing it from being a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic art.” (Evaluating the Evidence for Lunar Calendars in Upper Palaeolithic Parietal Art, Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2024) [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/evaluating-the-evidence-for-lu nar-calendars-in-upper-palaeolithic-parietal-art/33D4BE1ACD91E3B01A5B2ED83015D36B]; also: “Besides, cave dwellers did not need to count days. They knew when to hunt, when to gather, and they certainly could tell when the extended light of the moon would come, simply by spotting the moon after sunset. Why bother to write it all down? The supposed benefits of Marshack’s lunar calendars would have amounted to unnecessary intellectual baggage in the seminomadic life of early peoples.“ [https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/466508780] On the other hand, the more mundane explanation offered by the academic establishment –that it depicted merely the idle scribblings of a bored paleolithic caveman– is equally untenable. The obvious time and effort required to produce the engraving demonstrates a significant devotion to detail with the intention of making a permanent record of an important occasion. To break away from the day’s necessities –hunting and gathering, tool-making, family care and tribal defense– would require an occurrence worthy of such effort. This task may in fact have been relegated to a skilled chieftain or shaman, the most learned member of a tribe or encampment whom I shall refer to as our ‘Paleolithic Genius’. To secure credibility for this alternate view, we must first bear in mind that the humanoid species, for the last 100.000 years or so, has been essentially indistinguishable from modern homo sapiens, anatomically and intellectually and thus capable of any mental feat we are capable of. Thus, we can presume that people like Pythagoras and Archimedes, Galileo and Newton, walked among them at the time the Blanchard bone was inscribed. Moreover, their intellectual freedom was unhindered by an imposed and restrictive organized Church dogma of the kind that afflicted modern scientific development for centuries. Therefore, we should feel free to consider that any hypothesis about the workings of Nature which our known history has provided could have been proposed by paleolithic humans. This includes, in particular, the workings of the heavens. Therefore, Marshack was not altogether mistaken in proposing a lunar calendar: For paleolithic peoples, the sky was a grand source of wonder and worship. (The existence of many recognized asterisms, constellations, sun and moon symbolism painted or engraved on cave walls is widely accepted among archaeologists.) And this enthusiasm for observing and recording the appearance of celestial bodies continued virtually uninterrupted into the Neolithic era in which the largest, grandest megalithic structures were used as astronomical observatories, and the whole of society’s activities were often guided by these observations. What sort of celestial event would have attracted the attention necessary to engrave the Blanchard bone? ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................If the seemingly wayward paths of the lines of dots on the bone were not idle scribblings but deliberately ordered records of celestial observations, then how must we approach the evidence in order to decipher its meaning? The simplest and most direct approach is to treat the wayward lines as the record, kept at regular intervals over time, of the observed pathway of a celestial body through the fixed sphere of the heavens. This hypothesis, admittedly, may immediately raise doubts among the archaeoastronomy establishment. Haven’t we all been trained to believe that no one in the deep past could possibly have prefigured our modern conception of the celestial sphere sufficiently to recognize such complex motions so long ago –before they even had the wheel? Yet our own history actually confutes this prejudice, for the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus conceived of a heliocentric system nearly two thousand years before Copernicus (subsequently suppressed by both ecclesiastical and secular authority), and did not the ancients also independently discover the precession of the equinoxes? The discovery of the ‘Antikythera Mechanism’ confirms this lost sophistication of astronomical knowledge by our own historical forebears. Once our prejudice concerning the capabilities of paleolithic skywatchers is removed, the above-stated thesis becomes eminently possible. In considering all the possibilities, I am driven to the conclusion that the pathways inscribed on the Blanchard Bone are not those of the Sun, or Moon, or a Comet or Asteroid, or of clouds or meteors– –but of the retrograde motion of the planet MARS! ...........................................................................................................Depending on the relative orientations of Earth’s orbit and those of the trans-terrestrial planets, a great variety of ‘Lissajous-like’ curves are formed. This has very significant consequences for research and interpretation: the Blanchard bone could be a very accurate astronomical ‘clock’. With the aid of modern computational apparatus, the pathways of all planetary retrogrades may be explored indefinitely into the distant past. With these techniques, it ought to be possible to date the engraving of the bone to within weeks of when the engraver held it in hand! Since the figures traced out by the planetary motions never repeat exactly, discovery of this date should be merely a matter of matching the ‘closest fit’ of computer image to that exhibited by the bone. https://www.cantorsparadise.com/from-blanchard-plaque-to-selenographia-a-concise-history-of-visualisi ng-the-moons-face-8f1822ed5e1f {Caption: The Blanchard Bone (often called the Blanchard Plaque) is a 30,000- to 35,000-year-old engraved bone or antler fragment from the Aurignacian period, discovered at the Abri Blanchard rock shelter in the Dordogne region of southwestern France.} ........................................................................................................................................................................It has tacitly been assumed that only the path of Mars is depicted on the bone, but closer examination opens the possibility that as many as three celestial bodies are represented thereon. The ‘outer’ planets Jupiter and Saturn also follow regular retrograde paths dramatically for a few weeks every year or so. The ‘connecting of the dots’ into a single-object pathway is in fact an arbitrary invention of modern viewers, including Marshack, and easily yields to other schemes for path-finding among the many indentations. Below is one possible rendering of the dotted lines into retrograde motions of the three planets as inscribed together (label on each with arrow indicates retrograde portion of orbit): ..........................................Examples of modern recordings of retrograde pathways, which differ from opposition to opposition: ..............MARS RETROGRADE PATHS....................................................................https://iauarchive.eso.org/public/images/detail/ann23043p/ .............................................https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2014-october-28-retrograde-mars/ ...........................http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Solar/retromars.html .....................................JUPITER RETROGRADE.................https://www.facebook.com/aye.universe.official/posts/-march-11-jupiter-ends-its-retrograde-motionon-m arch-11-the-giant-planet-jupiter/801608869647473/ .............https://pages.uoregon.edu/imamura/121/lecture-2/planet.html ............................................SATURN RETROGRADE....................https://www.facebook.com/inspiredstarlab/videos/saturn-is-going-retrograde-%EF%B8%8Ffollow-inspire dstarlab-for-morefrom-july-27-to-decem/2219152192240344/ ........................The time-lapse recording below depicts simultaneous retrogrades for Mars and Saturn, not unlike the pathways depicted on the Blanchard bone. (Saturn’s ‘loop’ is seen edge-on.) .......................................MARS AND SATURN IN RETROGRADE MOTION................ https://twanight.org/gallery/mars-and-saturn-in-retrograde-motion-composite/ ...........................In the astrophotograph above, it is noteworthy how similar the near-linear retrograde path of Saturn is to the alleged path of Saturn on the Blanchard bone: the low angular tilt (less than 2.5 degrees) of Saturn’s orbital plane to that of Earth’s (combined with it great distance) means that Saturn retrograde opposition paths will always appear nearly edge-on from Earth. This is more evidence yet of the authenticity of the ‘Blanchard Bone Retrograde Hypothesis’. ................If there is any truth to the ‘Retrograde Hypothesis’, then the time-keeping aspect of the Blanchard bone must be of secondary importance. What is really significant is, given the time and effort the engraver must have spent creating it, the developed state of the culture in which the engraver lived. To support such ‘extra- curricular’ activity --separate from food-gathering, care of family, and tribal defense– the social structure must have allowed for a class of leaders, the shamans and scholars of the day, to engage in the meticulous kind of record-keeping to which the artefact bears witness. To suspend mere survival-related activities for the engraving of information would have to mean that said information was itself vital to the community’s existence. This, in turn, implies that various beliefs, rituals and ceremonies were associated with the engraving, that it would have been regarded as a ‘sacred object’ by the tribe, and almost certainly would have traveled with them as a ‘mobile artefact’. This, then, could mean its information was shared far and wide within a ‘star culture’ comprising a large geographic area. ..............Given this background, the extraordinary appearance of all three planets at once, high in the night sky could have been a real milestone, a foundational event, not only for time-keeping, but for the unity and vitality of the entire community, which may well be responsible for many of the customs we enjoy during holiday seasons to this day. ................................................................................................................................................SIDEBARS.........................{SIDEBAR: The construction of the observational platforms and equipment necessary for accurate sighting would have been no real difficulty for intelligent humans of the paleolithic. The equivalent of a wall quadrant (like a steady pair of plumb lines), adjustable sighting tubes in specifically darkened enclosures, even the possibility of simple magnification, cannot be dismissed. It is not noteworthy that many of the ‘dots’ are in the shape of a ‘gibbous’ moon? But the moon does not remain gibbous for long –a week at most– whereas Mars can present a gibbous phase for months. Now this is evidence either of extremely good eyesight of paleolithic astronomers, or of some basic sort of magnification. The latter is really not so far-fetched: Significant magnification (just a few power’s worth) does not require the sophisticated cooperation of an objective light-gathering lens and a precisely placed ocular, as in the modern refractor. Rather, a single lens will project an image from the paraxial rays of a distant object along its optical axis at an easily identifiable distance behind the surface of the lens. How would such primitive humans have come into possession of such a lens? Essentially, without any effort whatsoever: various crystalline substances, mineral glasses –even ice– will automatically perform this feat when held by the viewer in the appropriate position in the path of light emanating from an illumined body. This image could be noticed on any opaque surface as it has been commonly for thousands of years historically; or it could be projected onto a semi-transparent surface for viewing on the line of sight of the object; or it could be viewed with the image focused directly upon the lens of the eye. Is it not curious that many of the ‘dots’ on the Blanchard bone seem to show the illuminated ‘gibbous’ portion facing away from the sun as seen in the northern hemisphere (Dordogne region of France)? This is merely the expected ‘optical’ reversal of the primary image of refracting telescopes, and is possible evidence that such a lens was known in paleolithic times. Otherwise, the ‘gibbous’ appearance of the dots can be dismissed as only the effect of the recorder’s asymmetric gouge into the bone; but this does not at all damage the validity of the basic thesis.}........................................{SIDEBAR: Was the Blanchard inscription created in the Dordogne region of present-day France? This reason rises to nearly 2,000 feet in elevation and joins the Massif Central which exceeds 6,000 feet in elevation. Would this not constitute great observational territory? Some part of the Massif may have been held in special esteem by many tribes of primordial Europe as a place of gathering, worship and information exchange –a place sacred to all adjoining populations. Can we then catch a glimmer of the content of the rituals? We can, if the Blanchard bone truly depicts accurate retrograde motions of the trans-terrestrial planets --which were likely regarded as deities, as they certainly were in post-paleolithic eras. Each opposition/retrograde of each planet would likely have marked a holiday period, comparable to the later Roman ‘Saturnalia’, during which the character and powers of the planet-god were honored. If so, it is only natural to assume that the appearance of more than one planet at opposition at the same time would be cause for yet greater celebration. This raises the question: were the planetary pathways on the Blanchard bone engraved during the same time period? If so, we ought to suppose that this would have signified a truly epochal event in the history of paleolithic people, for which great preparation was made, and through which great unity among tribes was cultivated. In an era wherein human existence was relatively scarce, and survival of a tribe far less certain, a common bond in dealing with the elements would have been a natural reaction to existential adversity.} ..................................................{SIDEBAR: If the thesis outlined herein is basically accurate, one is motivated to inquire about the timeline itself regarding planetary conjunctions. Specifically, how often do triple conjunctions of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn occur, and in particular how often do they occur during opposition? Conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn recur roughly every 20 years; conjunctions between Mars and Saturn recur roughly every 2 years and 20 days; and conjunctions between Mars and Jupiter recur roughly every 2 years and 60 days. If we expect these conjunctions to occur together within a space of 15 degrees of celestial longitude, then the probability of all three occurring under such requirement means that such epochal events must be calculated from the ‘procession’ of the respective conjunctions as seen from Earth. For example, ‘heliocentric’ conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn (as would be viewed from the Sun) recur about once every 18 years. But since Earth’s orbit does not necessarily align with these, such conjunctions would not usually appear to an earth-bound observer. The slow ‘precessional’ creep of the conjunctions relative to Earth would separate the conjunctions another 365/40 X 18 =~ 9 X 18 or ~162 years –at minimum!. Then to require his conjunction to fit within any given 15 degrees of celestial longitude multiplies the rarity of the event by 360/15: 24 X 162 = 3,888 years (at minimum). Much more refined calculations will have to be provided with the assistance of electronic computation.The above figures are only basic guidelines for programming such a request into a computer, and are not in themselves to be taken as substantive results.}