ISSUE 28 BONES WINTER 2007/08

Marking Time
DANIEL ROSENBERG

Under the microscope the gray bird bone became a "library"which I sat
"reading" and pondering for many days.
1
In the summer of 1962, Alexander Marshack, a print and television
journalist, began collaborating with astrophysicist Robert Jastrow of the
Goddard Space Flight Center on a publication to help put the nascent US
space program in historical context. As Marshack wrote in his later book,
The Roots of Civilization, the NASA project aimed "to explain how man
reached that point in science and civilization to make it possible to plan a
manned landing on the moon, and at the same time to explain the
modern scientific and engineering problems involved."
2
The work with
Jastrow led Marshack to read extensively about the origins of astronomy,
mathematics, and the other sciences on which space exploration relied.
Marshack widened his time frame further and further, ending up,
unexpectedly, in the Paleolithic period.
This was how Marshack discovered the Blanchard bone, the Lartet bone,
and all the others. At first encounter, the bones were only pictures in
archaeology books and journals. Most of them were old; some, such as the
Blanchard and Lartet bones, more than 30,000 years old. And many of
them were old discoveries, as well. Some had been around as long as
archaeology itself. The Lartet bone, for example, was unearthed at the
Gorge dEnfer in the Vzre Valley in Southern France in 1865, very near
the as-yet undiscovered caves of Cro-Magnon and Lascaux. The Blanchard
bone, with markings similar to those on the bone from the Abri Lartet, was
found half a century later in the same area, buried in an additional several
thousand years worth of soil.
In a crowded museum, the Blanchard and the Lartet bones would be easy
to miss. Both are small, about ten or eleven centimeters in length, easily
fitting into the palm of the hand. Both are heavily worked, presenting a
flattened surface covered with "a seemingly chaotic, haphazard pitting."
3
And so were these artifacts seen for many years: in general, they were
interpreted as a "perfect example of non-notational random marking," as
symptoms of "mans urge to decorate, or to his need to fill an empty
space, or to doodle in rare moments of leisure."
4
For archaeologists and
art historians, the stunning representational cave paintings from the same
period and region held much more interest.
For nearly a century no one attempted a thorough analysis of the Lartet
bone, even as other similar examples (eventually hundreds of them) turned
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up.
5
In 1870, its discoverers, the retired French magistrate, Edouard
Lartet, and the English businessman, Henry Christy, determined it to be
"puzzling," perhaps without any meaning at all, and deposited it in a
museum.
6
Eventually, the Lartet bone found its way to the imposing Muse
des Antiquits Nationales in Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, where it
was eventually to be joined by the equally perplexing Blanchard bone. And
there it would sit, in a scholarly midden, abandoned to a rarely-opened
cabinet in a "musty stone chamber"among "accumulations of Upper
Paleolithic materials, crowded under glass with their aged yellowing
labels."
7
One hundred years later, Lartets description was still state-
of-the-art.
In 1962, archaeologist Jean de Heinzelin took another try at the problem.
Working on the shores of Lake Edward in central equatorial Africa the
previous year, de Heinzelins team had discovered the remains of an
11,000-year-old fishing village that they called Ishango, replete with tools
of all sorts. Among these artifacts was a bone inscribed with notches not
unlike those of the Lartet bone. De Heinzelin described the bone as "the
most fascinating and most suggestive of all the artifacts at Ishango,"
because it was so hard to interpret. It was not obviously a fishing
implement such as a harpoon, but "a bone tool handle with a small
fragment of quartz still fixed at its head."
8
It may have been used, "for
engraving or tattooing, or even for writing of some kind. Even more
interesting, however, are its markings; groups of notches arranged in three
distinct columns. The pattern of these notches leads me to suspect that
they represent more than pure decoration."
9
What they represented, or whether "representation" was even the right
term to use, remained a problem. But, after grouping and counting the
notches, de Heinzelin speculated that they may have been related to a kind
of proto-mathematical activity. "In one of the columns [the notches] are
arranged in four groups of 11, 13, 17, and 19 In the next they are
arranged in eight groups [of] 3, 5, 4, 8, 10, 5, 5, and 7. In the third they
are arranged in four groups of 11, 21, 19, and 9. I find it difficult to believe
that these sequences are nothing more than a random selection of
numbers. The middle column shows a less cohesive set of relations.
Nevertheless, it too follows a pattern of a sort. The groups of three and six
notches are fairly close together. Then [after] is a space, after which four
and eight appearalso close together. Then, again after a space, comes
the 10, after which are the two fives, quite close. This arrangement
strongly suggests appreciation of the concept of duplication, or multiplying
by two. It is of course possible that all the patterns are fortuitous. But it
seems probable that they were deliberately planned. If so, they may
represent an arithmetical game of some sort."
10
Ultimately, de Heinzelin was unable to establish a governing pattern, but
he was right, Marshack hypothesized, to view the marks on the Ishango
bone as a kind of notation rather than a decoration or a doodle. His error,
Marshack argued, lay in assuming that the marks demonstrated such a
high level of abstraction. Drawing on his research in astronomy, Marshack
speculated that the notches could be read as examples of "lunar phrasing."
He recognized that the series were much too irregular to represent actual
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celestial patterns. On the other hand, with several key assumptions in
place (a full moon can be observed on more than one evening; it cannot be
observed in cloud cover; data collection is sometimes faulty; artifacts are
incomplete), they appeared to be regular enough to represent celestial
patterns as observed. Still, to anyone uninitiated, Marshacks juggling of
figures seems hardly less numerological than de Heinzelins own.
After reading de Heinzelins article, Marshack began to systematically
compare similarly marked bones, eventually arguing that a very wide range
of examples, including the Lartet bone and the Blanchard bone, adhered to
a lunar pattern. Early on, many anthropologists objected to the single-
mindedness of Marshacks argument, which sometimes seemed to verge on
obsession, an impression that was only heightened by his enthusiastic,
outsider prose. It seemed that there was no set of markings from which
Marshack, applying his own schematic notational apparatus, could not
extract a lunar cycle.
11
The engraved marks on the Blanchard bone. Courtesy Harvard University, Peabody
Museum.
Marshacks schematic of the engraved marks on the Blanchard bone. Courtesy
Harvard University, Peabody Museum.
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Marshacks drawing of the serpentine form created by the markings on the Blanchard
bone.
Marshack made no apologies for the rigidity of his technique. He constantly
applied assumptions which he had, in his own words, "no right to make," in
order to test them scientifically.
12
And he constantly made either/or
decisions: we cannot imagine an artist changing stylus twenty-four times in
the course of making sixty-nine decorative marks; we find twenty-four
changes on the Blanchard bone; therefore, the engravings on Blanchard
bone cannot have been decorative in intent. Things that seemed wrong to
Marshack were "inconceivable," and a "feeling" of appropriateness
combined with suggestive data were presented as if they carried the weight
of syllogism.
At the heart of his method of interpretation was the curious lunar schema
of his own devising, every bit the rival of the Paleolithic notation systems in
its telegraphic character. It laid out the series of days in an ideal lunar
cycle, along with a bi-monthly leap day to cover the extra half-day that
each cycle requires. Throughout his work, Marshack unwound the data
extracted from his artifacts and stretched it over his own notational frame.
In fact, Marshack drew an explicit parallel between his own notational
practice and that of his subjects. The rigid rationalism of his own approach
recounted in a romantic language of discoverywas all that much more
evidence for the implicit rationalism of theirs:
Using a small, single-lens hand magnifier, and a jewelers eyepiece I had
bought for a dollar and a half, I began the examination. I turned the bone
slowly in the beam of a powerful lamp. It seemed hopeless. There were all
sorts and styles of marks in the pocking. Then, as I worked it back and
forth in the light, it became clear that there was something here that
"made sense." There were groups of marks that were made by a hooked or
arced stroke. Some of these were made by a fine, sharp point and others
by a thicker point; some of these arced from the right to left, others from
left to right. Other marks had been punched without turning, while still
others had been made with a limited half turn, to form a bit of arc. I put
the bone under the somewhat higher magnification of the microscope and
carefully, over many hours, turning the bone and shifting the lamp,
examined and plotted the ballistic print of each mark. I did not know in
which direction the turn pointed, but having found a point of turning the
"chaotic" form took instantaneous shape. It was a serpentine figure
composed of 69 marks, containing some 24 changes of point or stroke.
Obviously the pattern was not random. It had been made on purpose. It
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had been made sequentially. Even now, after clarification, I knew it could
not be ornament or decoration, for any man making an ornamental
composition 1 3/4 inches in size would not have used 24 changes of point
and stroke to make 69 close marks. It was inconceivable. Besides, it did
not look or feel decorative. It must, therefore be notational. The long
work in New York libraries now came to my aid. I would not have
recognized this sequential pattern without that operation. But, in addition, I
had lived with the waxing and waning moon in thought so long, had been
watching the phases in the sky, and had played with the technique of
simple notational systems so often, that I now felt at home with this odd,
serpentine figure.
13
Even where the data extracted from the engraved bones did not precisely
match his schema, the vision of the maker seemed to match Marshacks
own vision perfectly.
Marshacks schematic of the Blanchard bone marks laid out flat next to his own lunar
schema for comparison.
Of course, Marshack had explanatory tools to account for the mismatches
as well. In essence, Marshack argued that even in cases where the data for
a given cycle were inconclusive, within a couple of cycles, the moon count
always caught up to where it ought to have been. He also showed, through
microscopic analysis (initially performed with a cheap jewelers loop and
then with a toy microscope) that the marks on these bones were made
serially, in a clear order, and at different times.
14
This aspect of Marshacks
argument came to be widely accepted and significantly influenced academic
archaeology. For Marshack himself, however, these were not merely
technical observations; they were the foundation of a larger argument
about the cognitive and cultural character of prehistoric humanity. All of
these artifacts, he said, were the result of "time-factoring" activities. That
is to say, they at once took account of and worked themselves out through
time. And the presence of such time-factored artifacts was enough to
demonstrate that in its fundamental cognitive posture, Paleolithic humanity
very much resembled modern "scientists who were planning the lunar and
planetary shots of the space program."
15
Hence the distinction throughout
his work, between (scientific) notation and (artistic) decoration, and his
emphasis on finding the former seemingly everywhere in the Paleolithic
world.
16
But in this respect, Marshack cut his either/or lines too deeply. In
demonstrating that the Lartet and the Blanchard bones could be read as
notational systems, Marshack neither demonstrated their confinement
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within the realm of reason nor their exclusion from the realms of doodling
or of art. To the contrary, in his study of the Paleolithic world, he went a
long way toward showing how mixed-up these categories need to be. And,
given Marshacks very dramatic emphasis on his empathy with his
Paleolithic subjects, this above all is what we might have expected him to
notice. Marshacks intellectual itinerary from journalism to television to
academic scholarship, his passion for the ossuary, and his penchant for
literary and graphic invention, suggest a comparison that might ultimately
have been more fruitful than that with a mythified NASA astrophysicist.
After all, why shouldnt the cognitive profile of humanity include all of the
possibilities represented in Marshacks own itinerant creative life?
1 Alexander Marshack, The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Mans
First Art, Symbol and Notation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), p. 148. Marshack
published an earlier version of his central argument in Notation dans les gravures
du palolithique suprieur; nouvelles mthodes danalyse (Boreaux: Delmas, 1970).
2 Ibid., p. 10. Marshacks first book was The World in Space: The Story of the
International Geophysical Year (New York: T. Nelson, 1958). His research with
Jastrow followed a few years later.
3 Ibid., pp. 4445.
4 Ibid., pp. 45, 35.
5 Ibid., p. 35.
6 Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy, Reliquiae aquitanicae; Being Contributions to
the Archaeology and Paleontology of Prigord and the Adjoining Provinces of
Southern France, ed. Thomas Rupert Jones (London: Williams and Norgate, 1875),
II, pp. 9899, pl. XIII, figs. a and b. It was Lartet, too, who discovered the
skeletons at Cro-Magnon in 1868.
7 Marshack, p. 43.
8 Jean de Heinzelin, "Ishango," Scientific American, vol. 206 (June 1962), pp.
109110.
9 De Heinzelin, p. 110.
10 Ibid., p. 110.
11 Andre Rosenfeld, "Review of Notation dans les gravures du palolithique
suprieur," Antiquity, vol. 75, no. 180 (December 1971), pp. 317-319; Arden R.
King, "Review of The Roots of Civilization," American Anthropologist, New Series,
vol. 75, no. 6 (December 1973), pp. 18971900; R. J. Gillings, "Review of The
Roots of Civilization," Isis, vol. 68, no. 1 (March 1977), pp. 137139; Francesco
dErrico, "Palaeolithic Lunar Calendars: A Case of Wishful Thinking?" Current
Anthropology vol. 30, no. 1 (February 1989), pp. 117118; dErrico and Marshack,
"On Wishful Thinking and Lunar Calendars," Current Anthropology, vol. 30, no. 4
(AugustOctober 1989), pp. 491500; Iain Davidson, "Review of The Roots of
Civilization," American Anthropologist, New Series vol. 95, no. 4 (December 1993),
pp. 10271028; James Elkins, "On the Impossibility of Close Reading: The Case of
Alexander Marshack," Current Anthropology, vol. 37, no. 2 (April 1996), pp.
185226.
12 Marshack, 28.
13 Ibid., p. 45.
14 Ibid., p. 18.
15 Ibid., p. 24.
16 Ibid., p. 35.
Daniel Rosenberg is associate professor of history in the Robert D. Clark
Honors College at the University of Oregon. He is editor, with Susan
Harding, of Histories of the Future (Duke University Press, 2005), and
author, with Anthony Grafton, of the forthcoming Time in Print (Princeton
Architectural Press, 2008). His most recent article, Joseph Priestley and
the Graphic Invention of Modern Time appeared in Studies in Eighteenth-
Century Culture, vol. 36 (2007).
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