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NEWS > SCIENCE > ARCHAEOLOGISTS ON THE HUNT FOR ANCIENT GRAFFITI PUNKS
ARCHAEOLOGISTS ON THE HUNT FOR ANCIENT GRAFFITI PUNKS
June 20 2011
Kiryat Tiv'on, Israel – The details of how we came to be what we are are still very much stuck in the past. The jump, the leap, our ancestors made that allowed us to split from other simians and become self-aware and self-determining is as much a 
mystery today as it has ever been, but science is on case. Still, no one is quite sure whether language prompted tools, or the use of tools prompted cooperation between tribes, or what kind of mix made things happen, but there are certainly signs.
Most of those signs are literal, the drawings on cave walls. For years archaeologists have been studying those ancient drawings as they try to determine where humanity started to become humanity. That study has now expanded outwards as science starts to see the value in more modern cave inscriptions, which are all a part of our continuing historical legacy. That path has led some researchers to the ancient tombs of the Middle East, specifically in Israel where detailed drawings dating from the Roman era are giving fresh insight into life in those times. However not all the tales are important, just like today, and a new group of scholars is trying to determine which of those cave scribblings are important historical records and which are just graffiti by a bunch of ancient Palestinian punks.
“Cave drawings have always pointed us in an important direction in our efforts to determine where culture was and where it was going in any given time. It is important in prehistory and is important in more modern settings because it gives us a picture 
of what was going on outside the official record,” said Sarah Wasserman of New York University. “However it is important to determine which of these drawings are honest expressions and which ones are copycats. Just like today, there were punks back then and a lot of people were just copying what other people were doing rather than expressing themselves.”
Other researchers in the area have also been studying the tombs. No standard as to what work is important and what isn’t has been established.
“Some of these people could very well have been the Banksy of their time, but most of them wouldn’t have been, just like today. The vast majority of them would have just been skateboarding punks who go around with their buddies and cause trouble. I mean they didn’t have skateboards back then, but the same kind of person,” continued Wasserman. “That is the biggest challenge in reading these drawings. Because we don’t have a primer, we have to take everything at face value until we can measure standards as they relate to each other. Unfortunately, because very few researchers collaborate it’s very tough to create a clear picture. Everyone has their own territory and it’s challenging to get a clear picture with incomplete data.”
Most of the work in local tombs has been written over, mostly by 12th century boys trying to impress girls.
“The truth we are starting to discover is that many of these works were motivated by the same factors which motivate people today. That these drawings and carvings were often the work of people trying to impress their friends, or people who were just bored out of their skulls. Occasionally we find a gem,” continued Wasserman. “What that tells us about the past is something still kind of up in the air, but we think eventually a pattern can start to form and we will have an accurate picture of what teenage rituals were like 2000 years ago. We are starting to find that they are very similar to what we have today.”
Researchers have also found evidence of graffiti removal in many of the tombs.
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
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