Article 3GHHW Neanderthals were artists and thought symbolically, new studies argue

Neanderthals were artists and thought symbolically, new studies argue

by
Kiona N. Smith
from Ars Technica - All content on (#3GHHW)
spot-the-3-hand-stencils-800x324.jpg

Enlarge / Can you spot the three hand stencils? (credit: J. Zilhio)

Hominins have lived in Western Spain's Maltravieso Cave off and on for the last 180,000 years. At some point in those long millennia of habitation, some of them left behind hand stencils, dots and triangles, and animal figures painted in red on the stone walls, often deep in the dark recesses of the cave. The art they left behind offers some of the clearest evidence for a key moment in human evolution: the development of the ability to use symbols, like stick-figure animals on a cave wall or spoken language.

Maltravieso, like La Pasiega in Northern Spain and Ardales Cave in the south, is a living cave, where water still flows, depositing carbonate minerals and shaping new rock formations. In these caves, flowstones and rock curtains have been slowly growing over ancient rock art. By dating those carbonate deposits, scientists can figure out a minimum age for the art without having to take samples from the pigment itself.

Now, two new studies have dated cave art and decorated shell jewelry from sites in Spain to at least 20,000 years before the first Homo sapiens arrived in Europe. That date offers the first clear evidence of Neanderthal art, which means our extinct relatives were also capable of symbolic thought. It's a surprising discovery, says study coauthor Alistair Pike of the University of Southampton-but not all that surprising.

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