Neanderthals helped create early human art, researcher says

Archaeologist says ability to think and create objects may not have been restricted to homo sapiens

When Neanderthals, Denisovans and homo sapiens met one another 50,000 years ago, these archaic and modern humans not only interbred during the thousands of years in which they overlapped, but they exchanged ideas that led to a surge in creativity, according to a leading academic.

Tom Higham, a professor of archaeological science at the University of Oxford, argues that their exchange explains a proliferation of objects in the archaeological record", such as perforated teeth and shell pendants, the use of pigments and colourants, decorated and incised bones, carved figurative art and cave painting: Through the early 50,000s, up to around 38,000 to 40,000 years ago, we see a massive growth in these types of ornaments that we simply didn't see before."