New on SAPIENS: Experts continue to debate whether Neanderthals were painters and jewelry-makers. A paleoanthropologist explores the evidence for Neanderthal art and the sources of people’s skepticism.
, an extinct deer that could grow to about 7 feet tall, with an antler span of 12 feet! This toe bone is etched with six engravings that form five offset stacked chevrons. The angles formed by the intersecting lines are quite regular, ranging from 92.
3 to 100.3 degrees. A second set of four short lines are incised on the proximal end. These are not cut-marks related to butchery and were clearly made intentionally to form a pattern. In this case, the dates aren’t disputed. Radiocarbon dating at the site, and of the bone itself, suggest it is at least 51,000 years old. Why would someone select the toe bone of a giant deer that is very rare in this area and engrave a series of chevrons onto it? Clearly the pattern has no practical value. The authors suggest that the engraving, and possibly the choice of animal, must have symbolic meaning. And art is all about symbolism—representing an idea or object in some other form. For me, that speaks strongly to symbolic thought in Neanderthals. https://denkmalpflege.niedersachsen.de/live/institution/mediadb/mand_45/psfile/bild/57/CC_BY_SA_3606c7d7aad00b.mp4 But as you might expect, when something that looks symbolic is associated with Neanderthals, it doesn’t take long for people to give at least partial credit to modern humans. In this case, DNA was recently recovered from modern human fossils dating toat Zlatý Kůň, Czech Republic. The fossils contain long stretches of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting interbreeding occurred before 50,000 years. Some posit that the Neanderthals who exchanged genes with the ancestors of Zlatý Kůň also exchanged knowledge. Here we go again. Neanderthals did something symbolic? Nah, they just copied modern humans. I think I’ve heard this story before.in southwestern France? This one is odd. More than 300 meters inside the cave lie multiple structures constructed from almost 400 stalagmite fragments . Two large circular structures, composed of up to four layers of stacked stalagmite fragments, stretch around 2 to 7 meters across and about 40 centimeters high. These are accompanied by several other accumulations of stalagmites. Based on reddening and blackening of some of the fragments, it appears that all of the structures are associated with fire. Archaeologists dated the structures by looking at the age of broken stalagmites and when they began to regrow. The results consistently pointed to the structures being about 176,500 years old. At that time, the only ancestral human species in France were Neanderthals. No light penetrates this part of the cave’s dark zone, so Neanderthals would have had to bring their own. Then, it seems, they collected and deliberately placed hundreds of speleofacts in circles and made fires that reddened and blackened many of them. According to the researchers, this demonstrates that Neanderthals were capable ofIn Bruniquel Cave in France, Neanderthals appear to have created artful circles from hundreds of stalagmite fragments.Why did the Neanderthals do this? Was it some sort of ritual? To be honest, we’ll never know. Is it art? That depends on what you consider art. One definition of art is that it is creative behavior with no practical purpose. By that definition, I’d say it fits., however, that while Neanderthals made the structures, they did so while “leaving no trace of graphic activity.”DID NEANDERTHALS MAKE JEWELRY? When it comes to jewelry—or personal adornment in archaeological terminology—there isn’t just a single example., mostly from the formidable white-tailed eagle, have been found at 10 Neanderthal sites ranging in age from 130,000 to 42,000 years ago. The talons are scratched with cut marks, indicating they were intentionally removed. Given the lack of meat on an eagle’s toe, these weren’t food items. Researchers found animal tissue—possibly a remnant of a leather cord—on the surface of one talon found at Krapina, Croatia. This suggests the talon was
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