Researchers in Spain say they have found evidence that Neanderthals were able to create art, challenging the idea that art began with the modern humans that happened them.
The canvas was a Granito -rich in quartz pebble that was excavated from a rock shelter in the center of Spain in 2022, in a layer dating between 42,000 and 43,000 years. By mediating more than 8 inches long, the Guijarro has curves and clefts that resemble a human face.
In the middle of its surface there is only one red point, just where a nose would be, the researchers said in a study published on Saturday in the Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences magazine, and added that it seemed to be a non -utilitarian object instead of a tool.
“From the beginning, we could say that it was peculiar,” said David Álvarez-Alonso, lead author of the newspaper.
The analysis showed that the red point consisted of ocher, a natural land pigment. The next step was to determine how it got there.
Although it was not visible to the naked eye, the red point was confirmed by the Spanish Forensic Police as a fingerprint, leaving “without a doubt” that was applied to the stone intentionally by a finger bathed in Ocher, Álvarez-Alonso, an archaeologist from the Complutense University in Madrid, he said in an email on Tuesday.
The researchers postulate that the Neanderthal, who was based on the fingerprint was possibly an adult man, perceived that the pebbles looked like a face, a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia, and was inspired to complete the representation, creating “one of the oldest abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record.”
“It would be a clear act of symbolization, apparently very simple, but significant,” said Álvarez-Alonso.
The discovery is “doubly exceptional” since it is the “most complete” Neanderthal fingerprint identified to date, apart from a partial that is previously found in Germany, the researchers said.
Neandertals, a different species that was extinguished about 40,000 years ago, lived together with the first modern humans in Europe, Asia and the Middle East for at least part of its existence. Characterized by a large nose and relatively short and fornid bodies, the species is closely related to humans or Homo sapiens.
The remains of Neanderthals do not show clear evidence of the lowest intelligence than modern humans, some scientists have argued.
The stone is “one of a small but growing number of discoveries that point to the existence of symbolic behavior among the Neanderthals,” said Álvarez-Alonso.
However, it is “clearly an isolated object, without known parallels” that can be used to compare, he added.
“We should not try to draw direct analogies between the worlds of Neanderthal and Sapiens,” said Álvarez-Alonso, since the Neanderthals did not create a visual symbolic system as complex and diverse as the one developed by Homo Sapiens.
“This Guijarro does not solve the mystery, but offers a more track that suggests the presence of a complex mind, a capable of producing symbols,” he said.
