Neandertals may not have painted pictures on cave walls, but a new study proposes they had an artistic sensibility. These close Stone Age relatives of people regularly made personal and possibly ritual ornaments that included bird feathers.
Research and publish the best content.
Get Started for FREE
Sign up with Facebook Sign up with X
I don't have a Facebook or a X account
Already have an account: Login
Science News
451.4K views |
+13 today
 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
The basic questions about early European cave art—who made it and whether they developed artistic talent swiftly or slowly—were thought by many researchers to have been settled long ago: Modern humans made the paintings, crafting brilliant artworks almost as soon as they entered Europe from Africa. Now dating experts working in Spain, using a technique relatively new to archaeology, have pushed dates for the earliest cave art back some 4000 years to at least 41,000 years ago*, raising the possibility that the artists were Neandertals rather than modern humans. And a few researchers say that the study argues for the slow development of artistic skill over tens of thousands of years. 
Scoop.it!
Researchers examined small quantities of red material on well-preserved flint and bones dug up from an archaeological site in Maastricht in the Netherlands. Via ramblejamble
|
Scoop.it!
Of course, this is inevitably subjective; an attempt to read the minds of humans who lived tens of thousands of years ago from the scant markings they left behind - if they were from our species at all. But it's one of the few ways we have to start assembling hypotheses about prehistoric people's beliefs and culture, in the hope that we can one day test them with newer scientific techniques.
Scoop.it!
We have seen cave paintings where the splashy red pigment was used to create images by ancient humans in present-day Europe tens of thousands of years ago. Scientists have said that ancient humans used it generally in Europe about 40,000 - 60,000 years ago, in West Asia as long ago as 100,000 years, and by the ancients in Africa as long ago as 200,000-250,000 years. Now, a new study suggests that Neanderthals were also using it in the present-day Netherlands region of Europe as far back as 200,000-250,000 years ago, if not earlier.
|
