Remarkable Study Shows That Neanderthals Made Art
- Editor OGN Daily
- 2h
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Three ancient pieces of ochre unearthed in Crimea were used by Neanderthals to draw and paint, a new study suggests.
Dispelling their brutish, simple image the findings highlight Neanderthals’ cognitive - and possibly creative - abilities, a far cry from popular depictions of the human cousin as thuggish and cognitively underdeveloped.
Researchers analyzed 16 pieces of ochre - an iron-rich mineral - found across sites in Crimea and mainland Ukraine.
While many of the fragments could have been used for reasons like tanning and colouring clothing, three of them stood out. One, a chunk of yellow ochre about 42,000 years old, had been shaped into a crayon through repeated sharpening.
“It was a tool that had been curated and reshaped several times, which makes it very special,” Francesco d’Errico, an archaeologist at the University of Bordeaux in France and a study co-author, told NewScientist. “It’s not just a crayon by shape. It’s a crayon because it was used as a crayon. It’s something that may have been used on skin or a rock to make a line - the reflection, perhaps, of an artistic activity.”
Another fragment, a flat piece of yellow ochre, had lines etched into its surface. This, the researchers believe, suggests curated use and intentional production. A third fragment, about 70,000 years old, appeared to be a piece of a broken crayon made from red ochre.
The key point is that (if the findings are correct), it means Neanderthals engaged in cultural activities around the same time as Homo sapiens. That suggests humans’ artistic and cognitive abilities may be more deep-rooted in our family tree than previously believed.
Neanderthal extinction occurred roughly 40,000 years ago with the immigration of modern humans, but Neanderthals in Gibraltar may have persisted for thousands of years longer.
