Spanish rock art was created by Neanderthals, study finds | Neanderthals

Neanderthals, long seen as simple and brutal, really painted stalagmites in a Spanish cave over 60,000 years ago, according to a study released Monday.

The question had upset the world of paleoarchaeology since the publication of a 2018 article attributing the red ocher pigment found on the stalagmitic dome of the Cueva de Ardales to our extinct “cousin” species.

Dating suggested that the art was at least 64,800 years old, made during a time when modern humans did not inhabit the continent.

But the discovery was controversial, and “a scientific article said these pigments may be a natural thing,” a result of the flux of iron oxide, Francesco d’Errico, co-author of a new article in the journal PNAS.

A new analysis found that the composition and placement of the pigments were not consistent with natural processes – on the contrary, the pigments were applied by splashing and blowing.

In addition, their texture did not match natural samples taken from the caves, suggesting that the pigments came from an external source.

More detailed dating has shown that the pigments were applied at different times, separated by more than 10,000 years.

This “supports the hypothesis that the Neanderthals came on several occasions, over several thousand years, to mark the cave with pigments,” said d’Errico, of the University of Bordeaux.

It is difficult to compare Neanderthal “art” with wall paintings by prehistoric modern man, such as those found in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in France, which is over 30,000 years old.

But the new finding adds to growing evidence that the Neanderthals, whose lineage died out around 40,000 years ago, were not the crude parents of Homo sapiens they have long been described as.

The team wrote that pigments are not “art” in the narrow sense of the term “but rather the result of graphic behaviors aimed at perpetuating the symbolic meaning of a space”.

The cave formations “played a fundamental role in the symbolic systems of some Neanderthal communities”, although the meaning of these symbols remains a mystery at this time.