Posted on 06/15/2012 9:26:33 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Stone Age artists were painting red disks, handprints, clublike symbols and geometric patterns on European cave walls long before previously thought, in some cases more than 40,000 years ago, scientists reported Thursday, after completing more reliable dating tests that raised a possibility that Neanderthals were the artists.
A more likely situation, the researchers said, is that the art -- 50 samples from 11 caves in northwestern Spain-- was created by anatomically modern humans fairly soon after their arrival in Europe. The findings seem to put an exclamation point to a run of recent discoveries: direct evidence from fossils that Homo sapiens populations were living in England 41,500 to 44,200 years ago and in Italy 43,000 to 45,000 years ago, and that they were making flutes in German caves about 42,000 years ago.
Then there is the new genetic evidence of modern human-Neanderthal interbreeding, suggesting a closer relationship than had been generally thought. The successful application of a newly refined uranium-thorium dating technique is also expected to send other scientists to other caves to see if they can reclaim prehistoric bragging rights.
In the new research, an international team led by Alistair W.G. Pike of England's University of Bristol determined that the red disk in the cave known as El Castillo was part of the earliest known wall decorations, at a minimum of 40,800 years old. That makes it the earliest cave art found so far in Europe, perhaps 4,000 years older than the paintings at Grotte Chauvet in France.
The handprints common at several of the Spanish caves were stencils, probably made by blowing pigment on a hand placed against the cave wall.........
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Over here!
Half the “art” in most museums looks like it could have been done by neanderthals already.
Now mom on the other hand got zip and she had to wash our hand prints off the walls besides.
But seriously...How do they know the when of something like this?? And those sure do look like well manicured hands. And I think one of them is wearing a watch.
This is a very reasonable tentative conclusion. We are dealing with a very fragmentary fossil record so better dating methods and new fossils change things rather drastically.
“It is the dawning of the age of Neanderthals
(chorus) “Neee-ann-der-thals! Nee-ann-der-thalllssss!
No, that's a wrist Sun Dial. Didn't you watch the Flintstones?
40,000+ years kids have been putting finger prints on the walls of the home, they still do that.
Nothing has changed.
My wife said she dated some Neanderthals, before she met moi, of course.
Picasso appears to have been a Neanderthal..
His work appears to be like a 5 year old finger painting..
“It is the dawning of the age of Neanderthals
(chorus) “Neee-ann-der-thals! Nee-ann-der-thalllssss!
Now if they had any sense of humor they would have done it to show 8 fingers. ;-)
Human-Neanderthal breeding ping.
True but that was by choice not lack of talent and ability.
I have to wonder why a person who could paint in any style he chose would want such a bizarre and garish style.
Yeah...Google alerted me to the story this morning. I’m 2.7% Neanderthal and your sister is 2.5%, so you are likely the latter. Perhaps I can finger paint better than you...if so, we now know why.
apparently they were right-handed.
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