Neanderthal rock engraving from Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar. Credit: Stewart Finlayson
World's oldest game of Tic-Tac-Toe?.............
Posted on 09/03/2014 12:51:29 PM PDT by Red Badger
A series of lines scratched into rock in a cave near the southwestern tip of Europe could be proof that Neanderthals were more intelligent and creative than previously thought.
The cross-hatched engravings inside Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar are the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art, according to a team of scientists who studied the site. The find is significant because it indicates that modern humans and their extinct cousins shared the capacity for abstract expression.
The study, released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined grooves in a rock that had been covered with sediment. Archaeologists had previously found artifacts associated with Neanderthal culture in the overlying layer, suggesting that the engravings must be older, said Clive Finlayson, one of the study's authors.
"It is the last nail in the coffin for the hypothesis that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans," said Paul Tacon, an expert in rock art at Australia's Griffith University. Tacon, who was not involved in the study, said the research showed that the engravings were made with great effort for ritual purposes, to communicate with others, or both.
"We will never know the meaning the design held for the maker or the Neanderthals who inhabited the cave but the fact that they were marking their territory in this way before modern humans arrived in the region has huge implications for debates about what it is to be human and the origin of art," said Tacon.
Not everyone is convinced: Another recently published study examining the dating of various archaeological sites across Europe raises the possibility that the artifacts may not have been made by Neanderthals but by modern humans. Neanderthals disappeared between 41,030 and 39,260 years ago, while modern humans arrived in Europe about 45,000-43,000 years ago, according to that study, leaving several thousand years of overlap.
"Any discovery that helps improve the public image of Neanderthals is welcome," said Clive Gamble, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, England. "We know they spoke, lived in large social groups, looked after the sick, buried their dead and were highly successful in the ice age environments of northern latitudes. As a result rock engraving should be entirely within their grasp."
"What is critical, however, is the dating," said Gamble. "While I want Neanderthals to be painting, carving and engraving, I'm reserving judgment."
But Finlayson, who is the director of the heritage division at the Gibraltar Museum, is certain that the artifacts, and therefore the engravings, were made by Neanderthals.
"All European Neanderthal fossil sites from this period, including Devil's Tower Rock Shelter just one mile from Gorham's Cave, have this technology associated," he said in an email. "In contrast no modern human site in Europe has this type of technology. So we are confident that the tools were made by Neanderthals."
More information: A rock engraving made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar, Joaquín Rodríguez-Vidal et al. PNAS (2014) www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1411529111
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Neanderthal rock engraving from Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar. Credit: Stewart Finlayson
World's oldest game of Tic-Tac-Toe?.............
GGG Ping!..........
Can’t be worse than modern “art”.
This was also posted a few days ago. someone posted WE are the neanderthal. And if you have European ancestry this is a fact
The first hashtag! Neanderthals tweeted.
GOOD ONE!..... ROFLMAO!.............
I saw that in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The Thing From Another World - Ned “Scotty” Scott: Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!
I’m not saying it was aliens.
Quite obvious
It is a rough sketch of a warp drive initiator.
Any first year academy cadet would recognize it instantly.
Yep. But most people think you're kidding.
Well I don’t think I’d call it art but I will say it was made by ancient man, we have something similar on the ranch. Early Americans would use slabs of abrasive stones to grind the edges on flint so it would be more durable when working. A raw flint edge will crush when struck but a ground edge will flake, and that’s what they want. Some of the rocks have grooves a foot long or more and they may go in any direction but they’re always straight.
These may be sharpening grooves for their spears and arrowheads..................
could be . . might be. . . maybe . . . . and this passes for science. Give this crap enough time, and this junk science will conclude Neanderthals were another race killed off by racists, And y’all know who they will point to.
Thanks Red Badger, good one for the weeking Digest list ping. [singing] We are family...The Neandertal Enigma"Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
Telephone polls.
Telephone polls. . . Asking who they were going to vote for. . .
No, seriously, it's the essence of science -- formally stated it's called "hypothesis".
If confirmed, it becomes a "theory", and that's as good as things get in science.
For every scientific theory there are many hypotheses falsified or unconfirmed.
Indeed, you can also say: for every formal hypothesis, there are many scientific "brainstorm" ideas which never reach the light of publication.
Unfortunately, our media treats a "brainstorm", hypothesis or confirmed theory as all more-or-less the same things.
Media seems more interested in sensation than accuracy.
aimhigh: "this junk science will conclude Neanderthals were another race killed off by racists, And y’all know who they will point to."
It's beyond that now -- turns out, they tell us that all non-Africans are 2% to 4% Neanderthals -- equivalent to having one Neanderthal great-great-great grandparent.
Of course... < sarc > this is nothing new, since we've long been told that only men inherit the Neanderthal gene, not women, and so that 4% average means men really are 8% Neanderthal, which must be on some kind of bell-curve distribution, meaning the worst of us are probably in the 50% Neanderthal range!
And that explains global warming doncha know. < /sarc >
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