But simultaneous discoveries that predate humans sound pretty fantastic to me. They claim these handprints were made by Neanderthals.
If you take you hand, dip it in a riverbank so it's covered with mud then press your hand against the wall that is what I would call an intuitive way of making a handprint. Laying your clean hand against a wall ans smearing mud around it so when you take your hand away there is an impression of your hand from where the mud didn't hit? Not so much. Throw in a cave so someone has to be standing behind you with a light so you can see what you're doing and it's even less intuitive.
Funny thing was the artist didn't even bring that point up at all. he waxed on about the wonder of humanity. Like I said in my OP, he was kind of goofy.
They were actually the very first form of "airbrushing"
People took hollow bones filled with pigments and blew into them, or simply blew them from their mouths, spattering the paint around their hand, exactly like using an airbrush stencil.
They used the same technique for some of the wonderfully subtle shading on their other subjects, too.
Those of who airbrush are fond of making cave art jokes. :)
KEYWORDS: neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthalsThe 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