This is a falange of imperial eagle with marks of court from Cave Foradada. Credit: Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo
Posted on 11/03/2019 3:33:59 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Eagle talons are regarded as the first elements used to make jewellery by Neanderthals, a practice which spread around Southern Europe about 120,000 and 40,000 years ago. Now, for the first time, researchers found evidence of the ornamental uses of eagle talons in the Iberian Peninsula...
"Neanderthals used eagle talons as symbolic elements, probably as necklace pendants, from the beginnings of the mid Palaeolithic", notes Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo. In particular, what researchers found in Cova Foradada are bone remains from Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila Adalberti), from more than 39,000 years ago, with some marks that show these were used to take the talons so as to make pendants. The found remains correspond to the left leg of a big eagle. By the looks of the marks, and analogy regarding remains from different prehistorical sites and ethnographic documentation, researchers determined that the animal was not manipulated for consumption but for symbolic reasons. Eagle talons are the oldest ornamental elements known in Europe, even older than seashells Homo sapiens sapiens perforated in northern Africa.
The findings belong to the Chatelperronian Culture, typical from the last Neanderthals that lived in Europe, and coincided with the moment when this species got in touch with Homo sapiens sapiens, from Africa -and expanding from the Middle East. Actually, Juan Ignacio Morales, researcher in the program Juan de la Cierva affiliated at SERP and signer of the article, presents this use of eagle talons as ornaments could have been a cultural transmission from the Neanderthals to modern humans, who adopted this practice after reaching Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Don’t they know they’re almost extinct? Selfish b@$tards.
They sure are. chrysler eagle talons
Is that Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo in the background? He should eat more lentils.
He does look awfully thin.
Hi, SunkenCiv-!
I read the article and I must be glazing over from trying to find something...
Why exactly would the article refer to it as being ‘the last necklace’ the Neanderthal would make?
The writer is a dunce -- just my guess.
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