Posted on 03/27/2008 2:27:09 PM PDT by blam
Neanderthals wore make-up and liked to chat
09:24 27 March 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Dan Jones
Could Neanderthals speak? The answer may depend on whether they used make-up.
Francesco d'Errico, an archaeologist from the University of Bordeaux, France, has found crafted lumps of pigment essentially crayons left behind by Neanderthals across Europe.
He says that Neanderthals, who most likely had pale skin, used these dark pigments to mark their own as well as animal skins. And, since body art is a form of communication, this implies that the Neanderthals could speak, d'Errico says.
Working with Marie Soressi of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, d'Errico has recovered hundreds of blocks of black manganese pigment from two neighbouring sites at Pech de l'Azé in France, which were occupied by Neanderthals. These add to evidence of pigment among Neanderthal from some 39 other sites.
The pigments were not just smeared onto the body like camouflage, d'Errico says, but fashioned into drawing tools.
"The flat, elongated surfaces on the archaeological specimens are consistent, as confirmed experimentally, with producing clearly visible straight black lines, perhaps arranged to produce abstract designs," says d'Errico, who presented his work on 15 March at the Seventh Evolution of Language Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Essential words
Body painting, argues d'Errico, is a "material proxy" for symbolic communication. What's more, he says, the techniques for making the symbols, and the meaning they carry, would have to be transmitted through language.
And body painting isn't the only proxy associated with Neanderthal remains. Neanderthals adorned their bodies with ornamentation, such as necklaces made from shell beads.
The sorts of beads used by modern humans, and the ornaments they fashioned from them, vary geographically.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Are they saying that natural pale skinned redheads like me are mutants? Well!!
Seriously, is it really a gene mutation that causes pale skin and red hair? It happens in my family about every other generation. I was the lucky one this generation.
Spelling, Gesklaven(?), German, reflects the Eastward expansion. I do think that the Byzantines gave us bugger through a long line of references that I don’t remember.
(Pharmboy muttering to himself) “Where does he come up with this stuff??”
Cool Uni-brow, Breshy-boy!
Man is an intelligent being.
If his primary needs are met...he goes no further.
It's kinda like doing the sign language things with babies. My son's wife did this with their first kid...And the kid is screwed up royally. He is unsocial and lacks initiative....almost altistic and responds only to his mother and father...
Probably not but I have red hair, my grandmother had red hair, and my great-great grandmother had red hair. For some reason it only shows up every other generation. It seems kind of odd. That's as far back as I know of but I remember my grandmother saying that it has occurred every other generation way back through the family tree.
:^)
Even while they were watching Oprah?
If Joe and Joanna come up with something that can make them bucks that they can keep, they advance and knowledge advances. The big guy becomes irrelevant, live bravely and die nobly
I teach my Grandkids to read, and poison their minds with the founders.
(grunt) Food!
(grunt) Lipstick!
(grunt) Geico!
You’re right. I might be more succinct and just say he’s masturbating in print.
They still do.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1992740/posts?#4
Were they before or after Adam & Eve...??
Right on, right on, Doc. They find one thing and make a gigantic unprovable theory with it. But over time it'll be accepted as truth.
Here is my theory: The absurdity of this article implies that perhaps this guy is most likely full of it.
Captain Caveman was totally stunned when his cavegirl discovered make-up. The chatting thing didn't thrill him though.
No wonder they are extinct.
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