Free Republic

In fact in recent years archaeologists equipped with sophisticated methodological means have discovered 17 previously unnoticed sites in the Basque region that have art from the late Palaeolithic period, some of which may be as old as 40,000 years. The finds debunk the void theory and bring the total known Stone Age graphic sites there to 23, Ochoa confirms in conversation with Haaretz. Danbolinzulo Cave, which lies on the slopes of Mount Ertxiña by the town of Zestoa in northern Spain, has a dazzling view of the surrounding area, the archaeologists enthuse. Analyzing the faint, eroded images at Danbolinzulo within...

The ability to focus on detail, a common trait among people with autism, allowed realism to flourish in Ice Age art, according to researchers at the University of York. Around 30,000 years ago realistic art suddenly flourished in Europe. Extremely accurate depictions of bears, bison, horses and lions decorate the walls of Ice Age archaeological sites such as Chauvet Cave in southern France. Why our ice age ancestors created exceptionally realistic art rather than the very simple or stylised art of earlier modern humans has long perplexed researchers. Many have argued that psychotropic drugs were behind the detailed illustrations. The...

Chauvet-Pont D'Arc cave, in southern France, is one of the world's oldest and most impressive cave-art sites. Discovered in 1994 and popularized in the Werner Herzog documentary 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams', Chauvet contains hundreds of paintings that were made as early as 37,000 years ago. Fearsome animals such as woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions and bears dominate Chauvet's imagery. But one of its innermost galleries -- named after a giant deer species, Megaloceros, that is depicted there -- also contains a series of mysterious spray-shaped drawings, partly covered by the Megaloceros painting. A nearby gallery holds similar spray imagery, as does...

'The Oldest (Neanderthal) Work Of Art Ever': 42,000-Year-Old Paintings Of Seals Found In Spanish Cave* Six paintings were found in the Nerja Caves, 35miles east of Malaga * They are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man By Tom Worden Last updated at 9:27 PM on 7th February 2012 Comments (38) Share The world's oldest works of art have been found in a cave on Spain's Costa del Sol, scientists believe. Six paintings of seals are at least 42,000 years old and are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man, experts claim. Professor Jose Luis Sanchidrian,...

...the origin of these artworks is shrouded in mystery. Nobody is quite sure what the artists used for paint or binder, how the pigmentation has been preserved for so long, and -- most controversial of all -- exactly when the images were made... Today we get a unique insight into this question thanks to the work of Clodoaldo Roldán at the University of Valencia in Spain and colleagues... One way to date ancient artifacts is with carbon dating. But this works only with pigments that have a biological origin, and with the exception of black, most of them do not....

Earliest horse figures of Anatolia in Eskiºehir Tuesday, February 27, 2007 ANKARA – Turkish Daily News Horse figures painted on rock formations in Eskiºehir are the oldest in Anatolia, according to new archaeological research. The research revealed that the first known horse figures date back to 6,000 B.C. and that the area was settled in the early Neolithic period. The excavation and studies of Anatolia in Eskiºehir's Sivrihisar district were conducted jointly by Eskiºehir-based Anadolu University and the Eskiºehir Archaeology Museum. The Eskiºehir province lies directly to the west of Ankara.Ali Umut Türkcan of Anadolu University said rock paintings featuring...

This image released by the Diputacion Floral de Bizkaia on Friday May 27, 2016, shows a cave drawing. Spanish archaeologists say they have discovered an exceptional set of Paleolithic-era cave drawings that could rank among the best in a country that already boasts some of the world's most important cave art. Chief site archaeologist Diego Garate said Friday that an estimated 70 drawings were found on ledges 300 meters (1,000 feet) underground in the Atxurra cave, Berriatua, in the northern Basque region. He described the site as being in "the Champions' League" of cave art, among the top 10 sites...

The cave joins that at Altamira as one of Spain’s most exciting and best-preserved set of cave paintings and for Garate, marks a career high. "Without doubt it is the most important discovery of my career," he told The Local. "I have been searching the caves of the Basque Country for ten years and have discovered lots of new caves but none as important as Atxurra. It could very well be the cave with the most animal figures in the Basque Country," he added. The Atxurra caves were originally discovered in 1929, but as the paintings are at a depth...

Prehistoric cave occupants paid attention to cave wall morphology and touch when creating hand stencils. Human occupants of two caves in Northern Spain put some thought into where they placed their hand stencils on cave walls as much as 37,000 years ago, during Palaeolithic times. The topography and physical characteristics of the walls in the low light conditions of the caves seem to have mattered to them, suggest a team of researchers... What they found was a pattern that indicated selection or attention to certain types of natural cave wall features for placement of the stencils. "In total 80% of...

Last Update: Thursday, September 1, 2005. 3:29pm (AEST) A reconstruction of the face of a young female Neanderthal who lived about 35,000 years ago in France. (AFP) Modern humans, Neanderthals shared earth for 1,000 years New evidence has emerged that Neanderthals co-existed with anatomically modern humans for at least 1,000 years in central France.The finding suggests Neanderthals came to a tragic and lingering end.Few chapters in the rise of Homo sapiens, as modern mankind is known, have triggered as much debate as the fate of the Neanderthals.Smaller and squatter than Homo sapiens but with larger brains, Neanderthals lived in Europe,...

Our ancestors colonised Europe and wiped out their Neanderthal cousins even faster than we thought, says a study published today. Argument has raged for years about whether our ancestors from Africa outsurvived, killed or bred with the Neanderthals, who were stronger, bulkier and shorter but had equally large brains. Now developments in radiocarbon dating suggest that many of the dates published over the past 40 years are likely to underestimate the true ages of the samples. Prof Paul Mellars, of the University of Cambridge, describes today in the journal Nature how better calibration of radiocarbon ages have led to revisions...

Published online: 22 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060220-11 Better bone dates reveal bad news for Neanderthals Modern humans took over Europe in just 5,000 years. Michael Hopkin These drawings from the Chauvet cave were originally dated to around 31,000 years ago. But a new analysis pushes that back four or five thousand years. © Nature, with permission from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. Advances in the science of radiocarbon dating - a common, but oft-maligned palaeontological tool - have narrowed down the overlap between Europe's earliest modern humans and the Neanderthals that preceded them. Refinements to the technique, which...

Humans and Neanderthals, thought to have coexisted for 10,000 years across the whole of Europe, are more likely to have lived at the same time for only 6,000 years, the new study suggests. Scientists believe the two species could have lived side by side at specific sites for periods of only about 2,000 years, but Mellars claims they would have lived in competition at each site for only 1,000 years... Two new studies of stratified radiocarbon in the Cariaco Basin, near Venezuela, and of radiocarbon on fossilized coral formations in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific have given scientists a better...

LONDON — Neanderthals in Europe were killed off by the advance of modern humans thousands of years earlier than previously believed, losing a competition for food and shelter, according to a scientific study published Wednesday. The research uses advances in radiocarbon dating to revise understanding of early humans, suggesting they colonized Europe more rapidly and coexisted for a much shorter period with genetic ancestors. Paul Mellars, professor of prehistory and human evolution at the University of Cambridge and author of the study, said Neanderthals — the species of the Homo genus that lived in Europe and western Asia from around...

The cave, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site two years ago, was discovered in the south of France in 1994... Now, scientists have assembled more than 250 radiocarbon dates made from rock art samples, animal bones and the remains of charcoal used by humans... The newly synthesized data suggest the first period of human occupation lasted from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago. The second prehistoric occupation began 31,000 to 28,000 years ago and lasted for 2,000 to 3,000 years, the researchers wrote... The two groups, separated by millenniums, had no connection with each other, they said. The first round of...

Thanks to the careful work of archaeologists, we learned more in the past year about Stonehenge's hidden monuments, Richard III's gruesome death and King Tut's mummified erection. From the discovery of an ancient tomb in Greece to the first evidence of Neanderthal art, here are 10 of Live Science's favorite archaeology stories of 2014. 1. An Alexander the Great-era tomb at Amphipolis [snip] 2. Stonehenge's secret monuments [snip] 3. A shipwreck under the World Trade Center [snip] 4. Richard III's twisted spine, kingly diet and family tree [snip] 5. A teenager in a "black hole" [snip] 6. Syria by satellite...

...among the top 10 breakthroughs was the realization, made public in October, 2014, by scientists that cave paintings discovered in 7 cave sites in the Maros karsts on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia were actually between 35,000 and 40,000 years old. The breakthrough was significant in that it was the first time that prehistoric human cave painting art found in Indonesia, or East Asia, for that matter, was found to date during time periods usually associated with the "first cave painter" works long known to exist in Europe. In the potential landmark study, the researchers used uranium-series dating of...

A study of a rock engraving discovered within Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar finds that the cross-hatched impression was likely created by Neanderthals and excluding the possibility of an unintentional or utilitarian origin, would represent Neanderthals' capacity for abstract expression. Previously-discovered cave art has been exclusively attributed to modern humans, who arrived in Western Europe around 40,000 years ago. In July 2012, researchers discovered the abstract pattern engraved in the rock of Gorham's Cave which is located on the southeast face of the Rock of Gibraltar. The cross-hatched pattern was overlain by undisturbed sediment in which Neanderthal artefacts had previously been...

Dozens of rock art sites in southern New Mexico, recently documented for the first time, are revealing unexpected botanical clues that archaeologists say may help unlock the meaning of the ancient abstract paintings. Over a swath of the Chihuahuan Desert stretching from Carlsbad to Las Cruces, at least 24 rock art panels have been found bearing the same distinctive pictographs: repeated series of triangles painted in combinations of red, yellow, and black. And at each of these sites, archaeologists have noticed similarities not just on the rock, but in the ground. Hallucinogenic plants were found growing beneath the triangle designs,...

WASHINGTON – Ancient cave drawings in Indonesia are as old as famous prehistoric art in Europe, according to a new study that shows our ancestors were drawing all over the world 40,000 years ago. And it hints at an even earlier dawn of creativity in modern humans, going back to Africa, than scientists had thought. Archaeologists calculated that a dozen stencils of hands in mulberry red and two detailed drawings of an animal described as a "pig-deer" are between 35,000 to 40,000 years old, based on levels of decay of the element uranium. That puts the art found in Sulawesi,...