Free Republic

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...

Archaeologists have discovered fragments of one of the world's oldest sculptures, a lion-faced figurine estimated at 32,000 years old, from the dirt floor of a cave in southern Germany. The ivory figure, along with a tiny figurine known as the Venus of Hohle Fels, marks the foundation of human artistry. Both were created by a Stone Age European culture that historians call Aurignacian. The Aurignacians appear to have been the first modern humans, with handicrafts, social customs and beliefs. They hunted reindeer, woolly rhinoceros, mammoths and other animals. The Lion-Man sculpture, gradually re-assembled in workshops over decades after the fragments...

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...

...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...

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,...

For 12 years, visitors wanting to see Spain's prized prehistoric Altamira cave paintings have had to settle for a replica in a museum a few hundred feet away. But from Thursday, small groups of visitors will again be allowed in the cave, which has been described as the Sistine Chapel of paleolithic art, as part of an experiment to determine whether the paintings can support the presence of sightseers. The vast cavern complex, in the Cantabria region of northern Spain, was made a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1985. It is covered in paintings dated to between 14,000 and...

Hard evidence that the engravings of women and extinct creatures at Creswell Crags are more than 12,800 years old is published today, making them Britain's oldest rock art. Creswell Crags, on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, is riddled with caves which contain preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. Recently, engravings were found on the walls and ceiling depicting animals such as the European Bison, now extinct in Britain, female dancers or birds - depending on the view of the archaeologist - and intimate female body parts. Dating rock art is difficult, especially if there are no charcoal-based black...

Archaeologists say red disk that is more than 40,000 years old could have been painted by Neanderthals. [Snip... Photos at link] It’s no Mona Lisa, but a smudged red disk in northern Spain has been crowned the world’s earliest cave painting. Dated to more than 40,800 years ago, the shape was painted by some of the first modern humans to reach the Iberian Peninsula — or it may have been done by Neanderthals, residents of the Iberian peninsula for more than 200,000 years. “There is a very good chance that this is Neanderthal,” says Alistair Pike, an archaeological scientist at...

Stone Age artists were painting red disks, handprints, clublike symbols and geometric patterns on European cave walls long before previously thought, in some cases more than 40,000 years ago, scientists reported Thursday, after completing more reliable dating tests that raised a possibility that Neanderthals were the artists. A more likely situation, the researchers said, is that the art -- 50 samples from 11 caves in northwestern Spain-- was created by anatomically modern humans fairly soon after their arrival in Europe. The findings seem to put an exclamation point to a run of recent discoveries: direct evidence from fossils that Homo...

In 2009, a ground-breaking study by Genevieve von Petzinger revealed that dots, lines and other geometric signs found in prehistoric European caves may be the precursor to an ancient system of written communication dating back nearly 30,000 years. Von Petzinger, with University of Victoria anthropology professor April Nowell, compiled the markings from 146 different sites in Ice Age France, making it possible to compare the signs on a larger scale than had ever previously been attempted. What made her research ‘new’ was that she was able to use a whole range of modern technology to compare inventories and digital images...

The famous paintings on the walls of caves in Europe mark the beginning of figurative art and a great leap forward for human culture. But now a novel method of determining the age of some of those cave paintings questions their provenance. Not that they're fakes — only that it might not have been modern humans who made them. The first European cave paintings are thought to have been made over 30,000 years ago. Most depict animals and hunters. Some of the eeriest are stencils of human hands, apparently made by blowing a spray of pigment over a hand held...

In 1940, a group of teenagers discovered the paintings of bison, bulls and horses adorning the walls of France's Lascaux Cave. Roughly 17,000 years old, the paintings are Europe's most famous cave art, but hardly the oldest. This week archaeologists announced finding in another cave in France art dating to about 37,000 years ago, making it a candidate for Europe's most ancient artwork. Here's a look at the new discovery and the other top contenders for the title of Europe's oldest work of art. Nerja Caves (possibly about 43,000 years ago)... by Neanderthals, the [humans] that lived in this part...

Archaeologists unearth Britain's first cave pictures Robin McKie, science editor Sunday June 15, 2003 The Observer (UK) Archaeologists have discovered 12,000-year-old engravings carved by ancient Britons in a cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. The depiction of the animals - which include a pair of birds - is the first example of prehistoric cave art in Britain. The discovery - by Paul Bahn and Paul Pettitt, with Spanish colleague Sergio Ripoll - is set to trigger considerable scientific excitement, for it fills a major gap in the country's archeological record. 'If this is verified, it represents a wonderful discovery,' said Professor...

Britain and France in dispute over cave art By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris (Filed: 16/10/2003) The age of the cave paintings at Chauvet, the Sistine Chapel of palaeolithic art in south eastern France, has become the subject of a war of words between British and French archaeologists. The British claim the French may have exaggerated their age by 18,000 years under official pressure to promote them as the oldest cave paintings in the world. In its final report on the paintings, released this week, a French culture ministry rejected the allegations and called the British dating methods "too slow...

Stone Age Code Red: Scarlet symbols emerge in Israeli cave Bruce Bower The Qafzeh Cave in Israel contains skeletal remains of modern Homo sapiens that are more than 90,000 years old, as well as more-recent signs of human occupation. Investigators now say that red ocher found in Qafzeh Cave's oldest sections supports the controversial theory that symbolic thinking, a hallmark of modern-day human thought, arose deep in the Stone Age. HUE CLUE. An ancient lump of red ocher excavated at Qafzeh Cave contains evidence of scraping by stone implements. G. Laron, Inst. of Archaeology/Hebrew Univ. Archaeologists traditionally have held that...

Cave colours reveal mental leap By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Ochre-stained rocks have been found in the cave Red-stained bones dug up in a cave in Israel are prompting researchers to speculate that symbolic thought emerged much earlier than they had believed. Symbolic thought - the ability to let one thing represent another - was a giant leap in human evolution. It was a mental ability that allowed sophisticated language and maths. New excavations show that a red colour made from ochre was used in burials 100,000 years ago, much earlier than other examples of colour...

Ancient engravings found in Somerset cave [07 February 2005] Two members of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society have discovered an engraving in a cave in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, which may be at least 10,000 years old. Graham Mullan and Linda Wilson, who have spent much of the last ten years studying Palaeolithic cave art, recently began a systematic search of caves in southern Britain in the belief that such works in this country would not simply be confined to those found at Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire. The first results of this study are a series of inscribed crosses found...

December 07, 2005 Cave paintings reveal Ice Age artists By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent BRITAIN’S first cave art is more than 12,800 years old, scientific testing has shown. Engravings of a deer and other creatures at Creswell Crags, in Derbyshire, have proved to be genuine Ice Age creations, and not modern fakes, as some had feared. The engravings were found in 2003 at two caves, Church Hole and Robin Hood’s Cave, which lie close together in the Creswell gorge. Palaeolithic occupation deposits dating to the last Ice Age were excavated there in 1875-76, but the art remained unnoticed. Although the...

Scientists say an Aboriginal rock art depiction of an extinct giant bird could be Australia's oldest painting. The red ochre painting, which depicts two emu-like birds with their necks outstretched, could date back to the earliest days of settlement on the continent. It was rediscovered at the centre of the Arnhem Land plateau about two years ago, but archaeologists first visited the site a fortnight ago. A palaeontologist has confirmed the animals depicted are the megafauna species Genyornis. Archaeologist Ben Gunn said the giant birds became extinct more than 40,000 years ago. "The details on this painting indicate that it...