PGC – More evidence is emerging in the caves of Spain that Neanderthals were far more sophisticated than previous imagined. It has taken the species a long time to recover from its early stigmatization as being a brute caveman, a less intelligent and more face-boned version of we homo hom sapiens.
Now, we have evidence that Neanderthals may have engaged in creative arts maybe as much as 20,000 years before we homo homo sapiens did.
In the Caves of Ardales, which is located near Malaga, a southern Spanish City, researchers found red ochre pigment on stalagties within the caves that appear to be intentional in their patterning, suggesting these are the earliest evidence we have for any humanoid species creating something we can today call art.
As one who is in the upper 1 percent of the population in terms of the amount of Neanderthal DNA I possess, this fills me with pride as a fellow neanderthaller that our people are finally beginning to be recognized as the great people they were, and, through us, still are.
So that last sentence might have been a bit hyperbolic for theatrical reasons. Please don’t start any groups. But DO start thinking of the neanderthal maybe a little but less cavemaney that you did before (even though, yes, the findings are LITERALLY in caves).
Prehistoric cave paintings in Spain show Neanderthals were artists
From www.todayonline.com
2021-08-08 06:00:04
tdyadmin
Excerpt:
Neanderthals may have been closer to our species of prehistoric modern human than previously believed after cave paintings found in Spain proved they had a fondness for creating art, one of the authors of a new scientific report said on Sunday.
Red ochre pigment discovered on stalagmites in the Caves of Ardales, near Malaga in southern Spain, were created by Neanderthals about 65,000 years ago, making them possibly the first artists on earth, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.
Modern humans were not inhabiting the world at the time the cave images were made.
The new findings add to increasing evidence that Neanderthals, whose lineage became extinct about 40,000 years ago, were not the unsophisticated relatives of Homo sapiens they been long been portrayed as.
Read Full Article
