Cognitive Gap Narrows with Neandertals

The earliest cave art in Europe has now been determined to be of Neandertal origin. There are other Neandertal artifacts that may depict design or ritual from considerably earlier that may be re-examined. A new dating technique has permitted this assessment. Lines etched in caves in Spain date to at least 64,000 years ago, 20 thousand years before the arrival of modern humans. The cognitive capacity implied is shaking the field.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/europes-first-cave-artists-were-neanderta...

Fascinating! Here's the NatGeo article (with a short video) as well: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/neanderthals-cave-art-humans-evoluti...

Nice summary. In addition to this new finding, it is staggering to me to face the reality that the earliest body ornamentation is Neandertal, now dated to at least 110,000 years ago. The previous earliest examples were the work of modern humans from Blombos Cave in South Africa, at around 70,000 years ago.

Cognitive Gap Narrows with… Artists

:)

:)