Did Neandertals Paint Early Cave Art?

sciencehabit writes "Dating experts working in Spain, using a technique relatively new to archaeology, have pushed dates for the earliest cave art back some 4000 years to at least 41,000 years ago, raising the possibility that the artists were Neandertals rather than modern humans. And a few researchers say that the study argues for the slow development of artistic skill over tens of thousands of years — not a swift acquisition of talent, as some had argued."

Comments

mdash

[jamesh]

And a few researchers say that the study argues for the slow development of artistic skill over tens of thousands of years mdash; not a swift acquisition of talent, as some had argued.

It may now be considered proper to spell and pronounce Neandertal with a 't' not a 'th' sound, but 'mdash' is still normally written as '—'.

Re:mdash

[girlintraining]

It may now be considered proper to spell and pronounce Neandertal with a 't' not a 'th' sound, but 'mdash' is still normally written as 'â"'.

Us Neandertal autor is are offended by your racial oppression of our linguistic atred of the 8t letter of the alpabet.

Of course ...

[mister2au]

There have been vandals as long as there have been things to vandalise ...

Neanderthals lived in social groups so there were Neanderthal kids being dragged around by Neanderthal parents and this was before the internet and even before TV ... you work it out - bored kids + pristine cave walls !

Well, if neanderthals DID paint those cave walls..

[SlithyMagister]

Then get them back there RIGHT NOW and make them clean it up.

Re:Probably not

[Hognoxious]

Maybe the Neanderthals couldn't verbalize their ideas very well so they learned to draw them?

Ug sees bear advancing towards Og.
Ug pulls out a piece of ochre and starts scribbling frantically.
Og looks puzzled.
Bear eats Og.
Ug sighs and walks away.

Now we know why they're extinct.

Irrelevant

[toriver]

The cave paintings are long out of copyright, and as we all know, only works under copyright hold any value.

Yours,
The entertainment industry organizations.

Re:Irrelevant

[chichilalescu]

obviously, we need to make copyright longer, to keep people from making changes to our heritage!

Re:Irrelevant

[Sponge Bath]

The Bono Extension of Neanderthal copyright Terms (BENT) would increase copyright to 50 millennia to foster the creativity of extinct species.

Re:No!

[Runaway1956]

"Dating experts working in Spain"

I haven't figured out what dating experts know about neanderthals. Yeah, sure, some early "modern humans" may have dated some neanderthals. In fact, there have been a few reports that we all have neanderthal genes in our makeup. But, today's dating experts? What do they know about neanderthals? Maybe - just maybe - those dating experts know something about Spaniards, but forget the neanderthals.