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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."

9 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Re:mdash by JustOK · · Score: 3, Informative

    And yet they can.

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    rewriting history since 2109
  2. Re:mdash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Neandertal is a valley close to Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1901, an orthographic reform changed the name from Neanderthal to Neandertal ("Tal" is German for "valley"). The Neanderthal man however had been discovered long before and keeps his original name with the "th".

  3. Re:Of course ... by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 5, Informative

    Vandals didn't enter Spain until 409 AD.

    This article is about art dated to roughly forty millennia before they arrived.

  4. Re:Over hyped by lanswitch · · Score: 4, Informative

    The oldest evidence of modern humans in Europe is over 43.000, not 36.000 years old. There is no evidence that the Neandertal was responsible for the Aurigniac, but a lot of evidence that connects the Aurigniac with modern humans.

    http://dienekes.blogspot.nl/2012/05/43000-year-old-aurignacian-in-swabian.html

  5. Re:mdash by zephvark · · Score: 5, Informative

    It may be appropriate to note that Germans typically don't pronounce "th" as Americans do. It's like "we" versus "whee", the "h" part is an aspiration mark. A common spelling error, for English-speaking Germans, is to put a "th" in where a "t" sound belongs. Neanderthal has always been pronounced Neandertal, they just changed the spelling.

  6. Re:mdash by schroedingers_hat · · Score: 1, Informative

    TWENTY DASH SEVEN DASH CHARACTERS OUGHT TO BE ENOUGH FOR ANYONE STOP

    Now to avoid the lameness filter comma I apostrophe m going to have to say something productive mdash or at least make a more extended version of the parent apostrophe s joke stop carriage return Nope nothing productive comes to mind stop

  7. Re:mdash by JustOK · · Score: 3, Informative

    And yet, you're wrong.

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    rewriting history since 2109
  8. Re:Over hyped by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Informative

    If Neanderthals and humans could mate and have fertile offspring, then why aren't they considered the same species?

    Because 'species' is a loaded word.

    The species problem

    tl;dr - Complicated natural phenomena are hard to reduce to a single word.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  9. Re:mdash by Mindcontrolled · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ehem, sorry, as a native German speaker I feel the need to add that the h in "th" is not an aspiration marker. Phonetically, there is no difference between"t" and "th" in German. It's just a relic of orthography. Both are pronounced as unvoiced alveolar plosive /t/.

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    Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.