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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."
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 '—'.
Possibly somewhat impossible to determine, but it should precipitate further inquiry into potential points of cultural exchange between species.
Perhaps neanderthals are the key to making Linux the most popular desktop... now we'll never know.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
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 !
The artwork dates to when neanderthals were in Europe, but not before the earliest evidence of homo sapiens in Europe.
It seems unlikely that the art was done by neanderthals, and if it was it was probably done by neanderthals imitating homo sapiens. (there is a reason that "to ape' means to copy.
I make this assumption based on the fact that cave art seems to show up with other evince of homo sapiens, but there have been no finds of cave art that are dated earlier than any evidence of humans.
Also, the theory of complexity of art is obviously pulled out of said scientists arses . Scientists that claim that an drawing of a circle as art predates recognizable drawings of the physical world are obviously more recent need to take a look at the verifiable date of the Mona Lisa, and any single geometric shape at a MOMA and explain why their hypothosis that directly contradicts verifiable data about artwork should be viewed as anything other than B.S.
Work bio at MMWD
Then get them back there RIGHT NOW and make them clean it up.
No, but they did form the Tea Party ;-)
Why do you malign Neanderthals thus?
I think the evidence points to them having very high political ideals - for one thing, they did not have lawyers.
Um, it looks like they may have started making cave paintings about 5000 years before modern humans moved into the area.
I know that at a distance 5000 years may not seem like much, but in fact a lot can happen in 5000 years.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jdi/lowres/jdin551l.jpg
Table-ized A.I.
In the mid-1950s abstract expressionism was the rage. Congo was a successful artist. Here are some of his paintings. Some sold for about $30,000. Most impressive, given Congo was a chimpanzee. It’s not surprising if Neanderthals did early cave art, cave art surpassing its contemporary human art. After all Congo has already established, artistic talent isn’t restricted to Homo sapiens sapiens.
HRH The Duke of Windsor
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
well, IMO that makes since, trying to eat while not being eaten kind of trumps cave art in my book of priorities in the ages before cultivation. Of course that all depends on the definition of swift ... thats a bit open ended considering the time scales involved. IE a handful of generations, or a handful of centuries?
They also invented (or co-invented) music, were willing to explore the possibilities Europe had to offer, and ate grains with their meat.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There is also very little in common between the earliest cave art attributed to Homo Sapiens and any of the cave art attributed to Neanderthals - very different styles, very different formats, very different in nature all round.
The paintings in France also include proto-writing next to the paintings, but no such symbols exist here.
Most important of all, the paintings attributed to Neanderthals include fish that Neanderthals ate at the time and Homo Sapiens did not.
So if Neanderthals are present and Homo Sapiens are not, we've opportunity taken care of.
Neanderthals had been mucking around with ochre at the time, Homo Sapiens didn't utilize it for a long time after, so that's means.
The pictures show Neanderthal food not Homo Sapien food, which gives motive.
No proto-writing and no utilization of the 3D nature of the rock surface means no continuity with the French cave paintings, so Homo Sapiens are sans continuity.
I'd say that nails it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Either you have something to say or you don't. "Could it be?" articles instantly give the impression that your on the same ground as "Did aliens build the pyramids?" which will be followed (after an hour of time wasting) with "we may never know."
but they did do some cave hentai tentacle drawings
Can they fix us up with some cute Neandert(h)al girls? If not, they ain't no experts.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
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.
For sure they did! Microsoft used a time machine to get a neanderthal for designing metro!
Finally NT=Neanderthal Technology becomes true!
This supposed stone age art work is a fake, made by local land owners to make some tourist euros ;) Not sure how they date this but am guessing its unreliable.
"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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Look there is no other evidence of Neanderthals doing such paintings elsewhere, there is no record of the development of such techniques in Neanderthal artefacts. Their tool kit had not changed for hundreds of thousands of years. Under these circumstances, we need to independently confirm the dating techniques are good and reliable. Otherwise it would end up as an egg in their faces like the claim of faster than light travel reported last year. It turned out to be clock calibration issue. Go through the dating procedure and the assumptions, and data more carefully first before engaging in colorful speculations.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The cave paintings in France clearly showed artistic ability, even genius. These Neanderthal artifacts, though, obviously involve nothing more than picking up a spray can and spraying it around his hand. If you doubt me when I say that isn't art, just try selling something like that at Southeby's. ... Never mind.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
idiocy and pseudoscience, then i have to wonder if the slashdot system itself has some kind of inherent internal flaw.
just pause for a moment and consider the possibilities.
Neanderthals were known for shaping stone artwork, the neanderthal Venus are quite well known, so there's no reason to think they lacked the ability to paint. Developmentally Neanderthals were very close to modern humans. There is debate about some problem solving and complex tool making but in many ways they were hard to separate from humans. They even developed music and the flute.
So who's to say that the only preserved drawings we discovered were from a Master Artist of the time? What if it's the random scribblings of a child or not-to-artistic adult even (If you looked at my wall scrawlings, absent carbon dating, you would also think they were created by a less-evolved species)
Unequivocally the realest of the realz...
The morphometrics of the hand prints shows those first artists were women, Neandertal (or -thal), but not Vandal (or -dhal).
Until homo sapiens moved in, there was nobody willing to buy their art. Who knows? Given enough time, they might have realized that the stupid humans will even pay good money for 'art' painted by chips. Or Adam Sandler movies.
Have gnu, will travel.
It is "racism" to notice that at a certain period in history one race made achievements in civilization that another did not? But one thing is for sure, we can always count on psuedo-intellectuals like yourself raising the "racism" smokescreen in lieu of intellegent discussion of the topic.
Where did you get the 5,000 year figure? The article itself cites clear evidence of human habitation in Europe 41,600 years ago, which is before the earliest painting's date of 40,800 years ago. There are sites even earlier than that. Plus, there is a fundamental problem in that preservation events are rare, so humans were no doubt in the area long before we'd ever find evidence of them.
Meanwhile, Neanderthals had been around in Europe for 300,000 years. Even if your number were right, for 98.3% of their existence, Neanderthals didn't bother making cave paintings.
I haven't figured out what dating experts know about Neanderthals.
I think the question "How many Neanderthals have you successfully dated to this day?" should settle that.
Ezekiel 23:20
nonsense, crackers are manmade.
I've yet to see any crackers made with assburgers attached, yet.
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Who says it's 'Art'? - might be an image of 'the hand that has killed', and the blobs might be notches on the club, all there for the cave-goblins to approve.
Rouge
I find this unlikely. There is a clear history of all social intelligence and knowledge coming from Mesopotamia. Before that we knew nothing. Knowledge is never killed and we would never kill it on pupose. What's next? Someone will tell us the great pyramid is older then 4500 years and that math constants such as Phi and Pi are much older then our history records. Ludicrous. Humans have never been more intelligent then we are today and that process is clearly linear. Most of our knownledge stems from around the birth of our current faiths... that is the way our maker intended it and that is the way it is.
Australian Aboriginals, "modern humans" go back 40,000 years of living in Australia, and they had cave art. Some were still living in the same old way until only about 100 years ago. Spaniards, neaderthals? What's the difference?
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.