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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 '—'.
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.
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."
theres a bit of difference tween a chimp ploping paint strokes in a semi random fashion to make modern "art" and the cave paintings clearly depicting characters doing specific actions. When Congo starts drawing his family actively hunting a beast and roasting it over a fire then I will concede your argument.
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)
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.
"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
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.
The morphometrics of the hand prints shows those first artists were women, Neandertal (or -thal), but not Vandal (or -dhal).
The handprints, perhaps, but the pictures of fish were somewhat more stylized and were definitely not stencil-based. I'd consider those abstractions and therefore art at its most simplistic. Much more crucially, though, it's stuff with a totally different intent.
If you're saying the Neanderthal pictures were extremely simplistic and lacked any obvious "thought"* - they were depictions at a very mechanical level - then I'd totally agree. If you're saying the French pictures showed enormous thought and mindfulness - even in the kiddy training area (there was a section set aside to train kids on painting) - then again I'd totally agree. There was an incredible level of sentience involved.
If we go apples-to-apples, there were sections of the French caves that had hand paintings. But they showed awareness and no small amount of ingenuity. Several would have required platforms to be set up, for example. Not easy in such a confined space.
And, yes, if IQ is generalized as the ration of what a person can think/know vs what you'd expect of them, we can get a feel for their IQ. I'd consider proto-flipbook animation, haziness to depict motion, and relief to convey stereoscopic images to be well above the 48% above the average person of the time, and an IQ of 148 is all MENSA requires. So if you want to call the French painters geniuses I'd have to agree.
*Given that Neanderthals diverged from homo sapiens so far back, it is possible that their thought processes are too alien for modern humans to comprehend, that we're looking for the wrong signals, the wrong visual cues. It is possible. Unlikely, though, but possible. Doesn't really alter the conclusion, though, which is that it wasn't a Homo Sapien mindset. Whatever it was or wasn't, it wasn't that. This raises an intriguing side-question, though - how WOULD we recognize art from an alien mind?
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)