Researchers in Spain say they found evidence that primitive humans were able to create art – challenging the idea that art began with the contemporary humans they left.
The fabric was a pebble of quartz -rich granite dug from a rock shelter in central Spain in 2022, in a layer dating back between 42000 and 43,000 years. Measuring more than 8 inches, gravel carries curves and prefabrications that make them look like a human face.
Researchers said in the middle of its roof, there is one red point, where the nose will be in a nose A study published on Saturday In the magazine of archaeological and anthropological sciences, adding that it appears to be an unaware object and not a tool.
“From the beginning, we can say it was strange,” said David Alvarez Alonso, author of the newspaper.
The analysis showed that the red point consists of the acid, the natural land dye. The next step was to determine how it got there.
Although it is invisible to the naked eye, the Spanish forensic police confirmed the red point that it is a fingerprint, leaving “undoubtedly” that it was intentionally applied by a finger dipped in the Maghra, said Alvarez Alonso, an archaeologist at the University of Combuese in Madrid, said in an email on Tuesday.
Researchers assume that Neanderthal, who was based on fingerprints, may have been an adult male, perceived the gravel as a face -like – a psychological phenomenon known as Pareidolia – and inspired an inspiration to complete the filming, and created “one of the oldest known abstracts of the human face in the pre -record.”
“It will be a clear work of classification-it appears to be very simple, but it is meaningful,” said Alvarez Alonso.
The researchers said that this discovery is “exceptional” because it is the “most complete” imprint of human beings that have been identified so far, regardless of one partial part in Germany.
Primitive human beings, a distinguished type that has become extinct about 40,000 years ago, lived alongside modern humans in Europe, Asia and the Middle East For at least part of their presence. The large nose and relatively short and mixed bodies are characterized by species It is closely related to human beingsOr the sane homo.
Negative human residues do not show clear evidence that intelligence of contemporary humans has decreased, Some scholars argue.
Alvarez Alonso said that the stone is “one of the small number, but the increasing discoveries indicating the presence of symbolic behavior among primitive humans.”
However, it is “clearly isolated object, with no known similarities” that can be used for comparison.
“We should not try to draw direct similarities between the worlds of primitive and rational artistic women,” Alvarez Alonso said, because Neanderthal did not create a complex and varied visual symbolic system like the output that Homo Sapiens developed.
He said: “This gravel does not solve the puzzle, but it provides another idea indicating a complex mind – one capable of producing symbols.”
