Ahanu
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Found this article interesting:
A red dot on a face-shaped rock in Spain may be setting records in more ways than one. At roughly 43,000 years old, the dot may be the oldest human fingerprint on record and also one of the earliest symbolic objects ever found in Europe.
The fingerprint, made with the red mineral ocher, was left by a Neanderthal — the closest extinct relative of modern humans. Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago but occupied Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before early modern humans arrived on the continent.
The researchers behind a new study argue that the red dot represents a nose on a rock with face-like features. The discovery is a further challenge to the idea that Neanderthals were generally not capable of symbolic art.
But some experts told Live Science they are not convinced that the dot is symbolic.
Anthropologist and archaeologist Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Ohio, who was not involved in the discovery, said the red dot was definitely deliberate but little more could be certain beyond that."
A red dot on a face-shaped rock in Spain may be setting records in more ways than one. At roughly 43,000 years old, the dot may be the oldest human fingerprint on record and also one of the earliest symbolic objects ever found in Europe.
The fingerprint, made with the red mineral ocher, was left by a Neanderthal — the closest extinct relative of modern humans. Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago but occupied Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before early modern humans arrived on the continent.
The researchers behind a new study argue that the red dot represents a nose on a rock with face-like features. The discovery is a further challenge to the idea that Neanderthals were generally not capable of symbolic art.
But some experts told Live Science they are not convinced that the dot is symbolic.
Anthropologist and archaeologist Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Ohio, who was not involved in the discovery, said the red dot was definitely deliberate but little more could be certain beyond that."
