For a long time, Neanderthals were considered too "stupid" to express themselves artistically - but now there is some evidence of jewelry and art from our Ice Age cousin. Now archaeologists have discovered another possible example of Neanderthal art in a cave in France. They are patterns of lines and dots that were scraped into the soft surface of the cave walls more than 57,000 years ago - well before the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe. The shape and arrangement of the fingerprints suggest that these patterns were created intentionally - whether as art or for ritual greenery is still unclear. Given the great age, these finger patterns may even represent the oldest known Neanderthal cave art.
When the first representatives of Homo sapiens, the anatomically modern human, immigrated to Europe from Africa, they were not the first people on this continent. Hundreds of thousands of years earlier, Neanderthals had spread across large parts of Eurasia. They left stone tools of the so-called Mousterian culture, but also wooden spears, complex tools and simple jewelry made of eagle claws or seashells. For a long time, however, it was disputed which cognitive abilities the Neanderthals, who were physically well adapted to the harsh conditions of the Ice Age, possessed. To this day, for example, it is unclear whether he possessed the ability to think abstractly and create symbolic and figurative art. While early representatives of our ancestors made elaborate cave paintings almost 40,000 years ago, there is hardly any evidence of such creative work from Neanderthals.
Lines and dots on the cave wall
But now archaeologists led by Jean-Claude Marquet from the University of Tours in France may have discovered new examples of Neanderthal art. You have been excavating and investigating in the La Roche-Cotard cave in the Loire Valley since 2008. The entrance to this cave was accidentally uncovered and discovered during quarrying in 1848. Since then, in addition to animal bones and animal tracks, scientists have also found numerous stone tools of the Mousterian style typical of the Neanderthals in the four chambers of the cave. In the course of photogrammetric mapping of the cave walls, Marquet's team noticed several wall areas that appeared to be decorated with some kind of pattern. This consists of numerous flat lines, some of which form parallel stripes, some of which are at an angle to one another. They are pressed into the soft, fine-grained covering of the tufa walls and are primarily found in the upper areas of the walls.
In search of an explanation, archaeologists analyzed the patterns carved into the cave walls. It turned out that unlike the claw marks of cave bears or other animals, these indented lines and dots do not have a V-shaped cross-section. "These marks are flatter, wider, and U-shaped," Marquet and his team report. "They match tracks that you leave behind with a fingertip or a similarly shaped tool." In addition, the patterns for animal tracks are too regular. According to Marquet and his team, these traces must therefore be of human origin. It would be logical to attribute these traces to Homo sapiens - after all, our species is known for rock art and cave paintings.
More than 57,000 years old
But optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating revealed that the patterns in La Roche-Cotard Cave must be older than 57,000 years. "This age makes it highly unlikely that anatomically modern humans were active in this cave," Marquet and his team state. Because the earliest representatives of Homo sapiens only reached Europe around 45,000 years ago. In addition, access to the cave has been blocked by thick layers of sediment for around 51,000 years. As a result, once Homo sapiens reached this area, they were unable to enter the cave, the team explains. This is one of the reasons why there are no stone tools, bones or other traces of a human or animal presence from the recent past. It was only in the 19th century that people first entered the cave again.
According to archaeologists, the evidence suggests that the finger patterns in Roche-Cotard Cave are Neanderthal - and that they were intentionally placed on the cave walls. "The layout of these non-figurative graphic units forms an organized and intentional composition," they write. “They are the result of a thought process that leads to conscious design and intention.” However, it is unclear whether these patterns were the product of artistic expression or perhaps even had a ritual meaning. "We can't tell if they represent symbolic thinking," Marquet and his team said. "Nevertheless, the traces from the La Roche-Cotard are a new and very important addition to our knowledge of Neanderthal behavior." Since the maximum age of the fingermarks could not be precisely determined, it could even be the oldest cave art in Europe.
Source: Jean-Claude Marquet (Université de Tours) et al., PLoS ONE, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286568