Researchers say Neanderthals have painted abstracts of cave stones in Spain.
According to the Guardian, the results of the research confirmed that the “Neanderthals” had painted the abstracts of the rocks of the Ardales Cave in Spain more than 60,000 years ago. They have always described them as rude and simple people,
When, in 2018, the issue of the creation of these works by extinct human species was first raised, this issue provoked various reactions from experts. It was announced at the time, that these colors were created at least 64,800 years ago when modern humans did not live in that climate, but Neanderthals did.
But scientific articles have suggested that these colors may be a natural phenomenon.
However, new research confirms that these works were not created naturally. Instead, these people imprinted these colors by throwing them on the abstracts of the stones.
The samples collected from the colors do not match with the samples collected from the natural materials of the cave. And this means that the source of these colors goes back out of the cave.
Further research on the antiquity of these works also showed that these people engraved the colors on the rocks in different periods. In conclusion, the time interval of creation of some of them reaches more than 10 thousand years.
However, it is hard to compare Neanderthal art with frescoes of prehistoric humans discovered in a cave in France.
The cognitive and perceptual capacities of these humans were higher than what experts thought before. There is a fact to understand from this discovery.
“The Neanderthals were very intelligent,” says Leder, an archaeologist and senior researcher on the discovery. They were able to communicate and express themselves through symbols. “They are probably very similar in perception to us humans.”
However, some archaeologists still doubt that the “Neanderthals” created this type of symbolic art alone.