Reconstruction of a Neanderthal girl. Christopher P.E. Zollikofer. Anthropological Institute, University of Zurich Image from Wikipedia.
Joel Kontinen
Ochre
artefacts found in Crimea show signs of having been used for drawing, adding to
evidence that Neanderthals used pigments in symbolic ways.
A
remarkable yellow crayon unearthed in Crimea, still sharp after more than
40,000 years, indicates that painting lines on objects was part of Neanderthal
culture. This discovery is the firmest evidence yet that some Neanderthal
groups used coloured
pigments in symbolic ways.
According
to evolution, the use
of ochre – an iron-rich mineral with red, yellow or orange hues – has
ancient roots, dating back at least 400,000 years in Europe and Africa. Bits of
ochre are found at many Neanderthal sites, where they seem to have been used
for practical purposes such as tanning clothing and as fire accelerants, as
well as sometimes smeared on shell beads.
Neanderthals may have also used ochre to
decorate their bodies, clothing and other surfaces, but such traces have long
since disappeared. To investigate further, Francesco d’Errico at the
University of Bordeaux, France, and his colleagues carried . out a detailed analysis of ochre
pieces found at Neanderthal sites in Crimea, Ukraine. By studying how ochre
pieces were modified by Neanderthals, as well as performing a microscopic
analysis of how they became worn down, the researchers could build a picture of
how the objects were used.
“It was a
tool that had been curated and reshaped several times, which makes it very
special,” says d’Errico. “It’s not just a crayon by shape. It’s a crayon
because it was used as a crayon. It’s something that may have been used on skin
or rock to make a line – the reflection,
perhaps, of an artistic activity.”
The
research team also identified another more ancient broken crayon, perhaps
70,000 years old, made from red ochre.
“It tells
us so much just from those small bits of ochre,” says Pomeroy. “It’s that
little bit of humanity that we can relate to. It really brings those
individuals into touching distance.”
The Crimean
crayon discoveries add to the small but growing body of evidence indicating the
artistic talents of Neanderthals, such as 57,000-year-old finger carvings
on a cave wall in France and mysterious circles crafted from
stalagmites 175,000 years ago in another French cave.
They also lend weight to the idea that symbolic behaviour has very deep roots in our evolutionary past, rather than being a capacity that developed relatively recently only in Homo sapiens.
Some evolutionists think that ability for
symbolic behaviour is
undoubtedly shared by the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Denisovans and Neanderthals more than 700,000 years ago.
On the other hand, creationists think that the date of 700,000 years is from evolution, they are not supported by facts.
Source:
Alison George 2025
Posts
