Artistic side of Neanderthals

– A 40 000-year-old piece of raven bone etched with near-even lines suggests Neanderthals had an eye for aesthetics, French researchers said on Wednesday.

Neanderthals, who were cousins of modern men and who disappeared about 38 000 years ago, are known to have used pigments and collected bird feathers and shells, sometimes burying objects with the dead.

Now, the 1.5cm piece of bone found at an archaeological site in Crimea suggests they may have etched lines in a way that appeared deliberate, and may have been symbolic or decorative.

Microscopic analysis showed that six grooves were added at first, and two more later, perhaps to make the distance between them more even.

“We could therefore show that Neanderthals made etches with the intent of creating a visually harmonious – and perhaps symbolic – motif,” said researcher Francesco d’Errico, a palaeontologist with the University of Bordeaux and lead author of the study in the journal Plos One. “There was at least some aesthetic reason for these marks because of their regularity,” he said.

The study was “the first that provides direct evidence to support a symbolic argument for intentional modifications on a bird bone”, according to the journal.

Neanderthals lived 200 000 years ago and existed alongside modern man for about 10 000 years. The last trace of Neanderthals goes back about 38 000 years. But they have not totally disappeared. Due to interbreeding with modern people, humans inherited between two and four percent of Neanderthal genes. – AFP

There was at least some aesthetic reason for these marks because of their regularity. Francesco d’Errico Palaeontologist