Neanderthals’ poor art may explain their extinction
Researchers say dubious drawing abilities of ancient humans were linked to their poor hunting skills
NEANDERTHALS were not great thinkers, and their forays into cave drawing left a lot to be desired.
But while the dubious artistic prowess of these prehistoric cousins to early humans may not seem of much importance, new research has found it is closely related to their inferior hunting skills and may ultimately explain why they became extinct.
Analysis of charcoal drawings and engravings by primitive homo sapiens, such as at the cave at Chauvet-pontd’arc in France, reveal elaborate depictions of animals, including lions and deer in a variety of scenes.
However, there is virtually no evidence of Neanderthal art, and what disputed examples there are mainly comprise rudimentary straight lines and no recognisable images. Now, scientists at University of California, Davis, have said this is closely related to a lack of hand-eye co-ordination due to the fact they lived off easy-to-kill prey.
Existing mainly in Eurasia between 120,000 and 35,000 years ago, Nean- derthals were able to feed themselves on less dangerous animals, such as horses, reindeer and bison, meaning they rarely needed to throw spears.
Homo sapiens, which share 99.7 per cent of Neanderthal DNA but are a separate species, spent hundreds of thousands of years hunting dangerous game on the open grasslands of Africa, where throwing spears was often the only way to hunt in safety. In the new study, Professor Richard Coss, a psychologist and artist, argues the mental faculties that allow a human to visualise the arc of a spear are similar to those that enable drawing.
“Neanderthals could mentally visualise previously-seen animals from working memory, but they were unable to translate those mental images effectively into the coordinated handmovement patterns required for drawing,” he said. “Since the act of drawing enhances observational skills, perhaps these drawings were useful for conceptualising hunts, evaluating game attentiveness, selecting vulnerable body areas as targets and fostering group cohesiveness via spiritual ceremonies.”
His research, published in the journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, also analysed genomics, neuroscientific evidence and animal behaviour. He proposed a new theory for the evolution of the human brain: that homo sapiens developed rounder skulls and grew bigger parietal cortices – the region that integrates visual imagery and motor co-ordination.