Did a Neanderthal Who Lived 43,000 Years Ago Paint a Red Nose on a Rock That Looked Like a Face?
Researchers theorize that an adult male dipped his finger in red ocher and intentionally used the pigment to complete the face he saw on a small granite stone
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Roughly 43,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man dipped his finger in red ocher and painted a nose on a rock that looked like a human face.
This is the scenario presented by archaeologists in a paper published this month in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. The discovery adds to the debate over whether Neanderthals could make art and think abstractly, reports BBC News’ Malu Cursino.
“The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ocher shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolizing, imagining, idealizing and projecting his or her thoughts on an object,” the researchers write in the paper.
The stone was discovered in a rock shelter in central Spain in July 2022. Right away, researchers were intrigued by the quartz-rich rock, which measures more than eight inches long and more than four inches wide.
It has indentations that look like eyes and a mouth, as well as a ridge shaped like a nose. It did not look like a tool, and it was also larger than other stones found at the site. It had likely been transported to the cave from the Eresma River, located some three miles away.
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“From the outset, we could tell it was peculiar,” says lead author David Álvarez-Alonso, an archaeologist at Complutense University of Madrid, to NBC News’ Peter Guo.
To learn more about the unusual rock, the researchers first confirmed that the red dot was ocher, a natural pigment made from clay. Then, they worked with Spanish forensic police to determine that the red dot was a fingerprint, possibly made by an adult male Neanderthal.
Based on the placement of the red dot, they theorize that the Neanderthal thought the stone looked like a face and wanted to complete the resemblance. They suspect the individual was experiencing pareidolia, a phenomenon in which the brain perceives patterns and images—often faces—in inanimate objects.
“It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the dot is where it is—and there are no markings to indicate any other use,” Álvarez-Alonso tells the Guardian’s Sam Jones. “So why did they bring this pebble from the river to the inside of the cave? And, what’s more, there’s no ocher inside the cave or outside it. So they must have had to bring pigment from elsewhere.”
The artifact is also significant because it likely represents the most complete Neanderthal fingerprint discovered to date. Previously, researchers had found only a partial Neanderthal fingerprint, preserved in ancient resin at a site in central Germany.
It’s also possible that the stone represents “one of the oldest known abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record,” the researchers write.
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Still, they know that not everyone will agree with their hypothesis. Researchers have long debated whether modern humans were the first artists, or whether some earlier ancestors—like Neanderthals—were capable of symbolic thought.
Modern humans share a common ancestor with Neanderthals, which also walked upright and had large brains. But Neanderthals mysteriously disappeared roughly 40,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens lived on. Today, some humans have traces of Neanderthal DNA in their genomes because the two species interbred roughly 47,000 years ago.
For years, the persistent narrative has been that Neanderthals were less sophisticated than Homo sapiens. But a growing body of research suggests the species was more intelligent than previously thought. Neanderthals made and used wooden spears, cared for their fellow community members, made sticky tar and other adhesives, and butchered massive elephants, among other feats.
Other known examples of possible Neanderthal art include engravings made inside a cave at least 57,000 years ago and a carved, decorative bear bone that’s between 115,000 and 130,000 years old.
“We’ve set out our interpretation in the article, but the debate goes on,” Álvarez-Alonso tells the Guardian. “If we had a pebble with a red dot on it that was done 5,000 years ago by Homo sapiens, no one would hesitate to call it portable art. … Why would a Neanderthal have seen it differently from the way we see it today? They were human, too.”
