In a rugged panorama in central Spain, archaeologists have found a novel granite cobblestone marked with a purple ochre dot that preserves the mark of a Neandertal fingerprint. Relationship again roughly 43,000 years, it might be the oldest and most full Neandertal fingerprint ever recognized.
Roughly 20 centimeters lengthy, the rock bears a resemblance to a human face, with the ochre dot the place a nostril may be, researchers report Could 24 in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. This association, the scientists say, suggests it’s a case of pareidolia — the tendency to understand acquainted shapes, akin to faces, in random objects. It’s doable the likeness impressed the Neandertal who positioned the pigment there.
The stone was excavated in the summertime of 2022 at Abrigo de San Lázaro, a Paleolithic rock shelter carved into dolomite cliffs overlooking the Eresma River. It emerged from a sediment layer exactly dated to 43,000 and 42,000 years in the past via radiocarbon evaluation of natural materials. That’s close to the tip of Neandertal historical past.
The rock appeared with the purple dot going through upward, in a layer with few different stones, most exhibiting indicators that they had been as soon as used as hammering instruments. It shortly attracted the archaeologist’s curiosity as a result of it was bigger than some other stone within the layer, “and from the primary second, we noticed that it had a purple dot,” says David Álvarez Alonso, an historian and archaeologist on the Complutense College in Madrid.
Intrigued by the dot’s precision and placement, the group first confirmed that it wasn´t a pure characteristic of the rock via a mineralogical evaluation. They hypothesized the dot might have been made by dipping a fingertip into a combination of the pure pigment ochre and water, then urgent it to the rock. To check the thought, the group consulted forensic specialists at Spain’s nationwide police.
Puzzled by the request, the forensic specialists had been initially skeptical of their capability to unravel such a chilly case, Álvarez Alonso says. However multispectral imaging — a method that examines surfaces underneath totally different wavelengths of sunshine — revealed fingerprint ridges, exhibiting the print was made because the ochre was utilized.
The form suggests it was possible made with the tip of a finger, although it’s unclear which one. Based mostly on comparisons to fingerprint databases, probably the most possible match is an grownup male, reasonably than a lady or baby.
In contrast to incidental prints left on objects akin to resin balls present in Germany — in all probability throughout toolmaking — this print seems intentional. The position of the dot, mixed with the dearth of apparent utility for the rock, suggests a symbolic function, the researchers say.
It’s inconceivable to find out the painter’s intention, Álvarez Alonso says. However in a context the place rocks had been used as instruments, to him it’s clear the one that marked this one was conferring it a special which means.
This interpretation contributes to an ongoing reevaluation of Neandertal cognitive talents. For a lot of the final century, Neandertals had been considered as missing symbolic thought — a trait thought to separate them from trendy people. However over the previous twenty years, discoveries akin to painted seashells and pendants, have eroded that distinction.
A number of the most compelling proof comes from the painted caves of southern Spain — akin to Ardales and Maltravieso — the place Neandertals made geometric patterns and hand stencils roughly 20,000 years earlier than Homo sapiens arrived within the area. Though these markings lack the vivid imagery of later Higher Paleolithic artwork, produced between 40,000 and 10,000 years in the past, the work’s symbolic intent is changing into more and more accepted.
“It is a stunning and unique research,” says archaeologist José Ramos-Muñoz of the College of Cadiz, Spain, who was not concerned within the analysis. “The oldest artwork consists of dots, traces and smudges,” he says, and extra proof of that retains showing. “That is one other knowledge level in the identical path.”
