Refuted mental retardation Neanderthals
An international group of scientists from Germany, Italy and Spain found that Neanderthals were able to create the image, which indicates the appearance they have the rudiments of culture. About it reported in a press release on EurekAlert!.
Experts found in a limestone cave, the Cueva de los Avione, located in the southern part of Spain, ancient artifacts, whose age was up to 115-120 thousand years. Findings include perforated sea shells, red and yellow dyes made from the shells of the vessels in which were the remains of the complex pigment mixtures.
While the earliest traces of modern man in this area date back to only about 40 thousand years, when the first wave of settlement of Homo sapiens in Europe. In addition, the researchers conducted uranium-thorium Dating of rock paintings in three caves of the Iberian Peninsula. It turned out that their age is 64,8 thousands of years ago, which also proves their Neanderthal origins.
Scientists believe that the discovery of artefacts that belonged to the Neanderthals, suggests that the capacity for symbolic art could be in the common ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis and modern humans who lived about half a million years ago.
Thus, the researchers refute the established view that Homo neanderthalensis couldn’t do art and had even primitive forms of language.