From the BBC
Details of the discovery by an international team of researchers has been published in the journal PNAS.
There is now ample evidence that Neanderthal intellectual abilities may have been underestimated. Recent finds suggest they intentionally buried their dead, adorned themselves with feathers, painted their bodies with black and red pigments, and consumed a more varied diet than had previously been supposed.
One of the study’s authors, Prof Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, said the latest find “brings the Neanderthals closer to us, yet again”. More.
They were never very far, away actually. That stuff got ginned up because Darwin’s followers needed a subhuman between man and the chimpanzee. The Neanderthals were perfect for the part because, as a separate group, they are extinct, and can’t blow the cover off the story.
Unclear why the BBC refers to the scorings on the dolomite, below, as “artwork.” They look more like a sign of some kind.
If we found more of them, as with many ancient symbol systems, we might be able to decipher a pattern. See, for example, the story of the cracking of Linear B.
See also: Neanderthal Man: The long-lost relative turns up again, this time with documents
and
A deep and abiding need for Neanderthals to be stupid. Why?
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