Neanderthal art discovered?

Adam Khor

Another one for the Wibbs

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140901-neanderthal-engraving-gibraltar-science/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20140903news-neanderthal&utm_campaign=Content&sf4458809=1

Wibbs

I thought I'd linked that on the forum already. Man my poor old brain. :o:D Interesting stuff alright. Doesn't surprise me in the least TBH. I've long been a supporter that these guys at various times were rocking the symbolic. I have two of their lithics that seem to strongly suggest, if not a direct symbolic, a feeling for the symbolic and abstract.

They were certainly seeking out various ochres/hematite and other pigments for a long time. Stuff that's as much use as tits on a bull for other purposes. My personal take is that they were more individual focused, rather than the external abstract we brought to the party. They arted up their bodies, rather than externalised this onto the surface of caves and suchlike, or that was their tendency. More subjective self adornment going on. We all know guys and gals that have lotsa tats, you may even be one of those guys or gals reading this, but that "art" is fleeting and when the person dies, so does the art.

Now so far evidence for needles is nil for them, so tattoos are likely a non starter(though there are enough stone points/bradawls remaining). Scarification and modification by pigment may have gone on. We won't ever know unless a frozen one emerges from the permafrost. EG Otzi the Iceman had loads of tats which we otherwise would have never guessed at. Maybe they used pigments and other adornments as camouflage originally and then that became "art".

Plus they do seem to have been much more isolated as groups compared to us, more xenophobic. What better way to show your sense of belonging than to make yourself look physically different in "fashion". We do this today. We align ourselves with other groups as a belonging thing. All the way from the "average" to the "alternative". All belonging to a group. Even those who like to self describe as different hold fast to some group. Maybe our Neandertal brothers and sisters were the first hipsters, rocking body art and eagle feathers. I'd love to think they were. Well one pigment they sought out was mica for the sparkles. They added it to other pigments. that's a popular enough thing these days where the ladies add low level sparkles to foundation and such. Fair play, you are continuing and rocking one helluva long history by doing so. I love the idea that you could bring a Neandertal out on a night in any city in the west and he'd be asking the ladies for a loan of their max factor. Humans are bloody brilliant.

Maybe that was another innovation we brought to the party, externalised art, where the individual was transferred to the external in the living rock and bone and wood?

Adam Khor

Wibbs wrote: »

More subjective self adornment going on. We all know guys and gals that have lotsa tats, you may even be one of those guys or gals reading this

Yes, I have all currently known dinosaur genera tattooed all over :B

Wibbs wrote: »

We won't ever know unless a frozen one emerges from the permafrost.

I so hope that happens during my lifetime!

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe that was another innovation we brought to the party, externalised art, where the individual was transferred to the external in the living rock and bone and wood?

With each discovery, tho, seems like Neanderthals were indeed the hipsters of the family, discovering pretty much everything before it was cool...

If they were using body paint and stuff like that, wouldn´t that be a blow to the idea of the hairy-all-over Neanderthal you've talked about before? I mean, I tried to paint my dog like a zebra once and it was quite difficult... art's easier without fur...

Wibbs

Adam Khor wrote: »

If they were using body paint and stuff like that, wouldn´t that be a blow to the idea of the hairy-all-over Neanderthal you've talked about before? I mean, I tried to paint my dog like a zebra once and it was quite difficult... art's easier without fur...

Yea maybe AK, though maybe not. Native Australian folks applied pigment to their head hair, as do some African tribal folks. It also has a secondary purpose in that it reduces parasite infestations like lice. If a parent is reading this and one of their kids caught the oul headlice, forget the chemist, get yourself some ochre, mix it in a paste and apply liberally. Don't blame me if social services show up mind you. .

I suppose one way to check for this is if we find another Neandertal "burial" and take extreme care in sampling the soils around the bones, we might with our newer techniques find traces of pigment in the surrounding soil that were once on the skin. It would have to be a burial, whether intentional or accident and said burial would have to be in fine material, cave rockfalls probably wouldn't cut the mustard. It's a long shot I grant you but maybe...

I wonder how many are still out there undiscovered? In western Europe, probably not many if any. Complete folks anyway. There was a mad rush for artifacts and such from the mid 19th century onwards*. A lot of very famous sites were picked clean by amateurs long before they were protected and in some countries like France, Germany and to a lesser extent Spain such protection came remarkably late. Damn near every cave, quarry or rock overhang was attacked with shovels by landowners. A site like FontMaure in France with it's unique and very pretty(and therefore very desirable) jasper lithics was picked clean by collectors and then pretty much destroyed by commercial quarrying.

Now to be fair many of these "amateurs" were extremely diligent and the research data we have today was pioneered and largely started by such people. Too often the diligent amateur is left out of things these days(goes for the general fossil arena too). It was those who were just after the pretty stuff that were the problem. They just dug in looking for that and disregarded, discarded, even destroyed the rest. Which destroys the overall picture. Check out any museum collection gathered up to say the 40's and you'd be forgiven for thinking that all Neandertals did all day was make large perfect bifaces in different "styles".

I'd reckon eastern and south eastern Europe into Russia and the north middle east is probably where the next big deals come from. Though there have been some spectacular finds coming out of Spain of late, including perfectly preserved wooden items and finds in the deep caves of north west Spain. I think it helps that the Spanish researchers number some real talented folks among their number and are less "stuffy" academically and seem to more likely to think "hmm... what if?". Italians are similar and again have come up with some good stuff.








*and it continues today. Among the many fake lithics on sites like ebay(IMH two thirds are fakes, or from a later period), there are genuine examples, but among them there are quite a few where you do ask yourself how the hell did they get such pieces and the explanation of "from old collections" doesn't quite ring true. It's not just ebay either. Some of the "big names" antiquity outlets can have dodgy pieces and yes some fakes too. When a genuine provenanced biface can garner auction prices of up to five grand and sometimes more you can see why.