Headline March 08, 2018/ ''' *NEANDERTHALS* NO NEVERUNDERSTOOD '''

''' *NEANDERTHALS* 

NO NEVERUNDERSTOOD '''

IT'S LONG BEEN AN INSULT - to be called a Neanderthal. But the more these elusive, vanished people have been studied-

*The more respect they've gained among scientists*.

Recently, a team of researchers offered a compelling evidence that the Neanderthals bore one of the chief hallmarks of mental sophistication : *they could paint cave art*.

The talent suggests that the Neanderthals could think in symbols and may have achieved other milestones not preserved in the fossil record.

''When you have symbols than you have language,'' said Joao Zilhao, an archaeologist at the  University of Barcelona and co-author of the new study.

When Neanderthals first came to light in the mid-1800s, researchers were struck by the low, thick brow ridge on their skulls. Later, discoveries showed Neanderthals to have brains as big our own, but bodies that were shorter and stockier.

By the early 1900s, scientists were describing Neanderthal as gorilla-like beasts, and extinct branch of humanity that could not compete with slender, brilliant humans.

Yet evidence from both fossils and DNA indicates that Neanderthal and living humans descend from a common ancestor who lived about 600, 000 years ago. Our branch probably lived mostly in Africa.

For a few hundred thousand years after the split, the ancestors of living humans left behind such basic tools as stone axes for butchering carcasses and spear blades for hunting.

But about 70,000 years ago, humans in Africa began showing signs of more abstract thinking. They colored and pierced seashells, for example, possibly to wear as jewelry.

Modern humans began expanding from Africa, arriving in Europe roughly 45,000 years ago. By then, they had become capable of even more impressive symbolic creations, including ivory carvings and extravagant paintings on cave walls.

Neanderthals disappeared abruptly afterward, about 40,000 years ago, leaving behind a fossil record of their own from from Spain to Siberia.

Stockier than the African cousins, they appear to have evolved physical adaptions to harsh climates. They made stone tools of their own, which they used to hunt for game, including rhinos and other big mammals.

At first, researchers found no clear evidence of symbolic thought in Neanderthals. But in recent years, that picture has begun to change.

Neanderthals could use feathers and bird claws as ornaments, archaeologists found. But some scientists were skeptical about what these findings meant.

Neanderthals might have lived near modern humans, after all, and spotted them making things. Neanderthals were smart enough to copy the ornaments, the thinking went - but not enough to invent them.

This debate was fueled in part by technological uncertainty : It can be very difficult to pin down a firm date for human fossils and artifacts.

To determine the age of cave paintings, for example, researchers have traditionally relied on  radiocarbon dating. But the method works only if the paint contains carbon-bearing ingredients, such as charcoal. Red ocher, by contrast, can't be dated this way.

Making matters worse, radiocarbon dating becomes increasingly unreliable beyond about 40,000 years.

Dr. Zilhao joined with archaeologists Alistair G.W. Pike of the University of Southampton and Dirk L. Hoffmann, now at Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, to see - if the prehistory of European art could be brought into sharper focus.

Instead of studying radiocarbon, they would use a different clock to tell time.

As water seeps into caves, it may deposit milky crusts of minerals on the walls known as flowstones.

Flowstones contain tiny amounts of uranium, which slowly breaks down into thorium. The older a flowstone gets, the more thorium builds up inside it.

A flowstone covering a piece of cave art might give Dr. Zilhao and his colleagues a minimum age for its creation. The problem was that scientists usually needed big chunks to find enough uranium and thorium to measure.

The flowstones on cave art were typically very small.

But Dr. Hoffman had been working on ways to drastically increase the sensitivity of the technology  so that he could work with much smaller samples.

The researchers returned to caves in Spain where ancient paintings had been discovered over the past century.

The artists had drawn abstract images of the cave walls, including long lines, patterns of dots, and the outline of a human hand.

The team found flowstones covering parts of the artworks and  scraped away samples for dating. In three caves, it turned out some of the art was over 64,000 years old - about 20,000 years earlier than the first evidence of modern humans in Europe.

''They must have been made by Neanderthals,'' said Dr. Pike.

The Honor and Serving of the latest ''Operational Research'' on Universe, Life and Wonders continues. And with many thanks to author, and researcher Carl Zimmer.

With respectful dedication to the Scientists, Researchers, Historians, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all ''register'' on !WOW! - the World Students Society and    Twitter-!E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Matter & Artists '''

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