The oldest digital print ever observed is from a Neanderthal, left on a facial stone

A few years ago to raise the spotlight on the artistic inspiration of again Neanderthal It had been a sliced ​​deer bone. Today he returns to discuss it for a very specific red dot. It’s very old fingerprintpresumably from one Neanderthal In fact, and left on a pebble with a symbolic meaning.

A dot that is a nose

To tell all this is one Team of Spanish researcherswhere the granite pebble comes from in the middle of the discussions and protagonist of a research just published on the pages of Archaeological and Anthropological Scienceswhat they apply for “One of the first human face symbolizations in prehistory “. In fact everything it seems Suppose this is the case. To make that interesting red dot It is in fact the defined position “Strategic” On the pebble and morphology of the pebble itself: the dot it seems a nose and that pebble it seems A face. An artistic activity essentially not so different than decoration sky stone That crowd the traditional markets today. But interesting, precisely because it could have been a Neanderthal who realized it.

A stone reminiscent of a face

The Pebble in the center of the study comes from the San Lázaro website, in the center of Spain, site of archaeological importance, in an area for which, reading today, there are indications that employment dates from about 40 thousand years ago and is considered to be attributed to the Neandershals. From here comes that pebble, about twenty cm in size and a dozen wide, on one side of which this red dot has been found. This Sasso It was thoroughly studied with countless techniques, to understand the composition, to study the origin and morphological details and to understand with what and what was made by that reddish impression. Experts of dermatoglifia of the scientific police. In this way it was possible to confirm that it was a digital impression.

A “double exceptional” discovery

According to the researchers’ reconstructions, that stone was chosen and transported by someone and that print of Oker – the only one on Sasso and with a pronounced central location – it is too special not to suggest an action artistic. A hand of Neanderthal would have performed him, who, just like we were victims of the paridolia phenomenon, could have seen a face in the morphology of that stone and therefore had it completed As a symbolic object. It is not difficult to understand the image of the eyes, the profile of a nose and a mouth in that stone. But the researchers love He entrusted all Guardian The first author of the article David Álvarez-AlonsoInsofar as they limit themselves to promoting hypotheses, criticism is expected: “If we had a pebble stones made by Homo Sapiens 5000 years ago, nobody would hesitate to call him a form of ‘portable’ art. But the association of me Neanderthal Art generates many debates against art. I believe there is sometimes an involuntary prejudice “.

The hypothesis that this object can be the proof of symbolic thinking is “Double exceptional – The authors conclude – Because it contains the most complete dermatifying image that has been identified so far, with the exception offingerprint Parzial di Königsaue (in Germany, NDA)Both with a similar minimum age “.