"Meh"
Posted on 06/15/2012 8:06:11 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Archaeologists say red disk that is more than 40,000 years old could have been painted by Neanderthals.
[Snip... Photos at link]
It’s no Mona Lisa, but a smudged red disk in northern Spain has been crowned the world’s earliest cave painting. Dated to more than 40,800 years ago, the shape was painted by some of the first modern humans to reach the Iberian Peninsula — or it may have been done by Neanderthals, residents of the Iberian peninsula for more than 200,000 years.
“There is a very good chance that this is Neanderthal,” says Alistair Pike, an archaeological scientist at the University of Bristol, UK, whose team dated dozens of paintings in 11 caves in northern Spain. But Lawrence Guy Straus, an expert on the caves who is based at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, calls that “a pretty wild speculation,” because it is based on a single date that could overlap with human occupation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Well good, it will give the Spanish something to do while they wait out the coming depression in their caves.
"Meh"
CAVES OF ALTAMIRA - Steely Dan
I recall when I was small
How I spent my days alone
The busy world was not for me
So I went and found my own
I would climb the garden wall
With a candle in my hand
I’d hide inside a hall of rock and sand
On the stone an ancient hand
In a faded yellow-green
Made alive a worldly wonder
Often told but never seen
Now and ever bound to labor
On the sea and in the sky
Every man and beast appeared
A friend as real as I
CHORUS:
Before the fall when they wrote it on the wall
When there wasn’t even any Hollywood
They heard the call
And they wrote it on the wall
For you and me we understood
Can it be this sad design
Could be the very same
A wooly man without a face
And a beast without a name
Nothin’ here but history
Can you see what has been done
Memory rush over me
Now I step into the sun
IBTAAG
It’s just speculation at this point that the paintings were by Neanderthals. They may have survived as late as 25,000 B.C. in some locations including the Iberian peninsula, but modern humans were already in Europe long before then, so these paintings could be by modern humans like the more elaborate cave paintings of later date.
Perfect, thanks.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks LibWhacker. Okay, I think this one is the oldest, for sure this time. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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One of yours?
I'd deny it but I still got that Ochre crap under my fingernails.
KEYWORDS: neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthalsThe Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
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