Mysterious Neanderthal cave engravings offer new glimpse into origins of art

(CN) — The oldest known Neanderthal engravings in the world have been found on the walls of a cave in Central France, researchers said on Wednesday.

While not necessarily the oldest art in the world, it is apparently the oldest produced by Neanderthals — a now-extinct species that was closely related to and interacted with early humans. Researchers involved in the discovery hope the engravings will shine new light on the species, including their capacity for art and culture.

Jean-Claude Marquet, an archaeologist at the University of Tours in France, and other colleagues found the cave engravings in a chamber of the once-sealed La Roche-Cotard (LRC) cave in the French region of Centre-Val de Loire, according to their study published Wednesday in PLOS One.

Researchers knew the engravings were old in part because sediment sealed the cave around 57,000 years ago, reportedly before Homo sapiens (that is, modern humans) even established themselves in the region. No humans or large animals could access the cave until its first excavation in the early 20th century.

The state of the tools found in the LRC further helped to date the engravings, Marquet said in an email. Noting that sediments in the cave were also dated to around 57,000 years ago, Marquet hypothesized that "Neanderthals made these drawings 57,000 years ago" or even earlier.

According to the study, researchers were also able to determine how the artists created their work by using a combination of plotting analysis and photogrammetry to create 3D models of the engravings.

Comparing the models with known and experimental human markings, the researchers determined that the LRC's markings were likely "finger-flutings" — that is, marks made by human hands — due to the shape, spacing and arrangement of the engravings.

These remarkable findings provide a new window into the origins of art — as well as the capacity of Neanderthals to make it. According to Marquet, the markings display a degree of foresight and planning, as though the original artist had "thought before embarking on the construction of a drawing."

The art was not "figurative," Marquet added, but rather "highly structured and applied."

Above all else, though, these findings reveal that the Neanderthals' symbolic and artistic expression contained more complexity than previously known. According to the study, this backs up other research over the decades, which has continued to discover new information about the cultural complexity of Neanderthals, if not their artistic nuances.

Marquet hopes the discovery study will peak public interest in Neanderthals, their art, and their interactions with Homo sapiens. After all, he said, Neanderthals interacted with humans and shared genes with them, including through mating. As Marquet sees it, that means the species likely also exchanged "knowledge and behavioral facts."

“Of course, we are not direct descendants of Neanderthals, but there are genes in our genome that are inherited from Neanderthals," Marquet said. "With this discovery, we are getting closer to the origins of art."

"Before 57,000 years ago, we had sketches on different types of objects, [but] never on walls," he added. These "structured works," he thought, showed that Neanderthals hoped to produce "something that had meaning." As to what that meaning was, Marquet could only begin to guess.

Follow @kndrleon

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit