Old human fingerprint suggests Neanderthals who have made art

Scientists in Spain say they have discovered the oldest full human fingerprint after they have absorbed a rock that they say it looks like a human face and suggests that Neanderthalers can make art.

It is believed that a Neanderthal man baptized his finger in red pigment to paint a nose on a pebble stone about 43,000 years ago. The rock was discovered in the San Lázaro Rock Shelter in Segovia, Spain.

The “strategic position” of the DOT has led scientists to see it as proof of the “symbolic behavior” of Neanderthals, which suggests that they had the ability to think about things in an abstract way.

The findings contribute to the current debate about Neanderthals’ ability to make art, said co-author María de Andrés-Herrero.

In an interview with the BBC’s NewSday, Prof said the Andrés-Herrero of the University of Complutense in Madrid that excavation started in the shelter five years ago and in 2022 they found the stone under 1.5 m (5 feet) sediments of Neanderthal groups.

“In the beginning we could not believe what we looked at, because there was a larger stone compared to other stones that appeared on this site, with a red dot just in the middle that looked like a human face.”

It was unclear whether the dot was made with ocher, a natural clay figment. Once the research group was able to confirm that it was a pigment, Prof De Andrés-Herrero said they have contacted The scientific police of Spain to support their efforts.

This team was able to conduct deep research with the help of Multi-Spectrum analysis and they identified a fingerprint.

Analysis of the pebbles also suggested that the fingerprint was of a male adult, according to the team’s studies.

But archaeologist David Álvarez Alonso, co-author of the study, said that because there were no other Neanderthal Redensies to compare the prints, it was difficult to say for sure.

Speaking from a press conference that the public updated on scientific development, the Spanish official Gonzalo Santonja said the Pebble that the Pebble was the oldest portable object that was painted on the European continent and “the only object of portable art painted by Neandersthals”.

Prof De Andrés-Herrero said that the findings of her research group “are an important contribution to the debate on the symbolic capacity of Neanderthals, because it represents the first known pigment-marked object in an archaeological context” and it is “clear that it is a Neanderthal site”.

In addition, the human fingerprint was found in a non-utilitarian context, the expert added, which suggests that the dot on the pebbles was intended for artistic purposes.

Prof Herrero also said it is the first time that scientists have discovered a stone in an archaeological context with a red ocher color, which means that Neanderthals brought it to the shelter.

Thinking is that one of the Neanderthals found the stone, “who caught his attention because of his gorges, and he deliberately left his mark with an ocher (pigment) stain in the middle of the object,” said Profs Alonso, quoted by the Spanish press agency Europe Press.

Researchers believe that the brand was not coincidental because, according to their findings, the red pigment does not naturally exist in the hiding place, which means that it was “deliberately brought to the shelter”.

In their paper, what was Published in the magazine Arhaeological and Anthropological SciencesResearchers wrote: “The Pebble of San Lázaro Rock-Shelter presents a series of characteristics that make it exceptional, based on which we have considered it a visual symbol that in some contexts can be considered a piece of portable art.”