Archaeologists discover the world’s oldest fingerprint left behind by a Neanderthal man
Before Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago, they occupied Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans walked the planet.
Archaeologists discovered a red dot on a face-shaped rock in Spain, which they found to be the oldest human fingerprint on record.
Roughly 43,000 years old, this is one of the earliest symbolic objects discovered in Europe, which belonged to a Neanderthal, an extinct relative closest to modern humans.
Before Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago, they occupied Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans walked the planet.
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The fingerprint was left behind using red mineral ocher and may represent a nose on a rock that had face-like features, researchers involved in a new study argued, Live Science reported.
This new discovery also challenges previous notions that Neanderthals were incapable of making symbolic art. However, some experts are not convinced.
"Clearly, the ocher has been intentionally applied with the fingerprint. But I did not see a face — symbolism is in the eye of the beholder," Bruce Hardy, an anthropologist and archaeologist at Kenyon College in Ohio, told Live Science.
The study, which describes the discovery made in 2022 at the San Lázaro rock shelter outside Segovia in central Spain, was published on May 5 in the Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences journal.
This region was populated by Neanderthals between 44,000 and 41,000 years ago, but there is no evidence of early modern humans inhabiting it.
The rock, which allegedly has a face-like shape, is 6 inches long and has vague eyebrow-shaped indentations at one end. The dig team said it did not look like a tool of any sort.
Authors argued that the red dot may have been used to form a nose beneath the eyebrows.
"This find represents the most complete and oldest evidence of a human fingerprint in the world, unequivocally attributed to Neanderthals, highlighting the deliberate use of the pigment for symbolic purposes," said Spain's National Research Council (CSIC) in a translated statement.
Forensic analysis and examination of the fingerprint indicated that it possibly belonged to an adult male Neanderthal.
"The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ocher shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolizing, imagining, idealizing, and projecting his or her thoughts on an object," researchers said.
Archaeologists have debated over Neanderthal abstract art for decades, with engravings on cave walls in France dating back to 75,000 years.
""The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ochre shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolising, imagining, idealising and projecting his or her thoughts on an object," the authors wrote, adding, "Furthermore, in this case, we can propose that three fundamental cognitive processes are involved in creating art: the mental conception of an image, deliberate communication, and the attribution of meaning. These are the basic elements characterising symbolism and, also, prehistoric non-figurative art. Furthermore, this pebble could thus represent one of the oldest known abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record.”
“We’ve set out our interpretation in the article, but the debate goes on,” said David Alvarez Alonso, an archaeologist at Complutense University in Madrid, The Guardian reported. “And anything to do with Neanderthals always prompts a massive debate. If we had a pebble with a red dot on it that was done 5,000 years ago by Homo sapiens, no one would hesitate to call it portable art. But associating Neanderthals with art generates a lot of debate. I think there’s sometimes an unintentional prejudice.”
However, the pebble is "special," Alvarez Alonso said.
“Why would a Neanderthal have seen it differently from the way we see it today? They were human, too. The thing here is that we’re dealing with an unparalleled object; there’s nothing similar. It’s not like art where, if you discover a cave painting, there are hundreds more you can use for context. But our assertion is that the Neanderthals had a similar capacity for symbolic thought to Homo sapiens – and we think this object reinforces that notion," Alvarez Alonso said.
