Response to Aubert et al.'s reply ‘Early dates for ‘Neanderthal cave art’ may be wrong’ [J. Hum. Evol. 125 (2018), 215–217]

Hoffmann, Dirk L.; Standish, Christopher D.; García-Diez, Marcos; Pettitt, Paul; Milton, James A.; Zilhão, João; Alcolea-González, Javier; Cantalejo-Duarte, Pedro; Collado, Hipólito; Balbín, Rodrigo de; Lorblanchet, Michel; Ramos-Muñóz, José; Weniger, Gerd-Christian; Pike, Alistair

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.102644

Cited by 12 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Added to the evidence for jewelry, cave art and other forms of symbolic material culture and advances technology in the Middle Paleolithic of Europe (27,28,47,(182)(183)(184)(185)(186)(187), these data suggest that the major cognitive and behavioral gap once thought to separate Neandertals from modern humans is just another example that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Table S7.…”

Section: S103 Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

Zilhão

Angelucci

Igreja

et al. 2020

Science

116

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Marine food–reliant subsistence systems such as those in the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) were not thought to exist in Europe until the much later Mesolithic. Whether this apparent lag reflects taphonomic biases or behavioral distinctions between archaic and modern humans remains much debated. Figueira Brava cave, in the Arrábida range (Portugal), provides an exceptionally well preserved record of Neandertal coastal resource exploitation on a comparable scale to the MSA and dated to ~86 to 106 thousand years ago. The breadth of the subsistence base—pine nuts, marine invertebrates, fish, marine birds and mammals, tortoises, waterfowl, and hoofed game—exceeds that of regional early Holocene sites. Fisher-hunter-gatherer economies are not the preserve of anatomically modern people; by the Last Interglacial, they were in place across the Old World in the appropriate settings.

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Section: S103 Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

Zilhão

Angelucci

Igreja

et al. 2020

Science

116

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“…European ‘cave art’ forms the most robust set of visual culture for exploring the early evolution of human visual systems. At present an apparently non-figurative phase of body-extension art (hand stencils, finger dots and lines) predates U-Th minimum ages of ~64000 bp , at least in three Iberian caves, and maximum and minimum ages place a period of similar art between 45,000 and 43,000 bp (Hoffmann et al 2018a); we note that there are detractors who have criticized the former minimum age, mainly due to perceived errors in sampling strategy and hence relevance of dated calcites to the underlying art, and an apparent incompatibility with the existing archaeological record which as yet presents little evidence elsewhere for visual culture (see Aubert et al 2018; Slimak et al 2018: but also see replies from Hoffmann et al 2018b,c; 2019, who point out the errors of such critiques). Figurative art in Europe—overwhelmingly dominated by prey animals such as horse, bovids and cervids—appears after ~37000 cal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art: Topography, Distortion, Animation and Participation in the Production and Experience of Cantabrian Cave Art

Sakamoto¹,

Pettitt²,

Ontañon-Peredo³

2020

CAJ

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The physical nature of cave walls and its impact on Upper Palaeolithic image making and viewing has frequently been invoked in explanations about the function of cave art. The morphological features (convexities, concavities, cracks and ridges) are frequently incorporated into the representations of prey animals that dominate the art, and several studies have attempted to document the relationship between the cave wall and the art in a quantitative manner. One of the effects of such incorporation is that undulating walls will distort the appearance of images as viewers change their viewing position. Was this distortion deliberate or accidental? Until now, the phenomenon has not been investigated quantitatively. We address this here, analysing 54 Late Upper Palaeolithic animal images deriving from three Cantabrian caves, Covalanas, El Pendo and El Castillo. We introduce a novel use for photogrammetry and 3D modelling through documenting the morphology of these caves’ walls and establishing the specific relationship between the walls and the art created on them. Our observations suggest that Palaeolithic artists deliberately placed images on very specific topographies. The restricted nature of these choice decisions and the fact that the resulting distortions could have been avoided but were not suggest that the interaction between viewer, art and wall was integral to the way cave art functioned.

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“…Hand-stencil art from Borneo and a naturalistic painting from Sulawesi have yielded minimum ages of 39.9 ka and 43.9 ka (15)(16), convincingly demonstrating broad contemporaneity with the earliest European manifestations of this practice, as predicted (22). The Iberian evidence has been challenged (23)(24)(25)(26)(27), but all the criticisms have been exhaustively responded to (28)(29)(30)(31).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…S1). It has been suggested (23) suggested that the pigment could represent natural staining, which, macroscopic observation does not support (30) rejected as unsubstantiated. Secondly, we investigate whether patterns in pigment composition and technology can provide additional detail on the different phases of Middle Paleolithic artistic activity demonstrated by the dating.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

San Elders Speak

BACKWELL¹,

D’ERRICO²

2021

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Cueva de Ardales (Málaga, Spain) is one of the richest and best-preserved Paleolithic painted caves of southwestern Europe, containing over a thousand graphic representations. Here, we study the red pigment in panel II.A.3 of "Sala de las Estrellas", dated by U-Th to the Middle Paleolithic, to determine its composition, verify its anthropogenic nature, infer the associated behaviors and discuss their implications. Using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction we analyzed a set of samples from the panel and compared them to natural coloring materials collected from the floor and walls of the cave. The conspicuously different texture and composition of the geological samples indicatethat the pigments used in the paintings do not come from the outcrops sampled in the cave. We confirm that the paintings are not the result of natural processes and show that the composition of the paint is consistent with the artistic activity being recurrent. Our results strengthen the hypothesis that Neanderthals symbolically used these paintings and the large stalagmitic dome harboring them over an extended time span. Significance StatementThe emergence of symbolic behavior in our genus is a controversial issue. The dating of paintings in three caves from the Iberian Peninsula supports the view that Neanderthals developed a form of cave art more than 20,000 years before the emergence of anatomical modernity in Europe. In this study, we confirm that the paintings on a large speleothem from one of these sites, Cueva de Ardales, were human made, and we show that the pigments were not collected at the outcrops sampled inside the cave. Variations in the composition of the paint correspond to differences in the age of the paintings, supporting the hypothesis that Neanderthals used the speleothems symbolically over an extended time span.

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Response to Aubert et al.'s reply ‘Early dates for ‘Neanderthal cave art’ may be wrong’ [J. Hum. Evol. 125 (2018), 215–217]

Cited by 12 publications

References 5 publications

Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art: Topography, Distortion, Animation and Participation in the Production and Experience of Cantabrian Cave Art

San Elders Speak

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