Neanderthals knew how to create art - new evidence confirms their creative abilities

However, new archaeological and geochemical research shows that Neanderthals, who died out about 40,000 years ago, also left behind works of art - albeit not in the form we are used to.

As The Conversation reports, findings in caves in Spain and France show that these ancient people created drawings, patterns and handprints long before Homo sapiens came to Europe. Their work dates back at least 64 thousand years, that is, Neanderthals began decorating caves tens of thousands of years before the appearance of modern man in this region.

While Homo sapiens depicted animals, hunting scenes and abstract symbols, Neanderthal art was non-figurative. It included stencilled handprints made by blowing pigment, linear and geometric marks, and "finger furrows" - traces left on soft cave walls.

In the Spanish caves of La Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales, red pigment drawings, lines and spots have been found, made at great depths that could only be reached with torches. This suggests that Neanderthals were not just casually leaving footprints, but were consciously working with the cave space.

In the cave of La Roche-Cotard in France, archaeologists have found lines drawn with fingers on soft clay, forming wavy and parallel patterns. Analysis of the sediment that blocked the entrance showed that the cave was sealed more than 54,000 years ago, which rules out the involvement of Homo sapiens.

One of the most mysterious finds is the Bruniquel cave in south-west France. Here Neanderthals broke stalactites and laid out of them an oval structure, on which then burned fire. Researchers believe that this is not a dwelling, but a ritual or symbolic construction - perhaps the oldest form of "installation art".

Such actions testify not only to physical labour, but also to the presence of abstract thinking and the ability to give objects symbolic meaning.

Determining the age of rock paintings is one of the main difficulties of palaeoart. For dating, the method of uranium-thorium analysis is used to determine when calcite deposits formed on top of the drawing.

A team of British archaeologist Paul Pettitt and his colleagues measured the age of stalactites covering pigmented images in Spanish caves and found that they are at least 64,000 years old. This means that the drawings appeared 20,000 years before Homo sapiens came to the Iberian Peninsula.

Thus, Neanderthals not only used paints and decorations, but also created symbolic images in hard-to-reach caves. Scientists believe that such actions may have reflected the formation of self-awareness and imagination in ancient humans.

"Even the most sceptical researchers are now forced to admit: these data unequivocally testify to the artistic activity of Neanderthals," writes archaeologist Paul Pettitt.