The widespread view of Neanderthals as cognitively inferior to early modern humans is challenged by new research from the University of Bristol published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Joao Zilhao and colleagues examined pigment-stained and perforated marine shells, most certainly used as neck pendants, from two Neanderthal-associated sites in the Murcia province of south-east Spain (Cueva de los Aviones and Cueva Anton). The analysis of lumps of red and yellow pigments found alongside suggest they were used in cosmetics. The practice of body ornamentation is widely accepted by archaeologists as conclusive evidence for modern behaviour and symbolic thinking among early modern humans but has not been recognised in Neanderthals – until now. Professor Zilhao said: ‘This is the first secure evidence that, some 50,000 years ago – ten millennia before modern humans are first recorded in Europe – the behaviour of Neanderthals was symbolically organised.’ A Spondylus gaederopus shell from the same site contained residues of a reddish pigmentatious mass made of lepidocrocite mixed with ground bits of hematite and pyrite (which, when fresh, have a brilliant black, reflective appearance), suggesting the kind of inclusion ‘for effect’ that one would expect in […]