The oldest digital imprint ever found in Europe discovered: it belonged to a neanderthal man and was found in the shelter under rock of San Lázaronear Segovia, in the Central Spainimpressed on a pebble with a red ocher point. This finding dates back to the last phases of the period said “Musterian“, which in the European prehistoric chronology of Medium paleolithic it is given Between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. The discovery of this pebble, according to the interpretation of the Spanish research team that studied it, would rewrite the history of symbolic thought of the Neandertalianisuggesting that they also possessed abstract skills similar to those of Homo sapiens.
The ability of symbolic thought by theHomo neanderthalensis is a topic of debate Very heated among scholars who deal with European prehistory. Among the various archaeological finds that play in favor of this theory, the recent discovery in San Lázaro, in a context inhabited by the man of Neanderthal, must absolutely be considered. The pebble, because of his formremember a human faceand at the center of it, where the nosesomeone, using some red ocherhas affixed a dot. The use of this pigment was very common in the Paleolithic, both in funerary practices that in therock artbut usually these practices are associated more often a Homo sapiens.
Although it is not possible to identify with certainty the individual who has affixed the dot, the action suggests An intentional and symbolic gesture. The authors of the article speculate that the pebble had been transported and decorated for a non -utilitarian reasonprobably linked to ritual or communication practices.
Even more surprising are the results of the study of the Ocher dot itself. Once subjected to a precise multispectral analysisthis revealed The presence of the digital imprint of the finger of the person who impressed the pigment on the pebble Tens of thousands of years ago. To date it would be theoldest digital imprint in Europewho could belong to a neanderthal man. According to Spanish researchers, the action of affixing a single red dot, at a regular distance from the elements that give the pebble the appearance of a face it cannot be randomalso considering that this object, without any apparent practical utility, was brought inside the shelter under rock. It could have been a case of Pareidoliaor that type of Illusion caused by our instinctive natural tendency to recognize features and forms familiar to us in natural objects and conformations. It would be the same instinct that makes us recognize the form of certain animals in the clouds, or a human profile in a rocky conformation and so on.
The pebble found in the shelter of San Lázaro joins the series of finds that seem to suggest the presence of a symbolic thoughtif not even artistic in the Neandertalian communities that lived in Europe at the end of the middle Paleolithic, between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago.
