Important
evidence for symbolic behaviour from Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar
Archaeologists from the Gibraltar
Caves project have found a rock engraving at Gorham’s Cave on the eastern side
of Gibraltar. The deeply-etched cross-hatched pattern is carved into the dolomite
bedrock of the cave, and was wholly-covered by an undisturbed archaeological
level containing Mousterian artefacts. Thus its association with Neanderthals
is secure.
The engraving is at least 39,000
years old and although modern humans were in Europe by that time, they had not
yet reached the southern Iberian Peninsula. Furthermore, the Gibraltar rock
engraving predates the earliest Aurignacian cave art, suggesting that it was an
independent Neanderthal development.
Researchers carried out a number of
tests to demonstrate that the engraving was intentional. They used a variety of
tools and cutting actions on blocks of dolomite rock similar to the rock face
at Gorham's cave and found that results best matching the engraving were
achieved by using a pointed tool to create and enlarge a groove. Considerable
care and physical effort was required to produce similar markings. The
researchers also used the sharp tools to cut pork skin on a dolomite slab to
rule out the possibility that the pattern had been produced accidentally while
cutting meat or working animal hides.
The Gorham’s Cave rock engraving is
only the latest in a series of recent discoveries that clearly demonstrate that
the Neanderthals were not the dimwits of popular imagination. It is possibly
the strongest indication yet that they were capable of symbolic behaviour
References:
1. RodrÃguez-Vidal, J. et
al., A rock engraving made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar. PNAS (Early
edition) (2014).
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