Human ancestors taught tool-making to Neanderthals
1
LONDON: Neanderthals learned how to make jewellery and sophisticated
tools from the ancestors of modern humans, according to a new study. New
high precision radiocarbon dating
shows that a cultural exchange may have taken place between modern
humans and Neanderthals in France and Spain more than 40,000 years ago,
the Daily Mail reported.
The findings have important implications for understanding of our long-extinct sister species. If Neanderthals made the ornaments, they must have been capable of symbolic behaviour thought to be unique to man, researchers suggest.
Artifacts discovered strewn among the remains of Neanderthals in the Grotte du Renne cave in central France and several other locations have long presented anthropologists with a puzzle. Belonging to what archaeologists term the Chatelperronian culture, a transitional industry from south-west France and northern Spain, it has been hotly debated whether they were made by Neanderthals or humans.
Previous research had suggested that the artifacts were in fact produced by human ancestors before settling into deeper layers of cave strata until they sat among the earlier remains of Neanderthals.
The new findings of an international team from the Max Planck Institute, Germany, suggest that the tools and body ornaments were indeed produced by Neanderthals - but only after humans arrived in the area.
The findings have important implications for understanding of our long-extinct sister species. If Neanderthals made the ornaments, they must have been capable of symbolic behaviour thought to be unique to man, researchers suggest.
Artifacts discovered strewn among the remains of Neanderthals in the Grotte du Renne cave in central France and several other locations have long presented anthropologists with a puzzle. Belonging to what archaeologists term the Chatelperronian culture, a transitional industry from south-west France and northern Spain, it has been hotly debated whether they were made by Neanderthals or humans.
Previous research had suggested that the artifacts were in fact produced by human ancestors before settling into deeper layers of cave strata until they sat among the earlier remains of Neanderthals.
The new findings of an international team from the Max Planck Institute, Germany, suggest that the tools and body ornaments were indeed produced by Neanderthals - but only after humans arrived in the area.
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