Current analysis has proven that engravings in a collapse La Roche-Cotard (France), which has been sealed for hundreds of years, have been really made by Neanderthals. This analysis was carried out by Basel archaeologist Dorota Wojtczak along with a group of researchers from France and Denmark, whose findings reveal that the Neanderthals have been actually the primary people with an appreciation of artwork.
When the French archaeologist Jean-Claude Marquet entered the La Roche-Cotard cave within the Loire Valley for the primary time again in 1974, he suspected that the nice traces on the wall could possibly be of human origin. He additionally discovered scrapers and different retouched items generally known as Mousterian stone artifacts that instructed the cave had been utilized by Neanderthals. Had been the marks on the wall proof of early Neanderthal inventive exercise?
Posing this query raised the opportunity of breaking with the consensus of the time, which largely assumed that Homo neanderthalensis lacked any larger cognitive skills. Fearing he can be unable to supply ample scientific proof to show his speculation, Marquet left the cave untouched for nearly 40 years.
Marks on the wall produced by human palms
Along with a global group, he made one other try in 2016. This time he was accompanied by Dr. Dorota Wojtczak from Integrative Prehistoric and Archaeological Science (IPAS) on the Division of Environmental Sciences of the College of Basel, who focuses on archaeological use-wear evaluation. “Our process was to make use of trendy strategies to show the human origin of those wall engravings,” explains Wojtczak in her workplace at IPAS. The researchers lately revealed their findings within the journal PLoS ONE.
First with pictures and drawings and later with a 3D scanner, the marks within the tuff rock of the cave wall have been meticulously recorded. In her laboratory in Basel, Wojtczak in contrast these samples from the cave with tuff she had labored on experimentally with wooden, bone and stone instruments, in addition to together with her palms. “This analysis clearly confirmed that the cave marks weren’t made with instruments, however by scratching with human fingers,” says Wojtczak.
Cave sealed for over 50,000 years
On the identical time, examination of cave sediment by researchers from Denmark confirmed that the cave should have been sealed off by mud residues from the Loire and soil sediments for over 50,000 years earlier than being rediscovered. This makes the La Roche-Cotard cave system a really particular location — a veritable “time capsule.” “Right now, 50,000 years in the past, there have been no trendy people in Europe, solely Neanderthals,” says Wojtczak. The wall marks and artifacts can subsequently solely come from these early people.
Whereas the clear geometric shapes with parallel and triangular traces recommend that these marks weren’t scribbled on the wall by likelihood, the researcher doesn’t know what they symbolize. “However they may solely have been made by somebody who proceeded with planning and understanding,” she says. And whether or not it was “artwork” as such, or a type of recording-keeping, is a matter of interpretation.
La Roche-Cotard guarantees additional findings
The cave holds many different archaeological secrets and techniques. Jean-Claude Marquet additionally discovered an object that resembles the face of a human or animal again in 1976, and Wojtczak’s use-wear evaluation means that this object can also be man-made. One other object from the cave seems to be a small oil lamp. “Specialists are at present investigating whether or not the thing bears any pigments or soot substances that might assist to determine the kind of gas used on the time,” explains Wojtczak.
The chamber of La Roche-Cotard that has been explored to this point is only one a part of a whole cave system. The researcher hopes to realize additional perception into the Neanderthals’ actions, notably from Chamber 4, which remains to be largely coated by sediment. Wojtczak is satisfied that each investigation will assist to additional the dismantle conventional consensus of Neanderthals as mentally inferior people, and reinforce the notion of them as extra just like the cousins of recent people. “They might converse, and doubtless even sang,” she provides, grinning.
Dorota Wojtczak will proceed her analysis into Neanderthal life in La Roche-Cotard collectively together with her college students from the Prehistory and Archaeological Science diploma program.
