Artistic mediums certainly change. While modern humans have paint and paper, ancient humans had ochre and pebbles. However, both work well for finger painting, whether for Homo sapiens today or for Homo neanderthalensis thousands of years ago.

According to a new study in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, a team of researchers may have discovered one of the oldest art objects adorned with a fingerprint from across Europe. The object, a pebble, was stamped with ochre by a Neanderthal around 43,000 years ago and was found by researchers in Spain in 2022.

“This object contributes to our understanding of Neanderthals’ capacity for abstraction,” the researchers stated in their study, as it could “represent one of the oldest known abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record.”

Indeed, the placement of the ochre fingerprint could suggest that Neanderthals were more advanced artists than traditionally thought, adorning objects not only with fingerprints but with human faces, as well.

Read More: These Prehistoric Paintings Are 57,000 Years Old — But Who Painted Them?

Analyzing Neanderthal Art

Symbolic behaviors — or behaviors that create and communicate meaning through signs, symbols, and abstractions — are attributed to both modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), who supposedly developed these behaviors independently, thousands of years ago. But the traces of symbolic behavior have become more and more abundant in the Neanderthal archaeological record in recent years, and are gaining increasing attention among researchers.

So, when a team of archaeologists discovered a pebble at the San Lázaro rock-shelter — a Neanderthal site in Segovia in Spain — they decided to pay it special attention. The pebble was oblong, with three main indentations and a red dot between the indentations, almost arranged in the shape of the eyes, nose, and mouth on a human face.

Wondering whether the pebble was a piece of art, the researchers subjected it to a series of analyses. While a comparison with nearby rocks revealed that the Neanderthals had collected the pebble from a river and carried it to their rock-shelter around 43,000 years ago, a comparison with other stones in the shelter found that the pebble was over twice the size of the other stones, many of which showed signs of use as tools.

Additional 3D scanning provided an analysis of the pebble’s surface, while X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy assessed the chemical composition of the pebble and its red dot.

The results revealed no signs of scraping or scratching that were indicative of utilitarian use, though they did show that one of the indentations — the indentation in the position of the mouth — had an irregular surface, hinting that it had been intentionally modified. The results also suggested that the red dot was an addition to the pebble, made through the application of ochre pigment to the pebble’s surface.

“All the analyses carried out suggest an intentional effort to transport and paint the pebble for non-utilitarian purposes, suggesting that it is indeed the work of Neanderthals,” the researchers stated in their study.

Read More: Why Did Our Paleolithic Ancestors Paint Cave Art?

A Fingerprint Face?

Surprisingly, it was another test that offered the strongest support for the pebble’s intentional modification. Multispectral analysis of the pebble identified a fingerprint in the red ochre, making the object “the oldest known non-utilitarian object with a fingerprint made in Europe,” the researchers stated.

The fingerprint is not like those that have been found on tools, placed inadvertently and imprecisely by Neanderthals with ochre on their fingers. Instead, it is positioned in isolation, in the center of the pebble, suggesting that it appeared there as a result of a purposeful action. Not only that, the researchers argue that its appearance on a carefully chosen and transported rock suggests it is a result of intentional planning, possibly to convey a symbolic meaning.

“The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with [ochre] shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolizing, imagining, idealizing, and projecting his or her thoughts on an object,” the researchers stated.

According to the team, the object may be one of the oldest representations of a human face ever discovered, thanks to the position of the three indentations and the fingerprint, though such a theory would be difficult to prove definitively.

“Is it a representation of a face? There are grounds to suspect so,” the researchers stated. “However, it is important to consider that, as an object over 40,000 years old interpreted from our present-day perspective, it is unlikely that all doubts surrounding this hypothesis can be fully dispelled.”

Read More: 5 of the World’s Most Fascinating Cave Paintings

Article Sources

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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.