Biggest Neanderthal Discoveries of 2023 Rewrite Human History

Biggest Neanderthal Discoveries of 2023 Rewrite Human History. Despite popular belief that the thick-browed Neanderthals were only capable of animalistic savagery, new discoveries from 2023 in France tell a different story about Neanderthals and our ancestors. Incredibly, Modern humans, wielding bows and arrows, invaded Neanderthal territory in France nearly 57,000 years ago. The group of anatomically modern humans made their way into southern France, deep into Neanderthal territory. And they came, with the first bow and arrow technology to reach Europe - 15,000 years earlier than previously thought. The arrowheads were discovered in a sediment layer dating between 56,800 to 51,700 years ago, at truly monumental discovery.

Meanwhile, 57,300 years ago Neanderthals used their fingers to carve strange symbols into the wall of a cave in central France, just 300 miles to the west of this modern human settlement. The engravings are interpreted as among the oldest known examples of Neanderthal art, if not the oldest. According to popular theory, Europe was only inhabited by Neanderthals fifty seven thousand years ago. At the time, modern humans did not exist in Europe. As a result, the wall markings and artifacts discovered cannot be attributed to our direct ancestors, say researchers.

The current theory that Neanderthals were an inferior, archaic, or otherwise peculiar side-branch of humanity, which eventually became extinct without contributing to modern humanity, has its origins in anti evolutionary interpretations known as 'hominid catastrophism', which was used to explain the sequence of forms in the hominid fossil record. Initially, scientists thought that Neanderthals were incapable of complex thought and lived in a barbaric manner. Yet as evidence of these species surprising human-like traits has accumulated, some scientists' perspectives have shifted. And what twenty-first-century archaeology reveals is an highly compelling portrait of a different type of human, following their own path.

CHAPTERS:
0:00 NEANDERTHALS IN FRANCE 57,000 YEARS AGO
4:00 NEANERTHAL ART AND ARTIFACTS
8:00 MODERN HUMANS IN FRANCE 57,000 YEARS AGO

SOURCES:
The earliest unambiguous Neanderthal engravings on cave walls: La Roche-Cotard, Loire Valley, France
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286568

Bow-and-arrow, technology of the first modern humans in Europe 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add4675

Дата на публикация: 27 май, 2024
Категория: Наука и технология
Ключови думи: of Biggest History human discoveries 2023 Rewrite Neanderthal