Is the Neanderthal spot in this rock 43,000 years ago – and left a fingerprint?

While drilling inside a cave in the Spanish city of Sigovia, archaeologists discovered an unusual rock. The stone manually resembles an elongated face, and a spot of red pigment made from the Mughara is distinguished on the tip of what its nose is considered.

“We were all thinking about the same thing and looking at each other because of its shape: We were all thinking,” This looks like a face, ” He said The guardian.

Alvarez Alonso and his colleagues spent the next three years studying this strange rock. Researchers assume that 43,000 years ago, Nandalal made their finger in the Maghreb and pressed the central hills of the stone – which is behind what is now considered the oldest imprint of human in the world. It is an interesting discovery that can have great effects, but some experts want to see more evidence to support this hypothesis.

The team published its results in the magazine Archaeological and anthropological sciences On Saturday, May 24. In the paper, archaeologists state that the “strategic position” of the point indicates that it is evidence of the “symbolic behavior” of Anandal. In other words, it is an artistic piece “that can represent one of the first human face classifications in the prehistoric period.”

“The fact that (rocks) were chosen because of their appearance, then it was characterized by the maghara shows that there is a human mind capable of symbolizing his ideas, imagination, idealism, and dropping his ideas on an object.”

Whether primitive human beings are able to make art is a subject of continuous debate, co-author Maria de Underrius-Duhru, prehistoric professor at the University of Compluteense, He said BBC. But over the past decade, A growing group of evidence He led many experts to believe this The artistic expression appeared earlier in human development, which was previously believed.

The authors of this new study believed that their lap is adding to this guide. To reach this conclusion, they first needed more data to support the idea that this old artist has already suffered from Pareidolia: seeing a face in an unlimited being. To this end, they created a three -dimensional model of the stone surface and measured the distances between its advantages, and found that the red point – or the nose – was placed so that it resembles the actual nose accurately in a human face.

After that, the researchers recruited geologists to describe the red point, which confirms that it was made with the Maghra. Forensic police experts then used multi -spectrum analysis – a technique that can reveal invisible details of the naked eye – to confirm that the red point has been applied with finger fingers. Their analysis revealed a fingerprint that can belong to a person with a gymnastic anterstal inside the point.

“As soon as we got it, all the pieces, context and other information, we have developed the theory that this might be Paridolia, which then led to human intervention in the form of the red point,” Alonso Alonso told the Guardian newspaper. “Without this red point, you cannot make any claims about the object.”

But Gillian Monir, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota who is studying primitive behavior, is not fully convinced of the results of researchers.

“The fact that there are these natural declines – and that we can measure the distance between them and argue that it is the face – everything is good and good,” Monner, who did not participate in the study, told Gizmodo. “But this does not give us any indication that the primitive human beings who (occupied this cave) saw a face in that (the rock).”

What’s more, it is skeptical of the researchers’ claim that the red point was actually made with the tips of human fingers. She could form a color -like hill and fingerprints naturally.

“I will be interested in seeing an interpretation by geology – a person trained in geology – the possibility of forming this through natural, geological, or geomograms is a very low probability.”

The researchers also admit that “all doubts surrounding this hypothesis will be dispelled completely,” and they mention that the Paridolia hypothesis should not be considered a final claim, but rather a possible explanation for this object based on evidence.

Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether this study explains or complicates our understanding of how the human mind develops the ability to create art. A face rock is an interesting piece of the mystery, but more research is needed to know where it suits it.