
U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art - diodorus
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/912.full
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wuliwong
I am way out of my depth here but I've read a couple of articles recently
talking about the migration of homo sapiens out of Africa possibly occurring
far sooner than was previously thought [1]. That was the first one I could
remember. After a quick read of this it seems that their reason for
attributing this to Neandertals is only the dating. I maybe way off here but
it seems premature to draw too many conclusions about the creators of this art
without some sort of additional evidence.

[1]
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/456](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/456)

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behindmyscreen
Evidence of modern humans existing in Israel that long ago does not mean a
migration occurred. Those remains could be from a group that ranged only that
far and died out.

If they can tie their genetics to the genetics of non Africans then yes, you
have your evidence for earlier migration, but you still need to show that
modern humans could likely have been in Iberia during the time frame of the
cave paintings.

The burden of the evidence that it could have been modern humans lays at the
feet of those who say it could have been modern humans, not at the feet of
those claiming neanderthal did it since there is ample evidence of neanderthal
populations all over Europe during this time frame.

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imhelpingu
You talk about burden of proof like the overarching topic of contention isn't
whether or not Neanderthals had the capacity for symbolic thought at all. The
observation that we keep inventing new OOA migrations and then pushing them
back by hundreds of thousands of years is entirely noteworthy as is the fact
that these conclusions about Neanderthals are based on certainty that humans
arrived in Europe 40K years ago instead of 60K years ago.

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behindmyscreen
We know when neanderthal was living in Europe and we think we know when Humans
arrived. Based on the evidence that we have, the conclusion is that
neanderthal has symbolic thought.

I am not saying it is not possible that modern humans are not responsible for
the cave paintings. I am saying that all we have is evidence for a settlement
in Israel that is old enough to show Humans could have migrated OOA much
sooner than thought. That settlement is not evidence that they did. If you
find more data then we can talk about it. A settlement of modern humans in the
Balkans or even in Anatolia during that time frame would at least bolster the
argument.

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sillyquiet
Coherent symbolism and art by literally another species (assuming you
subscribe to their status as a species distinct to H. sapiens and not a
subspecies). This concept is pretty mind-blowing.

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robin_reala
Species is a fuzzy concept, but it appears that Neanderthals and Sapiens could
at least produce fertile offspring.

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behindmyscreen
Infertility of offspring is not the boundary line that define species.

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AnimalMuppet
Then what is?

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behindmyscreen
[https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_41](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_41)

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acidburnNSA
In case anyone is interested in some of the details about radioisogenic dating
there's a simple writeup here:
[https://whatisnuclear.com/geology.html](https://whatisnuclear.com/geology.html)

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doug1001
seems to be about some new dating site for Spanish geologists

