Prehistoric fingerprint found in Spain offers clue to Neanderthal capacity for making art, study finds
The pebble marked with the print, found in the San Lázaro rock shelter in Segovia, hints at the possible capacity of Neanderthals to create symbolic art, according to a new study. The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence, including cave markings and paintings unearthed in recent years, building the case that our prehistoric relatives who went extinct about 40,000 years ago were more like modern humans than some might think.
The team of Spanish researchers spotted the oblong rock below 5 feet (1.5 meters) of sediment during an excavation in July 2022 and reported their findings in a paper published May 24 in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. San Lázaro is a site believed to have been occupied by Neanderthals, according to the study.
'When we saw (the pebble) the first time … we were looking at the stone, all the team and students, and we were like 'Uh, it looks like a face,'' said study coauthor María de Andrés Herrero, a professor of prehistory at the Compultense University of Madrid. This kind of finding in a Neanderthal context was unexpected, she added.
Herrero said she and her team carbon-dated the fingerprint, and they are certain it dates back about 43,000 years. The rock had been found near a riverbed and deliberately brought to the rock shelter, the researchers believe. Unlike other artifacts found in the shelter, this pebble was unique: It appeared to have no functional use and had a peculiar red dot that intrigued the researchers.
'We felt that the red dot had something, I don't know what … and the only way we could know there was a fingerprint was to contact the main specialist in Spain (for) finding fingerprints,' Herrero said. 'That's why we contacted the police.'
With the help of experts working in crime scene investigations with Madrid's forensic police corps Madrid, the researchers were able to confirm that a fingerprint existed within the dot.
But the police were initially skeptical about the find. 'They are used to identifying fingerprints that are very recent, from 2 days, 1 week, 1 month. But 43,000 years ago — it was very weird and very difficult for them,' Herrero said.
Using forensic techniques and multispectral analysis (an advanced method of capturing images), the investigative experts and the study team were able to discern a fingerprint within the red dot. 'We couldn't believe it really,' Herrero said. The forensic investigator created a special camera to capture the evidence, and it was the first time such techniques were used to identify a Neanderthal fingerprint, according to Herrero.
The imaging technology section of the forensic team then analyzed the marking to confirm it was compatible with a human fingerprint — and to make sure it didn't belong to any of the researchers. The police unit was able to verify that it likely belonged to an adult male Neanderthal.
'The verification of the fingerprint by forensic experts shows beyond doubt that this derived from direct contact with a human fingerprint,' said Paul Pettitt, a professor of paleolithic archaeology at Durham University in the United Kingdom.
The artifact could be the oldest complete hominin fingerprint ever found, according to Herrero. Another, possibly older print was found in Königsaue, Germany, back in 1963 — but that one is a partial fingerprint.
The San Lázaro fingerprint could also be the oldest associated with a pigment, according to the study. The researchers were able to confirm that ocher, a clay pigment, was applied to the tip of the finger that made its mark on the quartz-rich granite pebble.
Statistical modeling used by the researchers showed that the mark on the pebble was 'not random' and rather, intentionally placed, Herrero said.
Pettitt said he was unsurprised by the findings.
'It represents yet another example of the emerging data that are revealing Neanderthal visual culture,' he explained. 'This is an admirably clear and unequivocal example of the Neanderthal use of red pigment, one of a growing database that reveals that Neanderthals were routinely using pigments to leave marks of their bodies (hands, fingertips) on cave walls and portable objects.'
One theory is that the hollows on the rock resemble parts of a face: eyes, mouth and chin. The placement of the red dot, the researchers hypothesized, could be the place of a nose. If that is the case, the pebble marking would constitute a visual sign with a symbolic purpose.
'A meaning or message exists, however simple the object and action may appear, 'the study authors wrote. They added there is reason to suspect that the pebble was intended to be a representation of a face.
The study, which called the characteristics of the pebble 'exceptional,' suggests it might be a visual symbol that could be considered a piece of 'portable art in some contexts.'
If that's the case, scientists' understanding of what Neanderthals were capable of could continue to shift. 'The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ocher shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolizing, imagining, idealizing and projecting his or her thoughts on an object,' the study authors wrote.
Though there is no way of knowing for certain, Herrero thinks it's a demonstration of how our understanding of the 'thin line' separating Neanderthals from modern humans is getting thinner. 'They were able to recognize faces in objects, as you and me are able to recognize a lion in the clouds,' she said.
Pettitt offered a similar outlook, saying the findings fit with 'emerging evidence that the Neanderthal imagination was experimenting with the human form and with recognition and extension of that form within and onto objects in their natural world.'
Herrero said the research team is now planning to search for more 'invisible artifacts' to help interpret the past. The forensic police will play a role in finding information not visible to the naked eye.
'We have to collaborate and integrate forensic technologies in archaeology, and maybe archaeology in forensic technologies,' she explained, saying the collaboration is 'opening a new window to check our past.'
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Items found in the building's storerooms also indicate that the reoccupation of Pompeii was likely more permanent than transitory, Zuchtriegel said. The researchers discovered remains of ceramics and cooking vessels, including a ceramic lamp decorated with an early symbol of Christ, all dated to the fifth century. The team also found a small, family-style bread oven from the same time period that was built with reused materials, such as bricks and tiles, within a Roman cistern. A coin among the Insula Meriodionalis haul that depicts the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, dated to AD 161, suggests people returned to Pompeii just a few decades after the infamous eruption, Zuchtriegel said. People inhabited the city until the 'Pollena eruption' of Mount Vesuvius in 472, but Pompeii failed to become the thriving, vital port town it was before. A series of additional eruptions also occurred early in the sixth century, according to the study authors. 'These events likely caused serious damage to an already weak economy and may have led to the abandonment of the settlements attested in the Vesuvian area,' the authors wrote in the study. Researchers estimate the city was once home to about 20,000 people when the AD 79 Vesuvius eruption occurred, and debate about how many died during the disaster is ongoing. So far, archaeologists have uncovered two-thirds of Pompeii and found the remains of about 1,300 people — a number that doesn't include those who perished beyond the center of town. With nowhere else to go, survivors likely returned to the ruins, living in an ash desert and looking for remnants of their homes and items — and sometimes in the process unearthing remains of victims, like the skeleton of a horse found wedged between two beams in the Insula Meriodionalis. Amid the pillaging of homes, Roman magistrates were likely sent to the city to prevent an anarchic type of existence, based on ancient literary sources the authors referenced in the study. Titus, Roman emperor from AD 79 to 81, sent two consuls to the Campanian region where Pompeii is located after the eruption to provide aid, assess the city and reallocate the property of those who had died in the eruption with no surviving heirs, Zuchtriegel said. The emperor also provided funds to help survivors, and one text even suggests he visited Pompeii after the eruption, Zuchtriegel added. Vegetation also slowly returned to the land, and Pompeii's post-eruption inhabitants dug wells to reach groundwater beneath the ash coating the city, the study authors said. The post-eruption settlers also buried their own, based on evidence of a newborn that was interred at the site during the reoccupation. 'We have to assume that although occupation was not temporary, life within the ruins must have been fairly basic although a latrine had been constructed presumably for those tending to the baking of bread,' Zuchtriegel said. 'Most of the comforts of first century Roman life had been eradicated.' The study demonstrates that contemporary archaeology is not about hunting for treasure, but reading signs in the sediment and understanding relationships among all the surviving physical evidence, said Daniel Diffendale, postdoctoral researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He was not involved in the new research. Diffendale noted that scattered evidence for human activity at Pompeii post-eruption existed prior to the new study, but this latest research uncovers a previously unknown level of detail. 'This is more evidence of stable post-eruption habitation,' Diffendale wrote in an email. 'These are people carving out residences from utilitarian spaces, not living in luxurious atrium houses. On the other hand, this could also represent a part of the population that wasn't living in those luxurious houses prior to the eruption either, and whose lives are scarcely visible elsewhere in Pompeii.' Future excavations could reveal how the people reoccupying Pompeii supported themselves, whether it was through salvaging remains of the city, trying to live off the land agriculturally or creating some other form of commerce, he said. Dr. Marcello Mogetta, chair of the department of classics, archaeology and religion at the University of Missouri, said the Archaeological Park of Pompeii's staff should be commended for bringing the afterlife of the Roman town into sharper focus through its excavations and exhibitions. Mogetta was not involved in this research, but he is leading a project that investigates an area near the one discussed in the study. One of the authors of the new study is the officer responsible for the sector of Pompeii that Mogetta is studying, he said. 'This study ultimately highlights the resilience of the inhabitants of the wider Vesuvian region and their active role in the economic recovery of the area over periods that have been largely removed from the site's long-term history,' Mogetta said. The findings shed light on the 'invisible city' of Pompeii that rose again after AD 79 — one that is just beginning to be investigated, the authors wrote in the report. 'In these cases, we archaeologists feel like psychologists of memory buried in the earth: we bring out the parts removed from history, and this phenomenon should lead us to a broader reflection on the archaeological unconscious, on everything that is repressed or obliterated or remains hidden, in the shadow of other seemingly more important things,' Zuchtriegel said. Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
