Neandertal cave art It has been suggested that Neandertals, as well as modern humans, may have painted caves. Hoffmann et al. used uranium-thorium dating of carbonate crusts to show that cave paintings from three different sites in Spain must be older than 64,000 years. These paintings are the oldest dated cave paintings in the world. Importantly, they predate the arrival of modern humans in Europe by at least 20,000 years, which suggests that they must be of Neandertal origin. The cave art comprises mainly red and black paintings and includes representations of various animals, linear signs, geometric shapes, hand stencils, and handprints. Thus, Neandertals possessed a much richer symbolic behavior than previously assumed. Science, this issue p. 912 Data from three ancient sites suggest that Neandertals were making cave paintings in Europe more than 64 thousand years ago The extent and nature of symbolic behavior among Neandertals are obscure. Although evidence for Neandertal body ornamentation has been proposed, all cave painting has been attributed to modern humans. Here we present dating results for three sites in Spain that show that cave art emerged in Iberia substantially earlier than previously thought. Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates on carbonate crusts overlying paintings provide minimum ages for a red linear motif in La Pasiega (Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso (Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales (Andalucía). Collectively, these results show that cave art in Iberia is older than 64.8 thousand years (ka). This cave art is the earliest dated so far and predates, by at least 20 ka, the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which implies Neandertal authorship.

中文翻译：

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碳酸盐地壳的 U-Th 年代测定揭示了伊比利亚洞穴艺术的尼安德特人起源

尼安德特人洞穴艺术 有人认为，尼安德特人以及现代人类可能都画过洞穴。霍夫曼等人。使用碳酸盐地壳的铀钍年代测定法表明，来自西班牙三个不同地点的洞穴壁画的历史必须超过 64,000 年。这些画作是世界上最古老的洞穴壁画。重要的是，它们比现代人类到达欧洲的时间早至少 20,000 年，这表明它们一定是尼安德特人的起源。洞穴艺术主要包括红色和黑色绘画，包括各种动物、线性符号、几何形状、手模板和手印的表现。因此，尼安德特人拥有比以前假设的更丰富的象征行为。科学，这个问题 p。912 来自三个古代遗址的数据表明，64000 多年前，尼安德特人在欧洲制作洞穴壁画。尼安德特人象征性行为的范围和性质尚不清楚。尽管已经提出了尼安德特人身体装饰的证据，但所有的洞穴壁画都归功于现代人类。在这里，我们展示了西班牙三个地点的测年结果，表明伊比利亚的洞穴艺术出现的时间比以前想象的要早得多。碳酸盐壳上的铀钍 (U-Th) 日期覆盖在绘画上，为 La Pasiega（坎塔布里亚）的红色线性图案、Maltravieso（埃斯特雷马杜拉）的手工模板和 Ardales（安达卢西亚）的红色洞穴提供了最低年龄。总的来说，这些结果表明伊比利亚的洞穴艺术比 64.8 万年 (ka) 还要古老。