ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
The symbolic role of the underground world among Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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13 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Article
- A multi-analytical geoarchaeological study of flint procurement strategies in southern Iberia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Art beyond cognition: reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Early human collective practices and symbolism in the Early Upper Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Enrichment of a subset of Neanderthal polymorphisms in autistic probands and siblings.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Ochre-based compound adhesives at the Mousterian type-site document complex cognition and high investment.Science advances · 2024Article
- Measuring ancient technological complexity and its cognitive implications using Petri nets.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Bridging the gap with bacterial art.FEMS microbiology letters · 2023Article
- The earliest unambiguous Neanderthal engravings on cave walls: La Roche-Cotard, Loire Valley, France.PloS one · 2023Article
- Organization of residential space, site function variability, and seasonality of activities among MIS 5 Iberian Neandertals.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The nature and chronology of human occupation at the Galerías Bajas, from Cueva de Ardales, Malaga, Spain.PloS one · 2022Article
- Neural correlates of perceiving and interpreting engraved prehistoric patterns as human production: Effect of archaeological expertise.PloS one · 2022Article
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8 authors.
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Abstract
Cueva de Ardales in Málaga, Spain, is one of the richest and best-preserved Paleolithic painted caves of southwestern Europe, containing over a thousand graphic representations. Here, we study the red pigment in panel II.A.3 of "Sala de las Estrellas," dated by U-Th to the Middle Paleolithic, to determine its composition, verify its anthropogenic nature, infer the associated behaviors, and discuss their implications. Using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction, we analyzed a set of samples from the panel and compared them to natural coloring materials collected from the floor and walls of the cave. The conspicuously different texture and composition of the geological samples indicates that the pigments used in the paintings do not come from the outcrops of colorant material known in the cave. We confirm that the paintings are not the result of natural processes and show that the composition of the paint is consistent with the artistic activity being recurrent. Our results strengthen the hypothesis that Neanderthals symbolically used these paintings and the large stalagmitic dome harboring them over an extended time span.
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