COULD Neanderthals speak? The answer may depend on whether they painted their bodies.
Archaeologist Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux, France, and colleagues recently recovered hundreds of blocks of black manganese pigment from two Neanderthal sites in France. These come on top of 39 other sites that have yielded evidence of pigment use.
D’Errico says that Neanderthals, who most likely had pale skin, must have used these pigments to mark their skin, as well as animal skins. The pigments had also been fashioned into “crayons” to draw straight lines and maybe abstract designs. Since body art is a form of communication – it represents something…
