Bone carving could change the way we think about Neanderthals

PARIS: The design may be simple, but a chevron pattern etched onto a deer bone more than 50,000 years ago suggests that Neanderthals had their own artistic tradition before modern humans arrived on the scene, researchers said on Monday.

The engraving, discovered at a German cave where Neanderthals lived tens of thousands of years ago, has no obvious utility according to researchers who say the artifact sheds new light on the ill-fated species’ capacity for creativity.

The vast majority of Stone-Age artworks discovered in Europe are attributed to Homo sapiens and experts have long suggested that Neanderthals, among our closest relatives, only began creating symbolic objects after mixing with them.