Species close enough it could interbreed with humans, and with a larger brain.

Dunno why Neanderthal art is "fake until proven intentional". Think I'd start with the opposite prior.

I wonder if Neanderthals existed today, as some unconnected tribe in a remote village, would they be considered Homo Sapiens? They are close enough to us that it may have seemed unjust to classify them as "sub" human. Since they only exist in fossil records now, we may be taking a stricter definition of "human" when it comes to them.

> if Neanderthals existed today, as some unconnected tribe in a remote village

I was wondering if that would make a good story for a TV show/movie. The UK government protecting a secret village is the Scottish wildlands, an intrepid investigative journalist, and ... well I never did get much past the idea :)

The theory laid out in Sapiens is that Neanderthals, along with other early humans like Denisovans, lacked the ability for symbolism, and that ability is what makes humans human. Chimps and Neanderthals can communicate and make tools and maybe even discuss hunting. But only humans can tell stories of an imaginary man-bird hybrid who we must sacrifice to.

Yeah I've read Sapiens and it's a fair speculation, but I've seen no real evidence to this point. Lot of other reasons Homo Sapiens^2 coulda been good at killing off Homo Sapiens^1.

The art is the evidence, no? Sculptures of a bird-headed man implies mythology, or at least imagination.

Some people just doubt everything by default. But interpreting artifacts of a very different and distant culture is tricky.

I wonder if iPhones get sorted under "ritual artifacts" by the archaeologists of 10.000 AD.

Yeah I have nothing against healthy scientific skepticism. This just feels more like asking "Do New Guineans have art?" than "Do coyotes have art?" where the null hypothesis is ".... yes? unless there's something unexpected going on here?"

> However, some archaeologists still have doubts that Neanderthals created symbolic art on their own.

TFA quotes a researcher speculating that Neanderthals learned to make art from humans.

We can't know whether this was the case until conclusive evidence is found, which may be never. Until then, we don't see things as they are (inconclusive), we see them as we are (human centric).

Seems the type of thing that I would want to carve in a piece to assure that the loops of a rope wrapped around to fix several pieces does not lose and remain in place keeping the structure intact. Art just by the sake of art is a possibility, but some purpose and tool making seems another prefectly valid option.

Some way to increase grasp to remove the hoofs or the skin, or to dry it better at a fireplace could be another possibility. The purpose of the piece could be art, or tool, or food processing (maybe even the three at the same time).

What's the possibility of this being money, treasure, or some kind of bartering token?

Looks like a rudimentary mountain with grass under it.

Interesting article but it needs more ads.

How can bones last 51,000 years?

What about dinosaur bones? We’re talking tens of millions of years or more for them.

Fossilization. 51k years is not even that old relatively speaking.

These aren't fossilised - at least it doesn't say so.

I think calling this intentional art is a bit of a stretch.

I do wish that just once, an article like this would include a skeptical anthropologist saying something like, "Does it look like art to you? Not to me. Rather it looks like carving done by someone bored out of his mind. So, no. I'm not willing to agree that it is art. Not yet."

The grooves could have served some functional purpose as a tool. Could it have been attached to a cord and used as a sling? Some tools are used to create other tools, so it could be additionally difficult to speculate as to its purpose. Maybe the research has some reasoning why they don't think this was the case.

To me it looks like a grip.