A Tale of Two Species: The Origins of Art and the Neanderthal Challenge

At the dawn of the Upper Palaeolithic era around 45,000 BP, Homo sapiens migrated into Europe. This process was accompanied by the extinction of Neanderthals, which has led many to believe that this species was cognitively and behaviorally inferior to anatomically modern humans. In recent years, how...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolutionary studies in imaginative culture 2018-10, Vol.2 (2), p.83-102
Main Author: Seghers, Eveline
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
cognitive evolution
evolutionary origins of art
modern behavior
Neanderthal culture
prehistoric art
symbolism
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Summary:At the dawn of the Upper Palaeolithic era around 45,000 BP, Homo sapiens migrated into Europe. This process was accompanied by the extinction of Neanderthals, which has led many to believe that this species was cognitively and behaviorally inferior to anatomically modern humans. In recent years, however, this view has been challenged. This paper focuses on art and aesthetic practices among Neanderthals, as one of the exponents of modernity. It explores to what extent central cognitivist accounts of differences with Homo sapiens are supported by both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence. The commonly cited cognitive capacity for symbolism may be less crucial for art than hitherto assumed, and several other variables, such as demography and ecology, adapt the mainstream idea that the crucial difference between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans is of a cognitive nature. As such, Neanderthals may have been artists as well, challenging longstanding ideas about the uniqueness of our species.
ISSN:2472-9884
2472-9876
2472-9876
DOI:10.26613/esic.2.2.94