(One of the largest concentrations of hematite found in Site C at a place called the Belvedere, in Maastricht (Netherlands), contrasts with the background of stream sediment silt deposited by the Meuse to the Paleolithic.)

Red spots in the silt and the history of intelligence could be changed: discoveries in Maastricht, the Netherlands, these spots suggest that early Neanderthals engaged in symbolic activities long before modern man, Homo sapiens .

Conceptual thought leaves no archaeological traces. To apprehend, prehistorians … use the concept of “symbolic thinking”, that is to say, thought by symbols. A symbol is an object, word, sign, etc.. that represents something. For prehistorians, symbols play somewhat the role of concepts as children. And material symbols – the first head body ornaments – can leave archaeological traces. This explains why the dress is considered by prehistorians as a marker of symbolic thought, and hence, the emergence of modern thought.

The track of symbolic thought dated back so far in South Africa during the Middle Paleolithic (there are between 200,000 years and 30,000 years in Africa) and especially the site of Blombos Cave, where blocks of ocher striped lines, drilled shells impregnated with ocher and foliate bifacial retouched by pressure point to the existence of elaborate technical and artistic activities, so symbolic, since 75 000 years for Homo sapiens. 

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(Sperm beetle presents a variety of shapes and structures. Image: Dawn Higginson / University of Arizona)

American researchers have studied the sperm and female morphology of 42 species of beetles. These data have identified large variations in the structure of sperm-related developmental changes in the genitalia of females.

“Both sperm morphology and female reproductive tracts have experienced many diversifications in aquatic beetles,” explains to SINC Dawn Higginson, author of the study and researcher at the University of Arizona (USA).

“The dimensions of the sperm and the presence of conjugates (clusters formed in the male sperm that are transferred in copulation) are correlated significantly with the dimensions of the attributes of females,” says Higginson.

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“It is surprising that the grain size of pigment found in some paintings of the cave of Tito Bustillo is similar to that used today,” says Antonio Hernanz, researcher at the Department of Science and Technology, UNED Physicochemical and author of the study.

Science, UNED, University of Castilla la Mancha and University of Alcala de Henares have analyzed the composition of different localized Paleolithic cave paintings in the caves of Tito Bustillo in Asturias and the Buxu.

The main component have found that hematite is the mineral, with three granular size: less than one micron to 10 microns and 30 microns. “They’re very small sizes, and the finer the grain, the greater the power of paint to cover a surface,” says Hernanz.

The study, published in Journal of Raman Spectroscopyreveals that the oldest representations (belonging to the Aurignacian culture, with an estimated age of 30,000 years) have a smaller grain than the rest, less than one micron. This size suggests that “the oldest paintings we have used a technique developed to prepare the pigment,” adds the researcher.

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