To reinforce the opinion of who considers that Neandertals had abstract thinking and used symbolic items to communicate, several archaeological discoveries, sometimes with extraordinary uniqueness, raised from excavations or the re-examinations of old collection came in the last deacades. Widely attested is the practice to bury own deceased, but the use of colouring materials, of eagle claws, of molluscan shells, engraved stones and worked bones and the deliberate recovering of long remix feathers from the wings of large birds, are still of exceptional occurrence. On the wave of a major impulse, this scenario has added new dowels which contribute in modifing the unpleasant image of “brutes” associated for over one hundred years associated to these our relatives in the scientific and popular literature. The comparison with the Anatomically Modern Humans is now less strong than in previous times, making the “handover” between the two species less abrupt.
A rafforzare l’opinione di quanti pensano che Neandertal avesse comportamenti astratti e utilizzasse elementi simbolici per comunicare, sono varie scoperte archeologiche, talora di unicità straordinaria, emerse in seguito a scavi o al riesame di varie classi di reperti. Largamente attestata è la sepoltura dei propri defunti, ma l’utilizzo di terre coloranti, di artigli di aquila, l’estrazione di lunghe piume remiganti dalle ali di avvoltoi e di altri uccelli, l’impiego di conchiglie, di pietre incise e di ossa lavorate rivestono ancora un carattere di eccezionalità. Sulla spinta di un forte impulso, questo scenario ora si sta rapidamente arricchendo di nuovi tasselli che contribuiscono a modificare l’immagine di “bruti” che per oltre cento anni ha ingiustamente accompagnato, nella letteratura scientifica e non solo, questo nostro stretto parente al confronto con il “cugino” H. sapiens anatomicamente moderno, rendendo il “passaggio di consegne” tra le due specie meno radicale di quanto immaginato.
Evidenze del pensiero simbolico neandertaliano.
PERESANI, Marco
2016
Abstract
To reinforce the opinion of who considers that Neandertals had abstract thinking and used symbolic items to communicate, several archaeological discoveries, sometimes with extraordinary uniqueness, raised from excavations or the re-examinations of old collection came in the last deacades. Widely attested is the practice to bury own deceased, but the use of colouring materials, of eagle claws, of molluscan shells, engraved stones and worked bones and the deliberate recovering of long remix feathers from the wings of large birds, are still of exceptional occurrence. On the wave of a major impulse, this scenario has added new dowels which contribute in modifing the unpleasant image of “brutes” associated for over one hundred years associated to these our relatives in the scientific and popular literature. The comparison with the Anatomically Modern Humans is now less strong than in previous times, making the “handover” between the two species less abrupt.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.