A 51,000-year-old carved piece of bone found in Germany may be the oldest piece of artwork ever found, making anthropologists question previous assumptions about the intellectual capabilities of Neanderthals.
NBC News reports that the toe bone of deer, carved with multiple lines across it almost like chevrons, came from an in the Harz mountains near Einhornhöhle. Researchers believe the carving, which was believed to have been a pendant, had a spiritual connotation to whoever wore it. It also implies Neanderthals had a greater sense of existence than was previously understood.
“This is clearly not a pendant or something like that,” said Thomas Terberger, a professor and prehistoric archaeologist at the University of Göttingen, who co-authored a study of the object published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. “It’s clearly a decoration with a kind of symbolic character… you might even call it the initial start of art, something which was not done by accident, but with a clear plan in mind.”