Across the millennia, one of our common traits is the desire to feel special: this has been played out in terms of aristocratic status, patriarchal markers, race, and middle-school politics. Finding a solid boundary between “human” and “non-human” is yet another instance of seeking specialness. However, both scientists and historians are making this boundary increasingly difficult to delineate. Our species, Homo Sapiens, was once thought to be categorically different from other hominids, but increasingly we are finding similarities among ourselves and other genus Homo. The cave painting shown here is one such example. In a paper published last year in _Science_, archaeologists announced the dating of the oldest cave paintings yet discovered. In three sites in Spain, using uranium-thorium analysis, the team dated paintings to 65,000 years ago, which was before the arrival of Homo Sapiens — showing that Homo Neanderthalis practiced decorative arts. The questions we ask about the past — how special are we? — can tell us much about our present time.
Source(s): See _Nature: International Journal of _Science_, Feb 22, 2018, Emma Marris, “Neanderthal Artists Made Oldest-Known Cave Paintings”.
