The Neanderthal Story

This past week, a number of PhD folks in Europe decided to go ahead and agree that ancient cave paintings that were found in Spain a number of years ago with 'art'....were drawn by Neanderthal folks....approximately 64,000 or more years ago.

It's been a problem to admit this because they had this image of the Neanderthal folks as.....well....not quiet intellectual enough to draw fancy art like this, in this period 64,000 or more years ago.

The thing is....we aren't talking about vast numbers of paintings, which would lay out to 4,000 different Neanderthal folks over a period of time.

When you go and look at the different caves involved.....it's not that many.  So you come to this moment of pondering.  With a caveman group of forty-odd members, it's possible that you had only one single guy in some period of time, who seemed to be showing some flair for art.  Maybe as he matured and got ready to pass on....some Neanderthal kid took up the art idea and continued on....drawing on another wall of the cave.

As time passed, maybe two less than accomplished guys.....Joe and Marty....talked at length one afternoon about the stout nature of some wild cattle in the region, and each felt the muscular dimensions were something worth admiring. Eventually, they retreated into the cave....took some fire along to light the way, and spent an hour drawing up their image.  After that evening....each of the cave group would come by at various times and admire the art.....comparing Joe's rendition against Marty's rendition.  Joe's art probably was criticized a bit, while Marty's art was viewed as 'modern' and looking more like the intended subject.  This probably set off a feud between Joe and Marty.....with one knocking the front teeth out of the other guy.

The thing is.....I doubt if Joe, Marty, or the sixty-other odd artists ever thought much over future admiring of their art.  The idea that 10,000 PhD guys now look daily over the art and render judgements would probably make Joe, Marty and rest a bit dazed of the admiration.

The other curious thing which you eventually start to think about.....this is simply the caves found so far.  There could be another thousand caves existing....where Joe and Marty drew nude pieces with Wanda and DeeDee....rather than animal pictures.