New Scientist - July 27, 2019

(やまだぃちぅ) #1
27 July 2019 | New Scientist | 13

THEY might not look much
compared to the work of
Michelangelo or Vincent van
Gogh. But a couple of abstract
etchings discovered in China
could be a sign that the
Denisovans, our mysterious
extinct cousins, were artists.
The 100,000-year-old marks
on two pieces of bone also
bolster the idea that Denisovans,
like Neanderthals, were capable
of symbolic thought – once
regarded as something only
modern humans could do.
The bones were unearthed
at Lingjing in Henan Province,
China. They come from a site
where a population of archaic
humans, thought to be
Denisovans – though this needs
to be confirmed – lived between
125,000 and 105,000 years ago.
Detailed analysis of the Lingjing
engravings showed that they
had been carefully drawn with
a sharp point, and weren’t
cutmarks from processing meat.
“The microscopic analysis of the
lines shows that they cannot be
interpreted as marks of butchery,
the alternative interpretation,”
says Francesco d’Errico at the

University of Bordeaux in France.
To enhance their visibility,
the lines on one of the bones
had been rubbed with reddish
ochre, a pigment often found on
prehistoric ornaments (Antiquity,
doi.org/gf43nn).
We can’t yet be certain that it
was the Denisovans who engraved
these bones, especially as we
now know that modern humans
reached China between 80,
and 120,000 years ago. “It’s
difficult to be 100 per cent sure,”
says d’Errico. “However, the skull

of an archaic hominin was found
in the same layers in which the
engraved bones were found.
This strongly suggests the authors
of the engravings were archaic
hominins.”
There are profound
implications if a Denisovan or
other archaic human was the
artist. The Denisovans are thought
to have occupied a vast territory in
east Asia, but few artefacts dating
to the time of their existence have
been uncovered in the region. A
bracelet made of green rock, rings
and beads dating back to 45,
years ago have been found in the
Denisova cave in Siberia, where
Denisovans were first identified

back in 2010. But some researchers
suspect they were produced by
modern humans, who arrived in
Siberia at this time.
Though apparently simple
in design, the Lingjing bone
engravings suggest that the people
who made them had the advanced
cognitive skills needed to
represent information through
abstract symbols. No other living
animal, not even a chimpanzee,
has been known to produce
abstract, non-functional designs.
“This finding is really quite
groundbreaking,” says Genevieve
von Petzinger at the University of
Victoria, Canada, who specialises
in geometric symbols in cave art.
“[The marks] are an artificial
memory system – a way to retain
information over time and space.
To see closely related human
species making these graphic
marks is absolutely fascinating,”
says von Petzinger.
The researchers are hopeful
that more finds will be uncovered
soon. “China and other regions
of Eurasia have been under-
investigated and it is very probable
that in a near future we will have
more discoveries,” says d’Errico. ❚

“They also found that the
illusion worked when the
model teeth were covered
in Velcro”

Archaeology

Alison George

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Denisovan art uncovered?


Carvings on bone may be the handiwork of ancient humans


Psychology

Strange illusion
makes people lose
track of their teeth

AN ILLUSION can trick people into
thinking their teeth are closer to
their neck than they are, showing
that our bodily perceptions are
easily influenced.
Davide Bono and Patrick Haggard
at University College London were
inspired by the rubber hand illusion,
a famous illusion in psychology
where the participant is tricked into
believing a rubber hand is their own.

In Bono and Haggard’s version,
the participant wears a blindfold
and is told that Bono will take their
right hand and use it to stroke their
own teeth.
Instead, he uses the person’s
hand to stroke a model set of
human teeth made of plaster
placed 8 centimetres below their
real teeth. Simultaneously, Bono
uses his own hand to stroke the
person’s teeth in exactly the same
way. Once the stroking has stopped,
the participants are asked to point
to their teeth.
Eight people took part in the

experiment and on average they
pointed 1.5 centimetres below
their own teeth in the direction of
the dental model (European Journal
of Neuroscience, doi.org/c8m5).
The experiment suggests that
our perception of where our mouth
is is flexible, an effect called
proprioceptive drift.
The pair found that even if the
strokes on the model teeth and

the participant’s real teeth were in
opposite directions, as long as they
started and finished at the same
time the illusion still persisted. 
They also found that the illusion
worked when the model teeth
were covered in Velcro. But it
didn’t work with a different model
that had gaps between the teeth.
It isn’t clear why there would
be this difference. Bono says
we may have some higher-level
conception of what our teeth
should be like, but one that can
still be easily manipulated. ❚
Jason Arunn Murugesu

The vertical lines on this
bone may have been
etched by Denisovans

1 cm
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