Neanderthal Art

Fio's first talent was art so she's especially interested in the news that the world's oldest cave art--the oldest discovered so far, at least--may be Neanderthal in origin.

The creation of visual art is unique to hominids. Forget about those elephants, parrots, and apes who have been taught to swash  brushes back and forth--true art is representative, not pseudo abstract.  We make pictures of things, of people, of events, of anything we see because we are driven to do so.  Maybe it's a compulsive memorization device, maybe a kind of control.  Fio's first recognizable picture, drawn when she was two and a half, was of her mother's vacuum cleaner.  Took care of that sucker.


Hmm . . . . Neanderthal art.  Maybe our artistic proclivity is part and parcel of our five percent Neanderthal DNA.  It works.  Fio has always maintained she has more Neanderthal in her than most.