Stone For Art's Sake?

~~~~ Restless

For my Anthropology of Religion class I'm writing a paper on the "religion" of early Homo populations. Mostly I'm looking at Neanderthal and early Homo sapiens because they are the only two species to have more extensive archaeological evidence for cognitive understanding of symbolism and a recognition of life and death. Neanderthals were the first hominids to bury their dead, for example. When doing my research I found this article on the BBC. It talks about how the flint knapping is an example of Neanderthal art because it's an artistic representation of a face...

Sorry, I just don't see it. They say the eyes have been carved out and the V is the prominant brow ridge of the Neanderthal arching down into a nose. I mean, maybe... but I kinda feel like there's a bit of a stretch here just so scientists can be like "lookit! Neanderthals had art!" I mean, that's all well and good and in fact in my paper I argue that perhaps the cave paintings found in such places as Lascaoux and Altimera may just be early Homo sapiens being like "I like to paint deer." But still BBC, I think this might be a big stretch...

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