Symbolic thinking: new clues

French scientists unearthed a bone of an ancient animal with engraved symbols in Kozarnika cave located in north-western part of Bulgaria.

The find provides material evidence of the fact that our ancestors created works of art.

Anthropologists of the University of Prehistoric Era and Geology located in Bordeaux, France made a fascinating discovery. A piece of bone belongs to the type of ruminant mammals. Its exact kind however remains unknown. The bone fragment contains an entire raw of parallel scratch marks. Scientists assume that such depiction serves as an evidence of symbolic thinking of our ancestors. No other activity could have possibly left such traces.

The bone dates back to 1.2-1.4 million years. Experts have hard time figuring out type of hominids had left such symbols. Presumably, those were traces of Homo Erectus.

Majority of scientists however are rather skeptical in regards to the discovery of the French. It is considered that symbolic thinking was born at a much later era, during the times of Homo Sapiens: about 50 000 years ago.

Nonetheless, a number of scientists believes that human's ability to make art has undergone a long evolution; it did not happen overnight as a result of some sort of genetic mutation. In case this discovery of French anthropologists will be confirmed, the scientific world will have no other choice but to reconsider the entire concept of esthetical development of the human race within the historical aspect, reports Lenta.ru.