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Neanderthal symbolism and ornament manufacture: The bursting of a bubble?

For the past 40 y, the range of grooved and perforated animal teeth, mammoth-ivory rings, and other unmistakably “decorative” or “ornamental” items discovered during the excavations in the Châtelperronian levels in the cave of Grotte du Renne in north central France (1–4) (Fig. 1) have played a pivotal role in discussions of the European Neanderthal populations, suggesting that these populations were actively engaged in a range of highly “symbolic” behaviors, which had previously been generally regarded as culturally and behaviorally diagnostic of the earliest Homo sapiens populations, who are known to have dispersed rapidly across Europe (from their ultimately African origins) between ca. 45,000 and 35,000 y ago (5–9). Despite being effectively unique in the archaeological records of the European Neanderthals, the finds have often been taken to demonstrate that the Neanderthals possessed highly symbolic cultural and cognitive capacities (including language) closely similar if not identical to those of the ensuing “modern” human populations (10–13).