A NEANDERTAL MYSTERY – THE MASK OF LA ROCHE-COTARD:

Neandertal mask of La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

The subject of Neandertal creativity and art is becoming a common topic, indeed, I have written on this in RockArtBlog a number of times (See the cloud index at the bottom) One marvelous artifact which may illustrate this is the somewhat mysterious Mask of La Roche-Cotard.

“The cave of La Roche-Cotard (Indre-et-Loire) was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century and excavated in its first decade and again from the 1970s. During the Latter campaign the ‘Neanderthal face’ was recovered from a clear Mousterian horizon (Layer 7). The piece was first published in the journal Paleo (Volume 12, 2000), and has now been published in English in the journal Antiquity (Marquet and Lorblanchet 2003). The alluvial sands of Layer 7 represent a beach of the Loire river on which Neanderthals had stopped, lit a fire, and probably prepared herbivore meat, leaving behind numerous unretouched flint flakes, several tools and a small faunal assemblage, all lying horizontally in the layer suggesting an in situ horizon said (on what grounds we are not told) to date to ‘c 32,100 BP.’”

La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

(Pettit 2993:1) That date estimate has since been proven to be quite far from the mark as will be seen below.

“At La Roche-Cotard, France, a worked piece of flint carrying a figurative image, enhanced by a splinter of bone has been interpreted as a pierre’s artefact; an artefact that was collected and then intentionally modified by humans, or protofigurine (Marquet and Lorblanchet 2003). The lithic features a natural tubular perforation which creates a ‘bridge’ dividing the artefact into two parts. The object has been worked to give it a more regular shape and the bone splinter inserted into the tubular feature was purposely blocked into place by the means of two small flint plaquettes. In completion, the artifact rather resembles a human face (Marquet and Lorblanchet 2003). The cognitive capacity and artistic impulse required to recognize a potential human face in the original lithic, the leap of imagination it takes to see life in stone, and the depth of planning required to modify and finish the artifact clearly shows a cognitive modernity in the La Roche-Cotard Neanderthals.” (Amos 2011:56)

Excavation at La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

Creativity involves at least a two stage process. The mind of the perceiver must first have the creativity to come up with an original idea or, in this case, recognize the potential for modification of the stone to create the simulacrum of a human face. Stage two then requires the planning and execution of any modification thought desirable to achieve the planned end.

“A two-stage process might be involved. First is the recognition of the similarity of an object to the human form. Secondly follows the simple modification to embellish this. Does the latter imply that a critical cognitive threshold has been crossed? Given the fact that removals have occurred on the piece, we cannot really understand whether the piece did or did not resemble a human face before modification, ie, whether it suggested an association to the modifier or ‘artist’. If it didn’t then the modification to create a resemblance from scratch is even more remarkable. These issues will have to be addressed. Whatever ongoing analysis will reveal, the piece will no doubt contribute towards the ‘modern’ behavior argument. In particular, it should stimulate a mature debate as to how art and other modern behavior evolved.” (Pettit 2003:2-3)

 

The dated layersat La Roche-Cotard (A and B). Internet photograph public domain.

As to the age of this artifact, previous ¹⁴C dates were indefinite, having come in essentially at the limit of reliable age ranges for that technique. Recent redating by optically stimulated luminescence of the sediment layer that the mask was recovered from gave the startling age of 75.6 ± 5.8 ka. (Marquette et al. 2016)

“Thus the existence of a symbolic expression 50,000 years ago, and even beyond that, largely preceding the Upper Paleolithic, and a probabli origin of European rock art in the Middle Paleolithic, are becoming clearer. It is becoming increasingly evident that in other parts of the world, symbolic activities predate the Middle Paleolithic (Lorblanchet and Bahn 2017)

With the obtaining of a set of OSL dates, the understanding of the nature and rhythms of the occupation of La Roche-Cotard was enriched chronologically. New dates are in progress that will probably help to clarify a little more the chronology of this complex site but, in any case, it should be now considered that the ‘mask’ of La Roche-Cotard comes from a Mousterian layer that has been dated by the OSL method of an age of the order of 75 ka.” (Marquette et al. 2016)

Neandertal mask of La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

We continue to find that our ancestory possessed human creativity farther and farther back in time. Future discoveries should prove even more exciting.

NOTE 1: I am somewhat mystified how the passage from Marquette et al., which is dated 2016, contains a reference to a publication that is dated 2017 (Lorblanchet, M. and Paul Bahn 2017). I surmise that we must assume it was written in 2016 but its publication was delayed and that reference was added without re-dating it at the actual release.

NOTE 2: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Amos, Linda Marie, 2011, ‘Them’ or ‘Us’? A Question of Cognition, The Case for Neanderthal Modernity, Autumn 2011, Master’ Thesis, Universitas Bergensis, pp. 1-88, accessed on 21 October 2022.

Marquet, Jean-Claude and Michel Lorblanchet, 2015, A Neanderthal face? The proto-figurine from La Roche Cotard, Langeais (Indreet-Loire, France), Antiquity, December 2015, DOI:10.1017/5003598X00061627, accessed on 18 October 2022.

Marquet, Jean-Claude, et al., 2016, New dating of the ‘mask’ of La Roche-Cotard (Langeais, Indre-et-Loire, France), Paleo Revue D’Archologie Prehistorique, pp. 253-263, https://doi.org/10/4000/paleo.3278, accessed 2 November 2022.

Pettit, Paul B., 2003, Is this the infancy of art? Or the art on an infant? A possible Neanderthal face from La Roche-Cotard, France, from Before Farming, Volume 4, Number 11, pp. 1-3, accessed on 27 October 2022.

Wikipedia, Mask of la Roche-Cotard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mask_of_la_Roche-Cotard, accessed on 23 October 2022.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Lorblanchet, M. and Paul Bahn, 2017, The First Artists; in search of the world’s oldest art, Thames and Hudson,

Marquet, J. C. and Lorblanchet, M., 2003, A Neanderthal face? The proto-figurine from La Roche Cotard, Langeais (Indre-et-Loire, France, Antiquity 77.