First Painters May Have Been Neanderthal, Not Human

(Wired.com) European cave paintings are older than previously thought, raising the possibility that Neanderthals rather than Homo sapiens were the earliest painters. That’s not yet certain: The paintings may have been made by humans at an unexpectedly early date, which would itself raise intriguing questions, though none so tantalizing as Neanderthal painters. “It would not be surprising if the Neanderthals were indeed Europe’s first cave artists,” said João Zilhão, an archaeologist at Spain’s University of Barcelona, at a press conference on June 13. Researchers led by Zilhão and Alistair Pike of the United Kingdom’s University of Bristol measured the ages of 50 paintings in 11 Spanish caves. The art, considered evidence of sophisticated symbolic thinking, has traditionally been attributed to modern humans, who reached Europe about 40,000 years ago. Traditional methods of dating cave paintings, however, are relatively clumsy. Even the previous best technique — carbon dating, or translating amounts of carbon molecule decay into measurements of passing time — couldn’t discern differences of a few thousand years. Instead of carbon, Pike and João Zilhão’s team calibrated their molecular clocks by studying mineral deposits that form naturally on cave surfaces, including paintings. The thicker the deposits, the older the painting. And as the researchers describe in a June 14 Science paper, some of the paintings are very old indeed. Some handprint outlines are at least 37,000 years old. Several red circles are at least 41,000 years old and may be several thousand years older. That’s 10,000 years older than paintings in France, which until now were considered the oldest cave art. If H. sapiens made the Spanish paintings, they would have needed to arrive in Europe already possessing a symbolic art tradition, something for which there’s no other evidence. Alternatively, humans may have arrived in Europe and promptly learned to paint, raising the question of why such an important cultural leap occurred so suddenly, in that particular place. Maybe something about the environment, such as competition with Neanderthals, made symbolic thinking important. Or — and this is still just a hypothesis, one that needs to be tested by dating of many more paintings — the artists were not human. Maybe they were Neanderthals. If so, the paintings would be a pièce de résistance addition to a decade of Neanderthal research that’s showed how our closest evolutionary relatives, long considered less intelligent than humans, were truly sophisticated thinkers capable of symbolism, social planning and empathy. Paintings would provide the last bit of evidence needed to throw out the image of Neanderthals as archetypally dumb, Zilhao said. “What’s really exciting about this possibility,” said Pike, “is that anyone, because it’s open to the public, could walk into El Castillo cave and see a Neanderthal hand on the wall.”

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Sergey Brin finally lets someone else wear Google Glass

(WIRED) -- Sergey Brin has once again hit the town with Project Glass -- but this time he let someone else wear Google's augmented reality headset. California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom wore the specs on "The Gavin Newsom Show," and later told Wired about his brief experience with one of the world's most rarefied pieces of technology. "You can easily forget you have them on, and sense the capacity of use in the future," Newsom told us, adding the headset felt incredibly light, comfortable and inconspicuous on his head. Brin and his wife, Anne Wojcicki, appeared on Newsom's Current TV talk show Wednesday May 23 to discuss Project Glass and Sergey's work in the Google X labs. On the show, Brin also provided our first glimpse into how the Google Glass interface is navigated. In the video, Brin navigates the system via a touchpad on the right side of the headset behind the display. He slides his finger forward and back to locate a photo he took of Gavin Newsom with the contraption. He then places the headset on Newsom's face, and continues to navigate until the photo is located. He also tells Newsom, "Don't touch the pad on the side" while setting up the headset for the talk show host. Unfortunately for inquiring minds, when Newsom asked how the photo was taken, Brin didn't answer. Newsom told Wired that he was impressed by the image quality of the display in the glasses. The politician-slash-talk-show-host noted that the lighting on his set is less than ideal for demoing a display, but nonetheless the "image was remarkably clear." As for interacting with the real world while wearing the glasses, Newsom said he found it easy to quickly focus on Brin and Wojcicki sitting across the desk, and then refocus to the image of himself displayed in the headset's screen. After returning the glasses to his own face, Brin swiped down on the touchpad of the glasses and continued the interview. The down-swipe could possibly be used to exit the photo album he was demoing to Newsom. Whatever the case, Brin's swipes answer questions about how the interface is navigated. Brin told Newsom that he brought a rough prototype. "I have some hopes to maybe get it out sometime next year," he told Newsom, "but that's still a little bit of a hope." With this in mind, it's possible that what Newsom demoed on Wednesday could change radically before the final production model hits the market. Nonetheless, even at this early stage, the glasses are impressive, Newsom says. He told Wired that the headset was "a heck of a lot further along than people have imagined." The Google co-founder told Newsom that Google X is now his primary focus at Google. His team has been working on the glasses for two to three years, and Brin as been involved for the past year. Brin also explains why Google is working on the technology: "The idea is that you want to be free to experience the world without futzing with a phone." One concern with wearable computers is that they're cumbersome wardrobe additions. To this point, Newsom told us that he was surprised by "how unremarkable the glasses are except for the remarkable feature." That said, when asked if he would actually wear the glasses himself -- you know, in public -- the lieutenant governor replied, "I haven't seen the video yet, so I'll withhold judgment until I see myself. I'm hoping this isn't my Dukakis moment." If you want to watch the full interview, the show airs on Current TV at 11 p.m. ET (8 p.m. PT) on Friday and throughout the weekend.

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