Neanderthals Wore Makeup

 Tens of thousands of years before skin care routines started popping up on social media, Neanderthals – our supposedly brutish, decidedly unglamorous evolutionary cousins – were wearing makeup and even jewelry. This discovery was made by archaeologists working in Spain who excavated oyster shells covered in an”attention-grabbing” colored pigment.  The pigment was made of minerals including hematite, charcoal, lepidocrocite, and pyrite, which gave it a shimmering, glitter-like appearance that the researchers believe was also used on the body due to its cosmetic effect. The oyster shells were found with holes cut in them, suggesting they might have been worn as necklaces. The University of Bristol’s João Zilhão, who led the study, described the makeup to NPR as “something that people wear in order to convey what they are… in a world where you have a complex network of relations” – a means of self-expression rarely associated with Neanderthals. The shells which were 50,000 years old, wouldn’t look entirely out of place today.

By the Numbers

• Percentage of DNA shared between modern humans and Neanderthals99.7%
  
• Global cosmetic market in 2025 $354 billion
  
• Year Neanderthals were named 1864
  
• Maximum number of Neanderthals that lived at any one time~10,000
  

Neanderthals had larger brains than us.

Despite the common stereotype, their brains were larger than ours. Measured by endocranial volume,  the space inside the skull,) their brain size was an average of 1,410 cm³ (~6 cups) compared to Homo sapiens’ 1,350 cm³ (5.7 cups). Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, however, as their brains were proportional to their bodies (which were denser and more muscular than ours) and supported their larger eyes, which helped them see in the low-light environments where they thrived.

—

‘i like to imagine that the Neanderthals were all really good artists.’

-jim drain

*jim drain is an American textile artist who creates vibrantly colored mixed-media works that incorporate a range of materials such as fabric scraps, machine knit-patterns, found objects, and printed ephemera.

—

source credits: gary larson, far side cartoon, university of bristol, npr, historynews, michael nordine