The Torlonia Collection: Masterpieces of Roman Sculpture arrives for its final North American stop at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Open from March 14 to July 19, 2026, the exhibition offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience one of the world’s most celebrated collections of Roman sculpture before it returns to Italy.

Rare Roman Masterpieces on Display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Presented for the first time in North America, the exhibition features 57 marble sculptures from the Torlonia Collection—including Roman statues, busts, and sarcophagi. They range from the 5th century BC through the early 4th century AD, with the majority from the Roman Imperial Period.

Visitors will encounter deities, heroes, mythological figures, portraits, and a selection of funerary monuments, from massive sarcophagi to smaller relief sculptures rarely seen outside of Italy. Montreal is the Torlonia Collection’s third and final stop on the continent, following showings at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. For many pieces, this marks their first public display in more than 70 years.

Apollo, Maidens, and Myth: Exhibition Highlights

The Torlonia Collection: Masterpieces of Roman Sculpture features a fascinating array of Roman marble sculpture, from finely carved sarcophagi with dynamic mythological scenes to elegant portrait busts of dignitaries.

Among the exhibition’s highlights is the Statue of Apollo Citharoedus, which dates to between the late 1st century BC and the early 2nd century AD. The sculpture depicts the Greek god pausing mid-performance, lyre in hand and cloak draped gracefully over his shoulder. It is a late Hellenistic creation inspired by Severe Style models in earlier Greek sculpture.

The Torlonia Maiden, also known as the Maiden of Vulci, captivates with delicate features and a hairstyle once adorned with gold and precious stones. The white marble portrait bust, whose provenance is uncertain, dates from the end of the Republic to the early Augustan principate.

Together with statues of deities, heroes, and other mythological figures, these works reveal the artistry, technical mastery, and cultural imagination of the Torlonia Collection. The exhibition also features a series of detailed diagrams that show which parts of each sculpture are original and which were added during restorations, offering a layered view of how these masterpieces have been preserved over centuries.

The Legacy of the Torlonia Collection

Assembled in the 19th century by Princes Giovanni and Alessandro Torlonia, the Torlonia Collection is the world’s most important private collection of Roman marble sculptures, rivaling major institutions such as the Capitoline and Vatican Museums.

Comprising more than 600 works, it spans a wide range of sculptural types and subjects, from monumental sarcophagi to intimate portrait busts. Much of the collection was acquired through the purchase of earlier sculpture groups and extensive archaeological excavations on the Torlonia estates.

In 1876, Alessandro Torlonia opened the Museo Torlonia in Rome, a pioneering private museum dedicated to classical antiquity. After World War II, the museum closed, and the works remained largely unseen for generations. Now, carefully restored, they are on display in Montreal until July 19, 2026, offering the public a rare opportunity to experience the collection in full before it returns to Italy.

Ten years ago, if you had told a Londoner that Pikachu would be perched somewhere between the dinosaur skeletons at the Natural History Museum, they might have raised an eyebrow. In 2026, it is drawing the kind of crowds most institutions would envy. The collaboration is a short-term, carefully managed pop-up, clearly designed to bring in a younger generation without compromising the museum’s standing. Judging by the surge in demand, the bet is already paying off.

The 2026 Pokémon Pop Up

In early 2026, the Natural History Museum opened a Pokémon pop-up in partnership with the franchise as it celebrated its 30th anniversary. Yes, we are that old. Entry is free, but you need a timed ticket, and those tickets are flying out the door just as soon as they are issued.

The experience is staged inside the museum’s retail space rather than its permanent galleries, which means you don’t have to worry that you’ll suddenly trip over Pikachu as you wander past fossils. Instead, it is a clearly contained, curated, and temporary event. Visitors can browse exclusive merchandise and pick up a promotional trading card that places Pikachu inside the museum itself, a clever collector’s touch.

In its press material, the museum has leaned into the idea of linking Pokémon creatures with themes of environment, adaptation, and evolution.

Why a Pop-Up?

Pop-ups may seem peripheral and superficial, but they can be very useful to a museum when targeted for a specific purpose. They allow institutions to test concepts without committing them to stone, especially crucial in this modern era of two-minute headlines. A pop-up can be tested, adjusted, and quietly removed, all without disturbing the museum’s long-term identity. Forgotten or engraved in the museum’s history, depending on its success.

For an institution the size and prominence of the Natural History Museum in London, that flexibility is priceless. It also reflects how visitors behave and how retail spaces are no longer seen as a gimmicky afterthought tacked onto the end of a museum visit. For many, especially younger visitors, they can become a destination in their own right. By placing Pokémon in the museum’s retail space, visitors are not forced through a new route through the building, but they’re being enticed to visit for one sole purpose.

And yes, should they feel the urge to buy an admission ticket to see the museum’s other exhibits, that would be just lovely.

The Underrated Usefulness of “Pokécology”

The word itself may sound playfully silly, but it is actually quite telling. The world of Pokémon has always been organized around set systems: creatures belong to specific environments, they adapt to conditions, and even evolve over time. Classification and comparisons are at the core of the franchise, and interestingly, those mechanics can be presented to mirror the foundations of natural history.

Long before visitors delve into taxonomy or ecology on a museum exhibit label, many might already understand these concepts intuitively through games.

What This Collaboration Says About Museum Audiences

The Natural History Museum is not short of visitors. School groups file through its halls every week, and families return year after year. But like many large institutions, it tends to lose appeal somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Once the school trips stop, so do the regular visits. Teenagers and young adults often connect museums with assignments rather than choice, and at some point around the age of 18, they simply stop visiting.

Most Londoners have been at least once, usually as children staring up at dinosaurs or later as adults hosting out-of-town guests. It’s the years in between that are harder to reach.

This collaboration seems to acknowledge that reality. Instead of assuming its reputation alone will pull younger audiences back through the doors, the museum decided to meet them on more familiar ground. Pokémon is not the lesson here; it is the invitation.

Once inside, the institution can do what it has always done well.

There is also a rather practical dimension to all this, of course: the commercial value. As museums operate under increasing financial pressure, retail remains one of the few reliable revenue streams that does not involve increasing admission fees.

Pokémon merchandise has been proven to sell well, particularly when it is exclusive and time-limited. The collab is perhaps best appreciated for its transparency, given that the museum clearly describes it as a retail experience tied to a broader theme. Visitors know exactly what they are engaging with when they pop in, and that kind of clarity does no harm at all.

Why Now?

By 2026, most visitors under thirty will have grown up entirely within digital systems. Their expectations of learning spaces, nowadays, are shaped by interaction, immersion, structure, and feedback rather than static display. A far cry from the learn-by-rote systems in place for prior generations.

Perhaps surprisingly, museums continue to be among the most trusted public institutions, and that trust gives them the room they need to adapt how they present themselves, even if only for a limited time. This Pokémon collaboration sits neatly at that intersection: small enough to be controlled but visible enough to be instructive.

The Pokémon pop-up will run until mid-April 2026, and if you thought the buzz around these creatures had faded with time, look at what has happened this month. When the Natural History Museum opened ticketing in January, its website buckled under the weight of demand and crashed, a level of interest unexpected for an exhibition tied to a beloved childhood game.

The enthusiasm for all things Pokémon doesn’t seem to be waning. In a headline-grabbing sale, Logan Paul’s PSA-10 graded Pikachu Illustrator card has just fetched $16 million at auction, setting a new world record for the most expensive trading card ever sold and confirming that the market for Pokémon memorabilia is in full roar.

For anyone over 50 who considers Pokémon a childhood trend that belonged to a single decade, this is your reminder that it has evolved alongside its fans. If recent events are anything to go by, Pokémon’s impact is as powerful now as it was when we first encountered it. And it’s showing no sign of slowing.

Archaeologists working at an Iron Age site near Corduba in southern Spain have uncovered what experts describe as an “exceptionally rare” discovery: an elephant’s foot bone was buried beneath a collapsed wall. The bone is exciting historians because it provides unique scientific evidence of Carthaginian war elephants in Iberia, and may be linked to one of antiquity’s most famous campaigns.

Hannibal’s Epic March

If you know your history, you’ll remember that one of the most epic military events of the ancient world took place in 218 BC. This was when the genius commander Hannibal led a major Carthaginian army from (Celto-Iberian) Spain across Provence in southern France. The march went straight over the formidable Alpine mountains to blindside the Romans and fight them in their own backyard.

The audacity, scale, and sheer logistical challenge of that march were exceptional. It delivered one of the great “oh sh*t” moments of history, severely denting Rome’s sense of domestic security.

What made this military gamble even more remarkable was that Hannibal was reported to have brought war elephants with his army, 37 animals according to the historian Polybius. The Carthaginians came from a North African power base (modern Tunisia), where the elephants would have been gathered.

Elephants were completely unknown in Europe. Although many were thought to have died during the punishing march, the psychological and cultural impact of these strange, almost mythical creatures arriving in Italy would have been enormous, deeply shocking to Rome and its armies.

New Archaeological Evidence

In literature, Hannibal’s exploits have long been accepted by historians. Archaeological evidence, however, has been far harder to pin down. That may now be changing with the discovery of an elephant’s foot bone near Corduba in southern Spain, which was a well-known Carthaginian stronghold. Could this be the first physical trace of Hannibal’s epic march?

Published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, a team led by Professor Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez of the University of Cordoba has caused a stir. The bone was found beneath a collapsed wall at a site called Colina de los Quemados. Carbon dating suggests it could belong to the period of the Second Punic War, the conflict sparked by Hannibal’s march on Rome.

Researchers consider it unlikely that the bone was transported there after the animal’s death. Instead, they argue it strengthens the case that Carthage transported war elephants into its Spanish province, a sophisticated logistical feat in the third century BC, especially given the challenges of ancient ship-borne travel.

Whether this particular animal formed part of Hannibal’s Alpine campaign remains uncertain. If it did, the elephant would have died after being brought from Africa but before the army crossed into Italy.

Whatever the exact story behind this single bone, discoveries like this are a reminder that ancient history is not just legend and text. Periodically, science confirms what the ancient sources have long told us.

Sources

• Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez, et al. (2026) The elephant in the oppidum. Preliminary analysis of a carpal bone from a Punic context at the archaeological site of Colina de los Quemados (Córdoba, Spain), Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105577
• https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdr2xl1e41eo
• https://www.sciencealert.com/first-solid-evidence-of-hannibals-infamous-war-
  elephants-discovered-in-spain
• https://www.earth.com/news/archaeologists-uncover-2200-year-old-war-elephant-in-
  spain/

Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta presents The Rocket Men (October 10–November 2, 2025), a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere directed by Rachel May and written by Crystal Skillman. In The Rocket Men, six women tell the seldom-heard true story of Nazi scientists who surrendered to the United States Army. These men rebuilt their lives—and reclaimed their power—in North Alabama to help create the NASA program that sent American astronauts to the Moon.

Told with innovation and urgency in equal measure, The Rocket Men asks a simple question with big stakes: who gets remembered by history, and at what cost? Moving between past and present, the play exposes buried truths behind a celebrated chapter of US history.

The Rocket Men Is “Sharp, Surprising, and Full of Theatrical Invention”

The Rocket Men navigates the uncomfortable interplay between victory and accountability after World War II. In the late 1940s, the United States secretly brought Wernher von Braun’s team of Nazi rocket scientists from Germany to the US through Operation Paperclip. With their help, the US aimed to outpace Soviet advances and jump-start a new era of technology. The play connects that postwar scramble to the wartime origins of V-2 rocketry.

Skillman purposely begins this historical reckoning in a present-day setting. “This is a surreal time in America,” she explained. “The play lives in these complications. Theatre is a forum of truth. The play is about what it means to be an American then and now.”

Director Rachel May said, “As a granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, this story shook something loose in me. [Skillman’s] script is sharp, surprising, and full of theatrical invention. It reclaims the lost voices of women erased by war and science alike, and asks us to reimagine what patriotism really looks like.”

Why Women Tell The Rocket Men‘s Male-Dominated Story

The meaning of the play is made clear the moment six women take the stage to tell a story about men. “From the start, I wanted audiences to be confronted with the fact that those actors don’t look anything like these figures in history,” Skillman said. This discrepancy heightens the impact of a crucial historical fact. After World War II, Skillman explained, “women were brought in from a concentration camp called Buchenwald to Mittelbau-Dora to make rockets… This is why they tell the story [of The Rocket Men].”

The Rocket Men runs from October 10 to November 2, 2025, at Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. Performances begin at 8 p.m. from Wednesday to Saturday and at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

A new exhibition and publication bring to life the work of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), one of Japan’s most popular and prolific artists. Hiroshige: artist of the open road presents a rarely seen range of prints, paintings, books, and sketches. It is the first-ever exhibition to focus on the artist at the British Museum and the first in London in 25 years.

Notably, many of the Hiroshige prints in the exhibition, which are exquisitely illustrated in the accompanying catalogue, have never been publicly displayed until now. And, among these, several are believed to be the only surviving examples of their kind.

The Lasting Legacy of Utawaga Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige’s four-decade career coincided with the end of Japan’s Edo period. From tranquil local landscapes to the familiar details of daily life, his work offered beauty and solace in an era of unsettling political change and breakneck modernization. As one of the last great masters of the ukiyo-e tradition, Hiroshige produced thousands of color woodblock prints, as well as hundreds of paintings and dozens of illustrated books.

Born into an elite samurai family in 1797, Utagawa Hiroshige defied tradition to pursue a career as an artist. He excelled as a colorist and draftsman, capturing the many facets of Japanese culture across widely circulated compositions. The experience of domestic travel, and the bond it cultivates between people and the natural world, was of particular interest to this “artist of the open road.”

Hiroshige: artist of the open road

Hiroshige set out to create art that was accessible, and for nearly two centuries, his work has indeed captivated a very wide audience. The British Museum’s new publication, Hiroshige: artist of the open road, continues this long legacy of global appreciation.

The full-color catalogue presents lavish reproductions of, and fascinating new insights into, Hiroshige’s deceptively diverse body of work. It brings together the latest research on the artist, including previously overlooked historical materials and fresh perspectives on his most popular images. The book also features up-to-date translations of the Japanese poems he inscribed on many of his nature prints.

Importantly, Hiroshige: artist of the open road reasserts the titular artist as an icon of the 21st century and beyond. Expert essays examine his lasting impact on artists in Japan and worldwide, such as Vincent van Gogh, James McNeill Whistler, Kawase Hasui, and Julian Opie. Additionally, the book demonstrates how modern-day scientific analysis can enhance our understanding of his artistic process.

Hiroshige Exhibition Open Through September 7 at British Museum

Both the exhibition and the book were made possible by a major gift of 35 prints from Alan Medaugh, a leading collector of Hiroshige’s work, to the American Friends of the British Museum. These are currently on display alongside 82 additional prints loaned by Medaugh, as well as international loans and works from the British Museum’s own collection.

Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, said, “Hiroshige’s remarkable prints immortalize the unique beauty and culture of Japan, seamlessly blending emotional depth with technical brilliance. His influence endures across generations and continues to shape artists worldwide.”

Hiroshige: artist of the open road is on view in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery at the British Museum. The exhibition will run through September 7, 2025.

Excavations near the ancient Roman city of Ovilava in Austria have revealed a highly decorated villa complex. Among these decorations are three Roman mosaic floors—one of which bears an uncommon aquatic motif.

The discovery, announced by a joint team from OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH and the University of Salzburg, is being presented as one of Upper Austria’s most significant archaeological finds in recent years.

Austrian Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Roman Villa Complex 

So far, Austrian archaeologists have unearthed over 3,000 square feet of what appears to be an urban villa that once housed a wealthy Roman family of the imperial period. Their discovery of Roman mosaic floors, which feature a rare dolphin design, confirms that the effects of Romanization extended as far north as the Alpine region by the 2nd century CE. The mosaics also reveal the opulent lifestyle and refined artistic tastes of the ancient residents of the imperial period villa.

The Roman mosaic excavation site overlooks the ancient city of Olivava—now known as Wels, Austria. Olivava once served as the capital of the Roman province of Noricum Ripensis and boasted the prestigious title of Colonia Aurelia Antoniana Ovilabis.

Unusual Dolphin Motif Reveals Cultural Connections Across Roman Empire

The Roman mosaics offer valuable insights into the aesthetic preferences of the upper class in Alpine Rome. The centerpiece of the villa complex floor features a design of two dolphins surrounded by stylized ocean waves. According to experts, this motif is rarely seen so far from the Mediterranean region. Its discovery raises questions about the cultural connections between the northern reaches of the Roman Empire and the artistic production centers of the south.

Excavations at the villa complex, which first began in 2023, revealed two additional mosaic floors. One depicts an intricately detailed krater, a large vessel used for mixing wine. The other, which is still only partially uncovered, comprises symmetrical geometric patterns.

The Austrian archaeological team will continue excavation work at the site through June 6. Afterwards, they plan to incorporate the Roman mosaics into the archaeology exhibit at the Schlossmuseum Linz.

Researchers uncovered over 100 previously unknown buildings at Gran Pajatén, a hilltop archaeological site in northern Peru. The findings promise to shed new light on the mysterious Chachapoya civilization, an ancient Andean culture that was lost to Incan and Spanish conquest.

Who Were the Chachapoya People?

The Chachapoya people are among the lesser-known pre-Hispanic civilizations of South America. Known as “warriors of the clouds” or “people of the cloud forest,” the Chachapoya lived in the cloud forests of northern Peru between the Andes and the Amazon. The Inca Empire conquered the Chachapoya civilization in the second half of the 15th century, devastating their population and way of life shortly before the Spanish conquest of the 16th century.

The name Chachapoya was given to this ancient Andean culture by the Inca conquerors. Alongside many other details, it is unknown what name the Chachapoya may have used to refer to themselves. The latest research at the Gran Pajatén archaeological complex, which revealed over 100 previously undocumented structures, is revealing rare insights into their ancient culture.

New Technology Reveals “Hidden Structures with Remarkable Accuracy”

The investigation at Gran Pajatén was led by the World Monuments Fund of Peru between 2022 and 2024. The research team combined traditional archaeology with remote sensing technology—including aerial and terrestrial LiDAR scanning—to map the dense terrain of the area non-invasively. These technologies enabled investigators to more accurately identify and document over 100 previously hidden Chachapoya structures. Among these are distinctive circular structures, cliffside tombs, and complex agricultural systems.

“LiDAR allows us to record the territory in millimeter detail, revealing hidden structures with remarkable accuracy and to gain a deeper understanding of the spatial organization and settlement complexity of Chachapoya interventions within the broader landscape,” Juan Pablo de la Puente Brunke, executive director of World Monuments Fund in Peru, told Artnet. “Our team was able to gather extraordinary visual and scientific documentation that brings Gran Pajatén to life. These tools will allow us to share its stories widely through thoughtful, immersive digital storytelling.”

The History of Peru’s Gran Pajatén

About 300 miles north of Lima, Gran Pajatén is a hilltop archaeological complex overlooking the valley of the Montecristi River. It is known for its ancient circular stone buildings that bear mosaics and bas-relief friezes of human figures. “The site likely held ceremonial and symbolic significance, while also functioning as a strategic cultural and territorial center,” de la Puente Brunke explained. “Its architectural complexity and visual prominence suggest it was central to how the Chachapoya organized their territory, beliefs, and social life.”

Gran Pajatén, most of which has long been hidden beneath vegetation, was rediscovered in the 1960s. Until now, Gran Pajatén was known to contain 26 ancient structures. These were once considered among the most extensive and important remains of the Chachapoya civilization. Researchers are utilizing their latest findings to create a more complete map of the site.

Yesterday, after a six-month hiatus, Banksy’s official Instagram account unveiled a new public mural: a small lighthouse on a beige building facade. The mystery of the mural’s location has since been solved. Its intended meaning, however, is still up for debate.

Banksy Unveils Latest Mural in Marseille

When Banksy posted images of the lighthouse mural on Instagram, his usual method for confirming authorship, the post garnered hundreds of thousands of likes and numerous speculative comments from his millions of followers. While the location of the Banksy lighthouse was initially unknown, the BBC confirmed that it is situated on Rue Félix Fregier in Marseille, a port city in southeastern France.

Banksy stencilled the lighthouse on the side of a nondescript building. The image appears alongside an ambiguous message, which is broken into two rhyming lines: “I want to be what you saw in me.” The silhouette of the lighthouse is part of an illusion—it appears to come from a false shadow painted on the pavement, as if cast by a nearby sidewalk bollard. Interestingly, the Banksy lighthouse is the first public mural in which the anonymous street artist refers to himself in the first person.

What Does the Banksy Lighthouse Mean?

Neither Banksy nor his studio, Pest Control, has commented on the mural’s meaning. Meanwhile, the artist’s followers are busy trying to decipher his intentions. The comment section of Banksy’s latest Instagram post is already rife with theories. Many commenters wondered what, if anything, the lighthouse is meant to illuminate—or perhaps warn against. Some expressed disappointment that the piece does not address certain political crises. Others noted that the mural seems unusually personal and philosophical for the British street artist, who has gone to great lengths to conceal his identity.

The lighthouse is just the latest in a string of enigmatic street art stunts from Banksy. For example, last year, Banksy’s week-long series of animals across London also sparked much speculation. The artist eventually clarified that the animals were intended to “cheer people with a moment of unexpected amusement, as well as to gently underline the human capacity for creative play, rather than for destruction and negativity.”

Alma Thomas (1891-1978) was a longtime educator and a prolific abstract painter who spent most of her career in Washington, DC. Now, to honor her local legacy, the street on which she lived and worked for seven decades has been renamed Alma Thomas Way.

The Hometown Legacy of Alma Thomas

The new Alma Thomas Way street signs were installed on the corners of 15th and Church Streets and 15th and Q Streets in the United States capital. The signs bookend the block where the artist lived for 70 years. Alongside teaching art at a junior high school for 35 years, Alma Thomas maintained a studio at 1530 15th Street NW. Her parents purchased the red brick home in 1907, when Thomas was 16 years old. She lived there until her death in 1978. The property was later listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Renowned for her distinctively vibrant abstract paintings, Alma Thomas was a trailblazing figure in 20th-century American art. In 1924, she became the first student to earn a degree in fine arts from Howard University. She was later named the founding vice president of Barnett-Aden Gallery, one of the country’s first Black-owned art galleries.

In 1972, Thomas became the first Black woman artist to present a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Additionally, she was the first Black woman to have her work enter the White House’s permanent art collection.

Street Renaming Aims to “Introduce Local Heroes” to “the Next Generation”

A small street ceremony was held on May 21 to celebrate the renaming of Alma Thomas Way. Charles Thomas Lewis, the artist’s grand-nephew, and Susan Talley, founder of the Friends of Alma Thomas group, were among the attendees.

“When we do these street renaming projects, it’s in honor of individuals, but it’s also in an effort to try to elevate and introduce local heroes to folks for the next generation,” District council member Christina Henderson told Culture Type. Brooke Pinto, a fellow council member, added, “This is especially important to me because I live just a block away. It’s really going to be a treat to be able to see [the signs] and honor Alma Thomas every day.”

Henderson and Pinto first introduced the street renaming bill in May 2024. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed it into law in October.

Centering on one “peculiar pebble,” a new research paper offers evidence that Neanderthals were actually capable of creating art. Excavated from a rock shelter in Segovia, the pebble challenges the assumption that art did not emerge until later, after more modern humans evolved.

“We Could Tell it Was Peculiar”

The study, published by a team of Spanish archaeologists, presents the pebble as the oldest known non-utilitarian object that bears a Neanderthal fingerprint. “From the outset, we could tell it was peculiar,” said David Álvarez-Alonso, lead author of the paper. The quartz-rich granite pebble was excavated from the rock shelter in 2022. It dates back between 42,000 and 43,000 years and measures over eight inches in length.

Interestingly, the pebble has curves and indentations that give it a resemblance to a human face. In the middle of its surface is a single red dot where a nose would be. According to researchers, the “strategic position” of the dot suggests that Neanderthals had the ability to think abstractly. This discovery sheds new light on the origins of art, suggesting that Neanderthals were more capable of creating it than previously believed.

Forensic Scientists Identify Neanderthal Fingerprint

Initial analysis of the pebble revealed that its red dot consisted of ocher, a natural earth pigment. Spanish forensic scientists then used multi-spectrum imaging technology to identify the red dot as a fingerprint. According to Álvarez-Alonso, this leaves “no doubt” that the dot was intentionally applied to the stone by a finger dipped in ocher.

Based on the fingerprint, researchers believe the Neanderthal was likely an adult male. He perceived the pebble as resembling a face—a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia—and was inspired to add a nose to complete the depiction, creating “one of the oldest known abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record.” Álvarez-Alonso explained that this action “would be a clear act of symbolization—apparently very simple, yet meaningful.”

Neanderthals were a distinct species that went extinct around 40,000 years ago. They lived alongside early modern Homo sapiens, to whom they were closely related, in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Contrary to popular belief, the surviving evidence and remains of ancient Neanderthals do not necessarily indicate lower intelligence than that of modern humans. The facelike pebble, for example, is “one of a small but growing number of discoveries that point to the existence of symbolic behavior among Neanderthals,” said Álvarez-Alonso.