A red dot, a 43,000 year old fingerprint, and a stone out of place—potential evidence of Neanderthal pareidolia

In the depths of the San Lázaro rock-shelter in Segovia, Central Spain, archaeologists from the Complutense University of Madrid and collaborators have uncovered a compelling trace of Neanderthal symbolic cognition: a pigment-marked granite stone bearing a human fingerprint, and the deliberate placement of red ocher in relation to three mostly natural indentations, creating the potential image of a human face.