30/12/2025
Archaeologists working at the San Lázaro rock shelter in Segovia, Spain, were sorting through sediment when they spotted a small stone with a tiny red dot on it. Curious, they took a closer look and realized the dot wasn’t random paint, it carried the clear ridge pattern of a fingerprint.
Using special imaging, the team concluded the print belonged to a Neanderthal who lived around 43,000 years ago, making it the oldest known human fingerprint ever identified.
What makes it even more intriguing is the stone itself: it has three natural dents that can look like two eyes and a mouth. The researchers think the Neanderthal may have added the red ocher dot as a “nose,” turning the stone into a simple face. Because the red pigment doesn’t naturally occur at the site, it likely had to be brought there on purpose. If that interpretation is correct, this could be rare evidence that Neanderthals made symbolic marks—and possibly one of the oldest examples of portable “art” in Europe.
This dot on the stone is resembling bindi in Indian culture
