A red dot on a face-shaped rock in Spain may be setting records in more ways than one. At roughly 43,000 years old, the dot may be the oldest human fingerprint on record and also one of the earliest symbolic objects ever found in Europe.
The fingerprint, made with the red mineral ocher, was left by a Neanderthal — the closest extinct relative of modern humans. Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago but occupied Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before early modern humans arrived on the continent.
