Rex Dalton,RenoIntricate ivory carvings said to be the
oldestknown examples of figurative art have beenuncovered in a cave
in southwestern Ger-many. Researchers say that the findingcould
change our understanding of earlymans imaginative endeavours.
The artefacts including a figurinedepicting a Lowenmensch(lion
man) havebeen carbon-dated to around 30,000 yearsago, when some of
the earliest known rela-tives of modern humans populated
Europe.
Discovered last year by a team led by US archaeologist Nicholas
Conard of theUniversity of Tbingen in Germany, at theHohle Fels
cave near Ulm,the objects includefigures depicting a horse and a
bird.
Conard says he thinks that the figures areolder than a
previously discovered Lowen-mensch, fragments of which were found
byGerman archaeologists in 1939 near Vogel-herd and dated to about
the same time. Untilnow, those artefacts were accepted as the
oldest examples of figurative art in the world. The newly
discovered objects areolder,Conard argues,as they were uncoveredat
a lower level in the cave floors sediments.
These discoveries have incredible signifi-cance,says Clive
Gamble,an archaeologist atthe University of Southampton, UK.
Theydepict the animal world in a semi-realisticway. It shows early
man moving from hisimmediate world to an imaginative world.
Conard reported the discovery on 30 Julyat the Sixteenth
Congress of the InternationalQuaternary Association in Reno,
Nevada,during a lecture on the human colonizationof Europe.He is
now preparing a manuscripton the discovery for publication.
Conard, who has studied human migra-
news
NATURE | VOL 425 | 4 SEPTEMBER 2003 | www.nature.com/nature
7
Quirin SchiermeierThe United Kingdom looks set to get out ofthe
nuclear-fuel reprocessing business, aftera government discussion
paper suggestedthat British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) shift itsemphasis
to nuclear decommissioning andwaste disposal.
The suggestion has prompted a wave ofspeculation that BNFL,
which runs theThorp (thermal oxide reprocessing) plant
atSellafield, Cumbria, will close it by 2010,when its current
contracts will have expired.
BNFL officials say that no final decisionhad been made to close
the Thorp plant,which cost 1.8 billion (US$2.8 billion) tobuild and
only opened in 1994. But DavidBonser, the companys deputy
chiefexecutive, acknowledges that Thorp has nomore orders after
2010. Beyond the pointthat current customers have placed
orders,every industry has doubts about what itsfutures going to be,
and were no different,Bosner told the BBC.
BNFL is owned by the UK government,but will be taken over by a
new Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority, responsible forcleaning up Britains
nuclear sites, in 2005.
Spent fuel from nuclear power stations isseparated at Thorp into
uranium, plutoniumand highly radioactive fission products.Uranium
and plutonium are then recycledfor possible re-use as nuclear fuel.
Theremaining high-level nuclear waste is turnedinto a radioactive
glass and placed in metalcanisters for storage.
Thorp will lose much of its workloadwhen a Japanese reprocessing
plant opensfor business in 2005. If Thorp closes, Japanand France
will be the only countries leftpursuing a complete nuclear fuel
cycle of thesort widely envisaged when civilian nuclearpower
emerged 50 years ago. The UnitedStates abandoned the fuel cycle in
the 1970sfollowing criticism that it produced materialssuitable for
use in nuclear weapons.
Britain had seen nuclear reprocessing asa money-earner, but
business has failed tomaterialize, and Thorp operates at just 50%of
its capacity. Reprocessing is a profitablebusiness as long as
uranium prices are high,
says Ian Hore-Lacy, a spokesman for theWorld Nuclear
Association, a London-basedlobby group. But prices have been low
forover a decade because of uranium suppliesfrom Russian weapon
stockpiles.
In addition, several European countriesare about to ban the
export of spent nuclearfuel for reprocessing, points out
HeinzSager, a spokesman for NAGRA, the SwissNational Cooperative
for the Disposal ofRadioactive Waste.
Lion man takes pride of place as oldest statue
Britain set to pull plug on nuclear-fuel reprocessing
tion from Africa at dig sites stretching fromSyria to Germany,
believes that humans firstarrived in central Europe by following
theRiver Danube west into the area. The fig-urines add a new
dimension to theories aboutthe Danube route, agrees Gamble.
Duringthe Ice Age in Europe, the frozen Danubewould be like a
highway, he says, providinga fast track to new environments.
Fossil remains suggest that modernhumans and Neanderthals both
lived inEurope during this period. Conard reportedthat the
sedimentary levels in which the ivorycarvings were embedded did not
include anyNeanderthal fossils. But some archaeologistsargue that
it is possible that the much-maligned Neanderthals produced
similarobjects.I dont think that is as far-fetched assome people
might think,says Jeffrey Brant-ingham,an archaeologist at the
University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles. These objects arepushing the
markers and traits of modernman further back into time,he says.
Archaeologists have pointed out thatbeads, bone points and
pendants havealready been discovered in association withNeanderthal
fossils. Attributing artefacts toone of the two hominid groups
remains diffi-cult, says Brantingham. Gamble says that the
discovery will spur fresh exploration ofFrance, Spain and South
Africa, where evenolder cave drawings but not figurative artof this
age have been identified.
The Vogelherd lion man could lose its crown toanother as the
oldest figurative work of art.
The end could be in sight for Britains nuclear-fuel reprocessing
plant at Sellafield.
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2003 Nature Publishing Group
