Paul Pettitt

TL;DR: Dating of calcite crusts overlying art in Spanish caves shows that painting began more than 40,000 years ago, revealing either that cave art was a part of the cultural repertoire of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or that perhaps Neandertals also engaged in painting caves.

TL;DR: New carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values for human remains dating to the mid-Upper Paleolithic in Europe indicate significant amounts of aquatic (fish, mollusks, and/or birds) foods in some of their diets, pointing to exploitation of inland freshwater aquatic resources.

TL;DR: The isotope evidence overwhelmingly points to the Neanderthals behaving as top-level carnivores, obtaining almost all of their dietary protein from animal sources, and reinforces current taphonomic assessments of associated faunal elements and makes it unlikely that the Neanderthal were acquiring animal protein principally through scavenging.

TL;DR: The discovery of an early Upper Paleolithic human burial at the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal, has provided evidence of early modern humans from southern Iberia as mentioned in this paper, and the remains, the largely complete skeleton of a ≈4-year-old child buried with pierced shell and red ochre, is dated to ca. 24,500 years B.P.