The production of purposely made painted or engraved designs on cave walls-a means of recording and transmitting symbolic codes in a durable manner-is recognized as a major cognitive step in human evolution. Considered exclusive to modern humans, this behavior has been used to argue in favor of significant cognitive differences between our direct ancestors and contemporary archaic hominins, including the Neanderthals. Here we present the first known example of an abstract pattern engraved by Neanderthals, from Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar. It consists of a deeply impressed cross-hatching carved into the bedrock of the cave that has remained covered by an undisturbed archaeological level containing Mousterian artifacts made by Neanderthals and is older than 39 cal kyr BP. Geochemical analysis of the epigenetic coating over the engravings and experimental replication show that the engraving was made before accumulation of the archaeological layers, and that most of the lines composing the design were made by repeatedly and carefully passing a pointed lithic tool into the grooves, excluding the possibility of an unintentional or utilitarian origin (e.g., food or fur processing). This discovery demonstrates the capacity of the Neanderthals for abstract thought and expression through the use of geometric forms.Middle Paleolithic | symbolism | art | Iberia | cognition

paleoclimáticos debido a problemas tafonómicos que afectan la preservación polínica , sin embargo nos ofrecen a menudo información muy valiosa sobre las actividades humanas y las culturas prehistóricas (Dimbleby 1985; Holloway y Bryant 1986). El polen de plantas consumidas por antiguas poblaciones adherido a las vasijas cerámicas, piedras de moler u otros artefactos Los estudios arqueopalinológicos ayudan a la comprensión de los aspectos culturales de las poblaciones humanas en el pasado, especialmente a través de los cambios en la vegetación natural causados por la acción antrópica (Bryant y Hall 1993;Carrión et al. 2009

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