The extent and nature of symbolic behavior among Neandertals are obscure. Although evidence for Neandertal body ornamentation has been proposed, all cave painting has been attributed to modern humans. Here we present dating results for three sites in Spain that show that cave art emerged in Iberia substantially earlier than previously thought. Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates on carbonate crusts overlying paintings provide minimum ages for a red linear motif in La Pasiega (Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso (Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales (Andalucia). Collectively, these results show that cave art in Iberia is older than 64.8 thousand years (ka). This cave art is the earliest dated so far and predates, by at least 20 ka, the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which implies Neandertal authorship.

U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art

Excavations for the construction of thermal pools at Poggetti Vecchi (Grosseto, Tuscany, central Italy) exposed a series of wooden tools in an open-air stratified site referable to late Middle Pleistocene. The wooden artifacts were uncovered, together with stone tools and fossil bones, largely belonging to the straight-tusked elephant Paleoloxodon antiquus The site is radiometrically dated to around 171,000 y B.P., and hence correlated with the early marine isotope stage 6 [Benvenuti M, et al. (2017) Quat Res 88:327-344]. The sticks, all fragmentary, are made from boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) and were over 1 m long, rounded at one end and pointed at the other. They have been partially charred, possibly to lessen the labor of scraping boxwood, using a technique so far not documented at the time. The wooden artifacts have the size and features of multipurpose tools known as "digging sticks," which are quite commonly used by foragers. This discovery from Poggetti Vecchi provides evidence of the processing and use of wood by early Neanderthals, showing their ability to use fire in tool making from very tough wood.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/9/2054.full.pdf

Wooden tools and fire technology in the early Neanderthal site of Poggetti Vecchi (Italy).

Here we re-evaluate our 2013 paper on the antiquity of language (Dediu and Levinson, 2013) in the light of a surge of new information on human evolution in the last half million years. Although new genetic data suggest the existence of some cognitive differences between Neanderthals and modern humans — fully expected after hundreds of thousands of years of partially separate evolution, overall our claims that Neanderthals were fully articulate beings and that language evolution was gradual are further substantiated by the wealth of new genetic, paleontological and archeological evidence briefly reviewed here.

Neanderthal language revisited: Not only us

The Neanderthal Legacy: An Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe. Paul Mellars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. 471 pp.

The Neanderthal Legacy: An Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe

https://cir.cenieh.es/bitstream/20.500.12136/130/1/Human%20predatory%20behavior_Rodr%c3%adguez-Hidalgo_et_al_J_Hum_Evol.2017.pdf

Human predatory behavior and the social implications of communal hunting based on evidence from the TD10.2 bison bone bed at Gran Dolina (Atapuerca, Spain)

Very little is known about Neanderthal cultures, particularly early ones. Other than lithic implements and exceptional bone tools, very few artefacts have been preserved. While those that do remain include red and black pigments and burial sites, these indications of modernity are extremely sparse and few have been precisely dated, thus greatly limiting our knowledge of these predecessors of modern humans. Here we report the dating of annular constructions made of broken stalagmites found deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwest France. The regular geometry of the stalagmite circles, the arrangement of broken stalagmites and several traces of fire demonstrate the anthropogenic origin of these constructions. Uranium-series dating of stalagmite regrowths on the structures and on burnt bone, combined with the dating of stalagmite tips in the structures, give a reliable and replicated age of 176.5 thousand years (±2.1 thousand years), making these edifices among the oldest known well-dated constructions made by humans. Their presence at 336 metres from the entrance of the cave indicates that humans from this period had already mastered the underground environment, which can be considered a major step in human modernity.

Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France

La grotte de Bruniquel renferme six structures architecturees dont une grande et une plus petite plus ou moins circulaires et quatre accumulations, composees au total de 420 stalagmites entieres ou fragmentees, localisees a environ 300 metres de l’entree. Leur construction a ete datee en 2016 de 176 500 ± 2 100 ans (SIM 6) grâce a la datation uranium-thorium des stalagmites. Les Hommes de Neandertal ne seraient apparemment pas entres par l’acces actuel, l’eboulis d’entree etant scelle par plusieurs generations de stalagmites dont certaines tres massives. Il reste donc une inconnue quant a l’âge de cet eboulis et l’existence d’un eventuel porche d’entree contemporain de Neandertal. Dans cet article, la grotte est replacee dans son contexte geologique, karstologique et geomorphologique. Les nouvelles dates sur les structures affinent la limite minimale de l’âge des constructions et les premieres dates sur l’eboulis montrent quant a elles un âge relativement ancien sans toutefois pouvoir exclure une ouverture d’une partie de l’eboulis a ~170 ka.

Serge Delaby

Papers

Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France

Grotte de Bruniquel (Tarn-et-Garonne, France) : éléments de datation complémentaires