Journal ArticleDOI
Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France
Jacques Jaubert,Sophie Verheyden,Sophie Verheyden,Dominique Genty,Michel Soulier,Hai Cheng,Hai Cheng,Dominique Blamart,Christian Burlet,Hubert Camus,Serge Delaby,Damien Deldicque,R. Lawrence Edwards,Catherine Ferrier,François Lacrampe-Cuyaubère,François Lévêque,Frédéric Maksud,Pascal Mora,Xavier Muth,Édouard Régnier,Jean-Noël Rouzaud,Frédéric Santos +21 more
TLDR
The dating of annular constructions made of broken stalagmites found deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwest France gives a reliable and replicated age of 176.5 thousand years (±2.1 thousand years), making these edifices among the oldest known well-dated constructionsmade by humans.Abstract:
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.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art
Dirk L. Hoffmann,Christopher D. Standish,Marcos García-Diez,Paul Pettitt,James A. Milton,João Zilhão,João Zilhão,João Zilhão,Javier Alcolea-González,Pedro Cantalejo-Duarte,Hipolito Collado,R. de Balbín,Michel Lorblanchet,José Ramos-Muñoz,G.-Ch. Weniger,G.-Ch. Weniger,Alistair W. G. Pike +16 more
TL;DR: Using uranium-thorium dating of carbonate crusts to show that cave paintings from three different sites in Spain must be older than 64,000 years, this cave art is the earliest dated so far and implies Neandertal authorship.
Journal ArticleDOI
Wooden tools and fire technology in the early Neanderthal site of Poggetti Vecchi (Italy).
Biancamaria Aranguren,Anna Revedin,Nicola Amico,Fabio Cavulli,Gianna Giachi,Stefano Grimaldi,Nicola Macchioni,Fabio Santaniello +7 more
TL;DR: 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.
Journal ArticleDOI
Neanderthal language revisited: Not only us
Dan Dediu,Stephen C. Levinson +1 more
TL;DR: 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.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Neanderthal Legacy: An Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe
TL;DR: The Neanderthal Legacy: An Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe by Mellars et al. as discussed by the authors, 1995. 471 pp. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Journal ArticleDOI
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)
Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo,Palmira Saladié,Andreu Ollé,Juan Luis Arsuaga,José María Bermúdez de Castro,Eudald Carbonell +5 more
TL;DR: Faunal analysis of nearly 25,000 faunal remains from the "bison bone bed" layer of the TD10.2 sub-unit at Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, Spain, suggests the procurement of bison by communal hunting as early as circa 400 kyr, and informs the understanding of the early emergence of predatory skills similar to those exhibited by modern communal hunters.
References
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Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica
J. R. Petit,Jean Jouzel,Dominique Raynaud,J. M. Barnola,I. Basile,Michael L. Bender,Jérôme Chappellaz,Michael Davis,Gilles Delaygue,Marc Delmotte,V. M. Kotlyakov,Michel Legrand,Vladimir Ya. Lipenkov,C. Lorius,L. Pepin,Catherine Ritz,Eric S. Saltzman,Michel Stievenard +17 more
TL;DR: The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial-interglacial cycles.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica
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TL;DR: The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial-interglacial cycles as discussed by the authors.
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The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior.
Sally McBrearty,Alison S. Brooks +1 more
TL;DR: The African Middle and early Late Pleistocene hominid fossil record is fairly continuous and in it can be recognized a number of probably distinct species that provide plausible ancestors for H. sapiens, and suggests a gradual assembling of the package of modern human behaviors in Africa, and its later export to other regions of the Old World.
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Improvements in 230Th dating, 230Th and 234U half-life values, and U–Th isotopic measurements by multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
Hai Cheng,Hai Cheng,R. Lawrence Edwards,Chuan-Chou Shen,Victor J. Polyak,Yemane Asmerom,Jon Woodhead,John Hellstrom,Yongjin Wang,Xinggong Kong,Christoph Spötl,Xianfeng Wang,E. Calvin Alexander +12 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) to measure the half-life of stalagmite stalagmites.
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Differential Burning, Recrystallization, and Fragmentation of Archaeological Bone
TL;DR: In this paper, the conditions under which progressive levels of burning may occur to archaeological bone, and how burning damage changes bones' crystal structure and susceptibility to fragmentation (a.k.a. friability).
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