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NEANDERTHAL LIFE IN GORHAM’S CAVE
Jon Mooallemjan wrote in the New York Times magazine: “Gorham’s Cave is on Gibraltar’s rough-hewed eastern coast: a tremendous opening at the bottom of the sheer face of the Rock, shadowy and hallowed-seeming, like a cathedral. Its mouth is 200 feet across at the base and 120 feet tall. It tapers asymmetrically like a crumpled wizard’s hat. [Source: Jon Mooallemjan, New York Times magazine, January 11, 2017 ||*||]
“Neanderthals inhabited Gorham’s Cave on and off for 100,000 years, as well as a second cave next to it, called Vanguard Cave. The artifacts they left behind were buried as wind pushed sand into the cave. This created a high sloping dune, composed of hundreds of distinct layers of sand, each of which was once the surface of the dune, the floor of the cave. The dune is enormous. It reaches about two-thirds of the way up Gorham’s walls, spilling out of the cave’s mouth and onto the rocky beach, like a colossal cat’s tongue lapping at the Mediterranean. ||*||
“The Neanderthals did their butchering and cooking at the front of Gorham’s, then retired here at night. Lighting a fire at this hearth would block the narrowest point in the cave, sealing off this chamber from predators. You could hang out here, Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, said, “have a late-night snack or something,” then head to bed. “See there?” he said, motioning to a smaller opening to our right. It led to a second room, similar to this one. “This,” Finlayson said, “is the bedroom.”“ ||*||
Neanderthal Clothes
Neanderthals used animal skins to keep warm. Perhaps they wore bear skin coats. There is some debate as to whether Neanderthals practiced sewing or not. Scraping tools suggest that animal skins were made into clothing. A lack of stitching tool such as needles at Neanderthal sites means they probably wore unsewn hides. To tan buckskin, fur and inner hides were painstakingly scraped off and soaked in pulverized deer brains, and then wrung, stretched and hung to dry and then smoked to make it waterproof. Because their big, stocky bodies were adapted to cold weather, it is believed they ran naked in the hot summers.
Becky Wragg Sykes wrote in The Guardian: Some Neanderthals lived for some time in “really ice-blasted world. Research into how mammals – including humans – keep their body temperature at healthy levels suggests that even during the warmer parts of the last ice age, they would have needed decent body coverings.”[Source: Hadley Freeman, fashion expert, Becky Wragg Sykes, The Guardian May 20, 2013]
One “study looked at what modern day hunter-gatherers wear according to the local climate, and built a model predicting what Neanderthals would have needed to wear to stay warm. Even after correcting for Neanderthals being able to cope better with the cold, the results suggested they would have needed to cover at least 80 percent of their body during cold periods, especially hands and feet. |=|
“Quite astonishingly, there is physical evidence that Neanderthals more than 100,000 years ago were tanning animal skins – a stone tool from the site of Neumark-Nord in Germany has preserved scraps of organic material stuck to it that were soaked in tannin, the substance in oak bark used to make leather. It was probably part of the tool handle that got wet while the hides were being worked. Although they lacked fine needles of the sort found much later, Neanderthals didn't need these to sew their leather, as their abilities to make stone and wood tools were easily enough to produce a sharp piercing object for threading thong. |=|
Neanderthal Homes
Most Neanderthals remains have been found in caves, which were presumably their homes. Scientists found a four-walled structure built from rock in the back of one cave where Neanderthal remains were found. The caves occupied by Neanderthals and modern humans were often located in difficult to reach cliffsides that required a dizzying ascent to reach.
Neanderthals stayed at sites for long periods and didn’t change sites that much during the year. Long occupations of the same area often leads to depletions of food sources. “Homo sapiens” , by contrast, appeared to have occupied sites following a more sophisticated plan in tune with the weather and migration patterns of animals.
A posthole found at a Neanderthal site in southern France indicates that Neanderthals may have built crude tepee-like structures made with wood, mammoth bones and animal hides. Neanderthal's made fires in crude hearth — closer to campfires than stone-lined hearth used by modern humans — which some say shows that they were highly nomadic.
Neanderthals Organized Their Shelters
Spy Cave
A study published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology in December 2013 suggests that Neanderthals kept their homes tidy and organized based on excavations at a cave in Italy Neanderthals appear to have purposely organized separate spaces for cooking, butchering and tool-making. "There has been this idea that Neanderthals did not have an organized use of space, something that has always been attributed to humans," study researcher Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, said in a statement. "But we found that Neanderthals did not just throw their stuff everywhere, but in fact were organized and purposeful when it came to domestic space." [Source: Megan Gannon, Livescience, December 4, 2013 +++]
Megan Gannon of Live Science wrote: “Riel-Salvatore and colleagues discovered that Neanderthals may have been rather domestically inclined while the scientists were digging at Riparo Bombrini, a collapsed rock shelter on the coast of northwest Italy. Excavations revealed some "provocative patterns" of artifact distribution, the researchers wrote in their study detailed in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology. The scientists think the cave's ancient occupants divided the space into sections for different activities: a top level for butchering and preparing animals, a middle level for long-term living and a bottom level for use as a short-term base camp. +++
“In the main living level, a hearth was positioned near the back wall of the shelter, which likely allowed warmth to circulate among the living space. Meanwhile, stone tools and animal bones were concentrated at the front of the cave, the researchers say. "When you make stone tools there is a lot of debris that you don't want in high-traffic areas or you risk injuring yourself," Riel-Salvatore said. Alongside a hoard of animal remains in the back of the top level, the researchers also uncovered evidence of ochre, a natural brownish pigment. "We found some ochre throughout the sequence but we are not sure what it was used for," Riel-Salvatore explained in a statement. "Neanderthals could have used it for tanning hides, for gluing, as an antiseptic or even for symbolic purposes — we really can't tell at this point." +++
“The authors note that other Neanderthal sites in the archaeological record, such as Italy's Grotta Breuil, are not so tidy, suggesting that spatial organization of living spaces might not have been common to all Neanderthals. "This is ongoing work, but the big picture in this study is that we have one more example that Neanderthals used some kind of logic for organizing their living sites," Riel-Salvatore said. "This is still more evidence that they were more sophisticated than many have given them credit for. If we are going to identify modern human behavior on the basis of organized spatial patterns, then you have to extend it to Neanderthals as well."
Neanderthals Adept at Controlling Fire, Scientists Say
A study published in the March 14, 2011 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years. According to the University of Colorado: “The conclusion comes from the study of scores of ancient archaeological research sites in Europe that show convincing evidence of long-term fire control by Neanderthals, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Villa co-authored a paper on the new study with Professor Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands. "Until now, many scientists have thought Neanderthals had some fires but did not have continuous use of fire," said Villa. "We were not expecting to find a record of so many Neanderthal sites exhibiting such good evidence of the sustained use of fire over time."[Source: University of Colorado Boulder, March 14, 2011 ^^^]
“Archaeologists consider the emergence of stone tool manufacturing and the control of fire as the two hallmark events in the technological evolution of early humans. While experts agree the origins of stone tools date back at least 2.5 million years in Africa, the origin of fire control has been a prolonged and heated debate. As part of the study Villa and Roebroeks created a database of 141 potential fireplace sites in Europe dating from 1.2 million years ago to 35,000 years ago, assigning an index of confidence to each site. Evidence for the sustained use of fire includes the presence of charcoal, heated stone artifacts, burned bones, heated sediments, hearths and rough dates obtained from heated stone artifacts. Sites with two or more of the characteristics were interpreted as solid evidence for the control of fire by the inhabitants. ^^^
“While the oldest traces of human presence in Europe date to more than 1 million years ago, the earliest evidence of habitual Neanderthal fire use comes from the Beeches Pit site in England dating to roughly 400,000 years ago, said Villa. The site contained scattered pieces of heated flint, evidence of burned bones at high temperatures, and individual pockets of previously heated sediments. Neanderthals, like other early humans, created and used a unique potpourri of stone tools, evidence that they were the ancient inhabitants of particular sites in Europe. ^^^
“The sites catalogued by the team were dated by several methods, including electron spin resonance, paleomagnetism and thermoluminescence. Some research teams also have used microscopic studies of sediment at sites to confirm the presence of ashes. While some of the best evidence for controlled use of fire in Europe comes from caves, there are many open-air sites with solid evidence of controlled fire, they said. ^^^
“According to Villa, one of the most spectacular uses of fire by Neanderthals was in the production of a sticky liquid called pitch from the bark of birch trees that was used by Neanderthals to haft, or fit wooden shafts on, stone tools. Since the only way to create pitch from the trees is to burn bark peels in the absence of air, archaeologists surmise Neanderthals dug holes in the ground, inserted birch bark peels, lit them and covered the hole tightly with stones to block incoming air. "This means Neanderthals were not only able to use naturally occurring adhesive gums as part of their daily lives, they were actually able to manufacture their own," Villa said. "For those who say Neanderthals did not have elevated mental capacities, I think this is good evidence to the contrary." ^^^
“Many archaeologists believe Neanderthals and other early hominins struck pieces of flint with chunks of iron pyrite to create the sparks that made fire and may well have conserved and transported fire from site to site. Recent findings have even indicated Neanderthals were cooking, as evidenced by tiny bits of cooked plant material recovered from their teeth.”
Fire and Debate about Which Hominins First Started Cooking
ancient fire-making method
Fire was used for heat, light and cooking. Fires and torches were the first forms of light. The first lamps, found in caves and dated to around 30,000 years ago, were hollowed and shaped and filled with animal grease and a natural fibre wick. There is some evidence that modern humans may have used lamps made of a fibrous wick fueled by animal fat as far back as 50,000 years ago. The first use of fire dates back to homo erectus around 1 million years ago but the there considerable debate about for what and how extensively it was used by homo erectus and the hominins that followed.
L.V. Anderson wrote on Slate.com: According to Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, “H. erectus must have had fire—just look at their anatomy! H. erectus had smaller jaws and teeth (and smaller faces in general), shorter intestinal tracts, and larger brains than even earlier hominins, such as Australopithecus afarensis, for instance, who were boxier, more apelike, and probably duller. Wrangham argues that H. erectus would not have developed its distinctive traits if the species hadn’t been regularly eating softer, cooked food. [Source: L.V. Anderson, Slate.com, October 5, 2012 \~/]
“If H. erectus didn’t bring fire mastery to Europe, who did? Archaeologists Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands and Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Museum found evidence for frequent use of fire by European Neanderthals between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago. Roebroeks and Villa looked at all the data collected at European sites once inhabited by hominins and found no evidence of fire before about 400,000 years ago—but plenty after that threshold. Evidence from Israeli sites put fire mastery at about the same time. H. sapiens arrived on the scene in the Middle East and Europe 100,000 years ago, but our species didn’t have a discernible impact on the charcoal record. Roebroeks and Villa conclude that Neanderthals must have been the ones who mastered fire. \~/
“One of the beautiful things about the archaeological record is that archaeologists are always willing to debate about it. Attributing fire to Neanderthals is an overly confident reading of the evidence, according to archaeologist Dennis Sandgathe of British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University. Of course the number of campsites with evidence of fire increased between 1 million and 400,000 years ago, he says—the number of campsites, period, increased during this time in proportion with population growth. But that doesn’t mean the use of fire was universal among European hominins—there are plenty of Neanderthal campsites out there that show little or no evidence of fire, and Sandgathe has personally excavated some of them. What’s more, Sandgathe told me when I asked him about Roebroeks’ and Villa’s data, “We actually have better data than they do when it comes to Neanderthal use of fire.” \~/
“According to Sandgathe and his colleagues, hominins didn’t really master fire until around 12,000 years ago—well after Neanderthals had disappeared from the face of the planet (or merged into the human gene pool via interbreeding, depending on your view). Sandgathe and his colleagues excavated two Neanderthal cave sites in France and found, surprisingly, that the sites’ inhabitants used hearths more during warm periods and less during cold periods. Why on earth would Neanderthals not build fires when it was freezing outside? In “On the Role of Fire in Neandertal Adaptations in Western Europe: Evidence from Pech de l’Aze´ IV and Roc de Marsal, France,” Sandgathe advances the hypothesis that European Neanderthals simply didn’t know how to make fire. All they could do was harvest natural fires—those caused by lightning, for instance—to occasionally warm their bodies and cook their food. (This explains why Sandgathe found more evidence of fire from warm periods: Lightning is far less common during cold spells.) \~/
“Roebroeks and Villa think Sandgathe’s reasoning is flawed: After all, there isn’t evidence of fire at every modern human campsite, either, when you look at sites from the Upper Paleolithic period, which concluded about 10,000 years ago. “However, nobody would argue that Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were not habitual users of fire,” they wrote in a response to Sandgathe et al.’s criticism of their work. Wrangham, meanwhile, thinks both Sandgathe et al. and Roebroeks et al. ignore some critical nonarchaeological evidence: his point that contemporary humans can’t survive on a diet of uncooked food. Accepting Sandgathe’s hypothesis, Wrangham wrote in an email, “means that the contemporary evidence is wrong, or that humans have adapted to need cooked food only in the last 12,000 years. Both suggestions are very challenging!” \~/
Neanderthal Language and Right-Handedness
Scientists believe that Neanderthals may have had a spoken language based on the fact that they had hyoid bones — which hold up the voice box in modern humans — virtually identical to those in modern humans and a hypoglossal canal — a bony canal in the occipital bone of the skull theorized role to have a role in speech;. Christopher Stringer of the Natural History Museum of London told National Geographic, "They may not have had language as complex as ours. We have symbolism. They may not have all had all that, but at least they could talk to each other." Some scientists dismiss the presence of the hypoglossal canal as evidence of speech, pointing out that monkeys and apes have the same size canal. Neanderthals posses the same version of the gene FOXP2, which has been linked it speech and language, as humans.
Paul Jongko wrote in Listverse: “Right-handed people vastly outnumber lefties. It’s estimated that 70 to 95 percent of Earth’s population are righties, and studies show that the Neanderthals might have been predominantly right-handed as well. In 1957, a Neanderthal skeleton named Regourdou was discovered in France. Scientists had speculated that Regourdou was right-hand dominate because his right arm was more muscular than his left arm. At that time, there was no method available that would have verified the veracity of this hypothesis. [Source: Paul Jongko, Listverse, May 14, 2016 ]
“In 2012, a team of researchers came up with a unique approach that solved the Neanderthal handedness mystery. Led by David Frayer of the University of Kansas, the scientists conducted a complex analysis of Regourdou’s shoulders and arms and then connected the results with the scratch marks on the Neanderthal’s teeth. They discovered that Regourdou had more right-angled scratches on almost all of his teeth, indicating that he was indeed right-handed. Proving that most Neanderthals were right-handed, the significance indicates that our extinct cousins had the capacity for language.”
Neanderthal Health
Neanderthals no doubt lived hard lives. The bones of many adults had healed fractures, particularly in the legs and skull. Some believe they sustained such injuries from battling animals up close. They also suffered from a wide range of ailments, including pneumonia and malnourishment. Few survived beyond the age of 30.
Four of the six adult Neanderthals found in a cave near Shanidar, Iraq, were deformed by disease and injuries. The skeleton of one badly diseased Neanderthal with no teeth and severe arthritis seems to show that Neanderthals took care of their elders. Another suffered severe injuries but lived to the relatively old age of 45, which shows he was cared for as a member of a group, an early sign of social behavior.
The ill and injured Neanderthals mentioned above would have had difficulty taking care of themselves. Somebody had to at least feed and protect them while they were recuperating. This is regarded as an indication that Neanderthals took care of the sick and aged.
There is some suggestion that Neanderthals didn't wash and may have used herbal ointments. In May 2007 an article published on the website of the newspaper El Pais reported that two molars of a 63,400-year-old Neanderthal indicated that Neanderthals practiced dental hygiene. The teeth, unearthed in the Pinall delValle near Madrid, have “grooves formed by the passage of a pointed object, which confirms the use of a small stick for cleaning the mouth” Prof. Juan Luis Asuanga told Reuters.
See Separate Article: NEANDERTHAL HEALTH AND MEDICINE factsanddetails.com
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated April 2024