According to an international group of anthropologists and archaeologists led by Dr Brigitte Holt from the University of Massachusetts, Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) organized their living spaces in ways that would be familiar to modern humans.
Neanderthal family. Image credit: Field Museum.
“There has been this idea that Neanderthals did not have an organized use of space, something that has always been attributed to humans. 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,” said Dr Julien Riel-Salvatore from the University of Colorado Denver, who is the first author of a paper published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology.
The findings, based on excavations at Riparo Bombrini – a collapsed rock shelter in northwest Italy where both Neanderthals and, later, early humans lived for thousands of years, show that Neanderthals butchered animals, made tools and gathered round the fire in different parts of their shelters.
The site comprises three levels assigned to Neanderthals. Scientists found that Neanderthals divided the cave into different areas for different activities. The top level was used as a task site – likely a hunting stand – where they could kill and prepare game. The middle level was a long-term base camp and the bottom level was a shorter term residential base camp.
The team found a high frequency of animal remains in the rear of the top level, indicating that the area was likely used for butchering game. They also found evidence of ochre use in the back of the shelter.
“We found some ochre throughout the sequence but we are not sure what it was used for. 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,” Dr Riel-Salvatore said.
In the middle level, which has the densest traces of human occupation, artifacts were distributed differently. Animal bones were concentrated at the front rather than the rear of the cave. This was also true of the stone tools, or lithics. A hearth was in back of the cave about half a meter to a meter from the wall. It would have allowed warmth from the fire to circulate among the living area.
The bottom level, thought to represent a short-term base camp, is the least well known because it was exposed only over a very small area. More stone artifacts were found immediately inside the shelter’s mouth, suggesting tool production may have occurred inside the part of the site where sunlight was available. Some shellfish fragments also suggest that Neanderthals exploited the sea for food; like ochre, these are found in all the levels.
“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,” Dr Riel-Salvatore concluded.
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Riel-Salvatore J et al. 2013. A spatial analysis of the Late Mousterian levels of Riparo Bombrini (Balzi Rossi, Italy). Canadian Journal of Archaeology 37 (1): 70-92
