Journeys through time
The human story
The human story
The third programme of Secrets of the Stone Age travelled even further back in time to the Middle and Lower Palaeolithic eras, from which the archaeological finds are much sparser.
There are clues that Neanderthals were not just the subhuman brutes portrayed in 'B' movies. While many archaeologists think that human concerns such as art and religion arrived in a cultural explosion 40,000 years ago, there is evidence from burial sites in Israel and Iraq that the Neanderthals showed care for their dead and a sense of aesthetics.
But what happened to the Neanderthals who inhabited Europe and the Middle East for 250,000 years? Were they wiped out by Homo sapiens? This apparently superior species was moving from Africa into Israel at the same time as the Neanderthals were retreating to Israel, away from the plummeting temperatures in Europe as the Ice Age advanced.
In the programme, anthropologist Richard Rudgeley investigated a new theory that, rather than making war, the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens made love. Analysis of the skeleton of a four-year-old child who died in Portugal nearly 25,000 years ago has shown unmistakable evidence of characteristics inherited from both species.
Key Neanderthal sites
Europe
The first discovery of identified Neanderthal remains was made in
Germany in 1856, when parts of a skull and skeleton were found in a cave
in the Neander Valley. In 1864, following this find, a new species of
archaic human was named – Homo neanderthalensis – and
the science of palaeontology was born.
A more recent archaeological find in a lignite mine at Schöningen, about 60 miles east of Hanover, is almost as sensational. Three wooden spears found alongside stone tools and animal bones have been dated as 400,000 years old, yet they are as precisely weighted as modern javelins. The oldest hunting weapons ever found, each was carved from a single trunk of spruce about 2m (6ft) long and has a broad, pointed tip, made from the densest, heaviest part of the wood, and a tapering tail end. Many experts had previously believed that the Neanderthals didn't have the ability to plan a hunt and probably scavenged carcasses. The spears show that not only did the Neanderthals have weapons for killing, they also had an understanding of aerodynamics.
The theory that no interbreeding occurred between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens was turned on its head by a discovery in 1998 of a 24,500-year-old skeleton of a child at Lagar Velho in the Lapedo Valley north of Lisbon, Portugal. The skeleton has some Neanderthal characteristics – short legs, with particularly short tibias (lower leg bones), a stocky body and some teeth typical of the Neanderthals – but the chin and pelvis of modern humans. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the child had lived 4,000 years after the time when Neanderthals and modern humans co-existed on the Iberian peninsula. Thus this small skeleton of a four-year-old, given a ritual burial with a pierced shell and red ochre, is conclusive proof that interbreeding took place.
The Middle East
One of the most significant sites of Neanderthal remains is at Shanidar
Cave, in north-east Iraq, where nine skeletons believed to be 40,000-70,000
years old have been found.
One of them, given the name 'Nandy', had suffered multiple disabilities that point to a society that was capable of caring for its weaker members. Blind in one eye, with his right side withered from birth and his right arm amputated with considerable surgical skill, Nandy could have been of little practical use to a community surviving in a harsh environment and could not have survived on his own – yet he had lived until the age of 40. Another skeleton at the site is scattered with pollen from a species of flower that still grows in the region, suggesting that its blossoms might have been used for medicinal, aesthetic and/or ritual purposes.
A number of Neanderthal remains have been found in cave sites in Israel. These can be distinguished from early skeletons of Homo sapiens by the Neanderthal build of a heavy torso, short limbs and a heavy-browed skull with a forward-thrusting lower face that lacks the jutting chin of modern humans. The Neanderthals and Homo sapiens co-existed in the area for a considerable time. Present-day dating methods have shown that the skeletons of modern humans found in the cave sites of Skhul and Qafzeh on Mount Carmel date from 130,000-80,000 BC. These are older than the Neanderthals, which are estimated as dating from 65,0000-47,000 BC.
Although the two species lived in similar habitats, they exploited them in different ways, with modern humans moving between sites seasonally and the Neanderthals occupying sites continuously for a prolonged period. After about 45,000-35,000 BC, Neanderthal remains cease to occur in the area. This is the same time as Upper Palaeolithic industries appeared in cave sites in Israel and the Lebanon.
The belief that Neanderthals were not physically capable of speech was destroyed by a tiny hyoid bone found in Israel's Kebara Cave. The hyoid is a horseshoe-shaped bone in the throat, attached to the larynx and tongue by ligaments and muscles, and its fragility means that it is rarely found as a fossil. This one, dated at 60,000 years old, does not prove that Neanderthals had spoken language – but it does tell us that they were probably capable of it.
Find out more
Websites: general
Neanderthals and Modern Humans in western Asia
http://karmak.org/archive/2003/01/westasia.htm
Densely referenced but fascinating article on the puzzling relationship between Neanderthals and early modern humans.
Neandertals: A cyber perspective
http://sapphire.indstate.edu/~ramanank/
A lively and very informative site on the Neanderthals, with plenty
of illustrations of archaeological evidence and a links page decorated
with an animated Neanderthal skull.
Past
www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/
The journal of the Prehistoric Society, available on the website of
University College London.
Websites: locations mentioned in the text
The Schöningen Spears archaeological site
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/
Number/876591/an/0/page/0
Short entry on the Google Earth Community site about the eight prehistoric javelins found in Germany. Has a few images and links.
The Lagar Velho 1 Skeleton
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lagarvelho.html
Short article on the hybrid skeleton, with lots of links to articles
on the controversy that has resulted from its discovery.
Parque Arqueológico do Vale do Côa
www.ipa.min-cultura.pt/coa
Part of the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology website, this describes
a valley, saved from flooding by a dam in 1995, that contains important
archaeological sites, including four rock-shelters with prehistoric paintings.
The valley – now an archaeological park – can be visited; this
English-language website gives details of location, opening times and
tours.
Zawi Chemi Shanidar
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/
Zawi_Chemi_Shanidar.html
Excerpts from articles about Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq, with
links to other sources and a map.
Mugharet Es Skhul Cave
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Mugharet_Skhul.html
Short article on the cave in Israel and its finds, plus links.
Jebel Qafzeh Cave
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Jebel_Qafzeh.html
Excerpt from a book on this Israeli cave where significant early human
remains were discovered.
Books
In Search of the Neanderthals by Christopher Stringer and Clive
Gamble (Thames & Hudson, 1994) £14.95
Christopher Stringer leads the 'out of Africa' school, which believes
that the Neanderthals were replaced by modern people from Africa. Here
the authors argue that, capable and intelligent as the Neanderthals were,
they proved no match for the better-organised, better-equipped newcomers
and died out.
The Neanderthal Enigma: Solving the mystery of modern human origins
by James Shreeve (Penguin, 1997) £8.99
Scientists have been perplexed as to why the Neanderthals disappeared.
This book is an account of the research into the subject.
Neanderthal: Neanderthal man and the story of human origins by
Paul Jordan (Sutton, 2001) £20
Brings together all the research into the Neanderthals' way of life and
death, their origins and their relationship with us.
