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*ISSN 1357-4442*	*Editor: Simon Denison*

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Issue no 51, February 2000

*FEATURES*

Odd man out: Neanderthals and modern humans

/New research shows that Neanderthals were far more sophisticated than
was thought ten years ago. Still, modern humans wiped them out in the
end. Paul Pettitt reports/

Neanderthals were not modern human beings - but they looked like modern
humans; they behaved in many ways like modern humans. They lived
alongside modern humans, sometimes bred with them, often fought with
them, and were perhaps eventually killed off by them.

The Neanderthals' story gains its enduring fascination from the fact
that the period of their existence - about 120,000-28,000 years ago -
was the only time when another kind of human species has shared the
Earth with modern humans like us. And the story is gradually being
filled out as new evidence comes to light.

A couple of decades ago it could be said that there were three main gaps
in our knowledge of Neanderthals - where they came from, how they
disappeared, and what they did in between. Today, things have certainly
changed. From the beginnings of rigorous study in the late 1940s, an
impressive arsenal of new scientific techniques is now employed on
Neanderthal remains, and archaeologists have made great headway in
elucidating their origins, behaviour and extinction.

Today's techniques would have been unimaginable in 1856 when the first
Neanderthal fossils were discovered during limestone quarrying in the
Neander Valley near Düsseldorf. Yet analysis of DNA and stable isotopes,
CAT scans, AMS radiocarbon dating, bone histological studies and other
techniques - not to mention improvements in the standards of excavation
and recovery - have brought about some of the most profound insights
into Neanderthal behaviour. We can now understand much about the way
they lived, the food they ate, and the environments which they made
their own.

*Distant kin*

In 1997, DNA was successfully sequenced - to everyone's surprise - from
the original Neanderthal specimen. It must surely rank as one of the
greatest advances in palaeoanthropology, as it provided for the first
time a glimpse of the genetic make-up of an extinct human species.

The procedure is highly complex, involving estimation of the extent to
which the Neanderthal DNA had been damaged over time, and amplification
of a short length of mitochondrial DNA. The result indicated that the
difference between Neanderthals and modern humans was about three times
the average difference among modern humans, and about half the
difference between modern humans and chimpanzees. This implies overall
that Neanderthals diverged from the modern human lineage some half a
million years ago.

This was the time of /Homo heidelbergensis/ in Europe, of whom 'Boxgrove
Man' is perhaps the best-known example. This species gradually evolved
into Neanderthals by about 120,000 years ago. Meanwhile in Africa, a
similar grade of human to /Homo heidelbergensis/ evolved into fully
modern humans, who left the continent about 100,000 years ago, reaching
Europe some 50,000 years later.

Taking the long view, the 100,000 years or so of Neanderthal existence
saw little significant change in their behaviour - as one researcher
once memorably said: 'Every day was the first day of their lives'.
However, we do see some small modifications at about 60,000 years ago -
the beginnings of burial, a more strategic approach to hunting, some
change in technology. It is tempting to suggest this was the result of
their first contact with modern humans, but we don't really know why
these changes occurred.

Even so, recent advances in research have shown that their lifestyles
were far more sophisticated than was imagined only a decade or so ago.

Take hunting, for example. It used to be thought that Neanderthals only
used simple sharpened wooden spears; and had not discovered that sharp
stone points hafted onto a wooden spear are much more likely to deliver
an immediately mortal blow. (This is because the razor-sharp edge of the
flint point lacerates the victim far more effectively than wood, while
wood to some extent plugs the wound.) Indeed, the use of resins for
hafting was thought to have originated in the comparatively recent
Mesolithic (10,000-6,000 years ago).

In the very early Neanderthal period, about 100,000 years ago, we do
have evidence for a sharpened wooden spear in the stomach cavity of an
elephant from Lehringen in Germany. However, the negative imprint of a
stone tool on birch resin recently discovered at Königsaue in Germany -
one fragment of which may preserve the remains of a Neanderthal finger
impression - indicates the use of hafting for stone tools well over
40,000 years ago. At Starosel'e in Crimea, microscopic resin-starch
grains and wood fibres adhering to stone tools originate from
resin-fixed hafts, while fragments of feathers adhering to the tools
indicate that birds were butchered there over 40,000 years ago.

Similarly at Umm el Tlel in the Syrian desert, two scrapers were hafted
to wooden handles with bitumen over 50,000 years ago. From the same
site, a Levallois point was found embedded in the neck bones of a wild
ass, demonstrating once and for all that Neanderthals eventually came to
employ a sophisticated, composite weapon technology.

Moving beyond hunting, exceptional preservation of 50,000-43,000 year
old archaeology at the Abric Romani rockshelter in Spain has provided
remarkable glimpses of Neanderthal 'domestic' life. Cavities near
hearths containing preserved wood fragments may indicate the stockpiling
of wood for cooking and lighting. Natural fossil casts - known as
'pseudomorphs' - of three logs directly on top of a hearth point to the
use of a tripod for cooking, while the pseudomorph of a log nearby may
imply seating by the fire.

A number of enigmatic wooden implements are apparently associated with
the hearths, two of which were probably digging sticks. A number of flat
oval pieces may have actually been dishes. Add to this the recovery of
selective marine shellfish cooking at Vanguard Cave, Gibraltar, and a
picture of Neanderthals as sophisticated diners emerges.

This does not detract from the traditional view of Neanderthals as
successful hunters of large game. New analyses of faunal remains, such
as at Wallertheim in Germany and Mauran and Le Portel in France, reveal
how Neanderthals were capable of using strategic points in the landscape
to bring down game. Narrow, funnel valleys and dead ends were typically
chosen, where migrating herds would be naturally slowed down or brought
to a halt.

At Mauran, the remains of some 400 bison suggest Neanderthal groups
returned to the site time and again - perhaps over a century or longer.
Moreover, we now know that prime-of-life adult animals were selected -
not those enfeebled by youth, age or illness. Neanderthals were
carnivores par excellence. Study of the stable isotopes of carbon and
nitrogen in fossil bone indicates the source of Neanderthal dietary
protein, and fossils from western Europe to Uzbekistan reveal a similar
pattern - in quantity of meat consumption, Neanderthals compare with
hyaenas. For a Neanderthal it was meat for breakfast, lunch and tea -
mind you, modern human diet of the period was hardly any different.

*Broken bones*

Neanderthals lived fast and died young. We know this from studies of
fossil bones. Death often came in infancy or early adulthood, coinciding
probably with the dangerous events of being weaned - when infants ceased
to have the immunity protection of mother's milk and began to range
about on their own - and joining the hunt at about age 12-13.
Neanderthals rarely lived beyond their early thirties.

It would be rare for a Neanderthal to get through his or her early
twenties without breaking at least one bone, and the size of muscle
insertions on their bones indicates habitual exertion. We find broken
bones even in four or five year olds.

This massive muscularity and physical trauma applies to both males and
females. Among Neanderthals it seems there was no sexual differentiation
of labour. This is one of the classic differences between Neanderthals
and early modern humans - modern human women were more 'gracile' with
smaller, lighter bones and less powerful muscles.

Despite the physical toughness of their lives, it appears that
Neanderthals had a strong sense of community - they cared for members of
the group who were injured or infirm. Recent study of the tissues of the
original Neanderthal's forearm, for example, shows that it had broken
and remained unusable for decades, much reducing his ability to
contribute to society. At Shanidar cave in Iraq, one male had a crushed
right leg, ankle and foot, a blow to the skull that had probably blinded
him in one eye and a right arm that was severed above the elbow. His
injuries had healed; he remained part of the group.

Equally interesting is the evidence for burial. We know of at least 30
deliberate Neanderthal burials - some claim there are twice that -
possibly suggesting a sense of mourning for lost group members and even
some intimation of an afterlife. Ongoing work in the Neander Valley, at
the original cave site where Neanderthal remains were first discovered,
has shown that there were at least two individuals buried there,
suggesting the possibility of a kind of mortuary centre. However, the
19th century quarrymen's dynamite blasted the place to bits, and most of
the evidence has been lost forever.

Neanderthals favoured the cold, open environments where game such as
bison and reindeer grazed. It seems that individual groups ranged over
fairly restricted areas. Study of the stone used in tools shows that 99
per cent was sourced within one hour's walk from the group's main cave,
and the remainder from within about 30km - a day's ranging. Very rarely,
you find a tool from up to 100km away in western Europe, or 200km away
in eastern Europe - possibly a chance find of a tool dropped by another
group passing through the region.

This is another way in which Neanderthals differed markedly from
contemporary modern humans, who employed a much wider range of materials
from across Europe - such as seashells from the Atlantic and mammoth
ivory from southern Germany. These they probably acquired through
established exchange networks with other groups.

Neanderthals, by contrast, probably ranged mostly around their caves and
campsites. Only rarely do stone tools move over 100km, suggesting that
their activity was localised and territorial. The notion of territory
may even have first developed with Neanderthals in this period.

What, then, of the Neanderthals' coexistence with modern humans, and
their final disappearance?

In the Balkans, two Neanderthal fossils from Vindija cave in Croatia
were dated last year by the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)
radiocarbon method to between about 28,000-29,000 years ago. They are
the youngest dated Neanderthals yet known.

Datable fossils aside, a rough indicator of the timing of Neanderthal
extinction in any given region is the last appearance of Middle
Palaeolithic technology. This, broadly, was the toolkit dominated by
flakes, scrapers and points, which was eventually replaced by Upper
Palaeolithic blades and a greater stylistic range.

From this, it seems that the process began some time before 40,000 years
ago in southern Central Europe, radiating out from there over the
succeeding 12,000 years or so, leaving Neanderthals surviving in pockets
beyond 31,000 years ago in areas such as southern Iberia, southwest
France, areas of the Balkans, Crimea, parts of the Russian Plain, and
perhaps Britain too although here the evidence has yet to be found. In
these topographically varied areas, containing a mix of, say, upland,
forest and riverine environments, it seems to have been possible for
Neanderthal groups to survive in relatively restricted territories.

Whether or not modern humans spreading out across Europe played a role
in Neanderthal extinction is of course a major question. The dates for
the latest persistence of Neanderthals and the arrival of modern humans
varies considerably from region to region; in Siberia, for example, the
two seem to have overlapped for up to 10,000 years, but there seems
little or no overlap in southwest France.

What are we to make of such variability? Perhaps the two co-existed for
several centuries or millennia in topographically varied regions capable
of sustaining both species in distinct environments - and in these
regions they interbred. The 24,000-25,000-year-old part-modern-human,
part-Neanderthal Lagar Velho boy found in Portugal in 1998 (see BA, June
<../ba45/ba45feat.html#pettitt>) provides the clearest evidence that
this had happened extensively at least in Iberia.

*Love and war*

But if Neanderthals and modern humans made love in Iberia, they made war
in France and Germany. Some scholars have argued that the aggressive
subject matter of the earliest art is the signature of a violent and
aggressive modern human colonist - ranks of advancing lions at Grotte
Chauvet in south-eastern France, for example; or the lion-headed man
carved from a mammoth tusk at Höhlenstein-Stadel.

By the time modern humans appeared in France around 34,000 years ago,
they had developed art; they had exchange networks extending from the
Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and on to central Europe; they were
technologically sophisticated and well- organised. These were
intelligent people, quite capable of sitting around a fire and logically
planning the conquest of a region.

It must have seemed, in some areas, that Neanderthals had little to
offer modern humans - except competition. In these areas, the attitude
may have been to kill first, ask questions later. For too long we have
regarded the extinction of Neanderthals as a chance historical accident.
Rather, where Neanderthals and modern humans could not coexist, their
disappearance may have been the result of the modern human race's first
and most successful deliberate campaign of genocide.

/Paul Pettitt is the Senior Archaeologist at Oxford University's
Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit and a Douglas Price Junior Research Fellow
at Keble College. He is a specialist in Palaeolithic archaeology/

© Council for British Archaeology and individual authors, 2000