Neanderthals Organized Their Homes Like Humans, Study Says

By: By Laura Dattaro

Published: December 5,2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 / 6

Neanderthals survived much longer than Homo sapiens have been around. Humans have existed for about 150,000 years, while Neanderthals likely walked the Earth for more than 200,000. This image shows a model of a male and female Neanderthal from Germany's Neanderthal Museum. (Uniesert/Wikimedia Commons)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

New research is adding to the growing body of evidence that Neanderthals and humans are not nearly as different as we may think.
A team led by Julien Riel-Salvatore, a University of Colorado Denver anthropologist, examined a northern Italian site called Riparo Bombrini, which Neanderthals, Homo sapiens’ closest extinct relatives, occupied for thousands of years. Based on the distribution of artifacts and the placement of a fireplace at the back of shelters, among other factors, the team concluded that the Neanderthals organized their living spaces in a similar way to modern humans, indicating they had spatial awareness. The paper is an early stage of ongoing research.
The Neanderthals who occupied the site separated different activities into different areas of their shelters, Riel-Salvatore told weather.com. Tool-building took place away from the sleeping area or fireplace, as debris from chipping at stone would be dangerous to walk on. Meat was butchered in another area, generally outside. Fireplaces were built toward the rear of a cave, allowing heat to radiate outward and fill the area.
“It shows them to be a lot more human than we’ve often given them credit for,” Riel-Salvatore said. “Additionally, it shows them to be very flexible. It’s not that they’re just doing the same thing every time. They can change the way they use the site. … In that sense they’re very similar to people like us, modern humans or Homo sapiens."
This flexibility is what distinguishes the Neanderthals’ abilities from that of other creatures that build and maintain their homes, Riel-Salvatore said.
(MORE: Eight Groundbreaking Fossil Finds)
The paper is another indication that Neanderthals were similar to modern humans cognitively and behaviorally, according to William Harcourt-Smith, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History and Lehman College, who was not involved in the research.
“It certainly chinks away at this traditional caveman concept of the Neanderthals being clumsy and not very humanlike and not very smart,” Harcourt-Smith told weather.com. “They may not have had the whole suite of cognitive abilities that modern humans have, but they’re darn close. And this is a nice example of how sophisticated they would have been.”
Archeological sites are studied in layers, with deeper layers composed of artifacts from older time periods. The site studied by Riel-Salvatore’s team also had levels used by modern humans, which will allow the researchers to compare the behaviors of Neanderthals and humans in the same area, Riel-Salvatore said.
Ultimately, learning about Neanderthals helps us to define and understand ourselves. “A lot of ink has been spilled about what Neanderthals are and how similar to us they are,” Riel-Salvatore said. “By studying Neanderthals, fundamentally we’re — especially now — starting to learn what it means to be human.”
The research was published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology. Click through the slideshow above to learn more facts about Neanderthals.
MORE: Oldest Human DNA Discovered