Scientists studying an ancient cave shelter found evidence that Neanderthals thoughtfully organised their living space, assigning different areas to different activities such as preparing food, making tools and gathering around the fire.
Previously it had been widely assumed that, unlike the early ancestors of modern humans, Neanderthals lived in a state of messy chaos.
“There has been this idea that Neanderthals did not have an organised use of space, something that has always been attributed to humans,” said Julien Riel-Salvatore, from the University of Colorado, US. “Now we have found that Neanderthals did not just throw their stuff everywhere but in fact were organised and purposeful when it came to domestic space.”
Neanderthals were similar to early modern humans in many ways, but belonged to a separate human subspecies.
The two human tribes coexisted for thousands of years in Europe before Neanderthals vanished around 30,000 years ago. Experts believe they were unable to compete for scarce resources with more advanced early modern humans.
Some think they may have disappeared after being integrated into the modern human gene pool through interbreeding. Between one and four per cent of the genes of people living today were inherited from Neanderthals.
The new findings published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology emerge from excavations at Riparo Bombrini, a collapsed rock shelter in Balzi Rossi, Liguria, Italy.
Neanderthals and, later, early modern humans inhabited the site for thousands of years.
Investigation of the three Neanderthal levels at the cave site showed how areas were divided up for different activities.
The top level, containing large amounts of animal remains, appears to have been reserved for butchering game. The middle level was a long-term base camp, and the bottom level a place for shorter stays.
In the middle level, containing the most traces of human occupation, artefacts were distributed to avoid clutter around the hearth at the back of the cave. Both animal bones and stone tools were concentrated at the front rather than at the rear of the shelter.
“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,” said Riel-Salvatore. “There are clearly fewer stone artefacts in the back of the shelter near the hearth.”
More stone tools were found immediately inside the mouth of the cave’s bottom level, suggesting that tool production took place there to take advantage of available sunlight.
Scattered through all the levels were shellfish fragments and ochre. The ochre may have been used for tanning, as glue, or symbolic artwork.
The finds add to growing evidence that Neanderthals were much more advanced than had previously been thought. Experts now know they were highly innovative and made bone tools, ornaments and spear points.