The Neanderthals Rediscovered: How Modern Science is Rewriting Their Story

by Papagianni, Dimitra

  Skull 5 from the Sima de los Huesos is the best-preserved early human skull from anywhere in the world; the skeleton (right) is reconstructed from the bones of different adults from the Sima. The species represented has been identified by some as Homo heidelbergensis, and these remains show incipient Neanderthal traits.

  Excavations taking place at Amud Cave, Israel, where remains of some sixteen Neanderthals have been found, dating to 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

  The cliffs at La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey, at the bottom of which piles of mammoth and rhino bones were found. The excavators argued that Neanderthals deliberately drove the animals over the cliff in two discrete episodes, and this would have required a high level of communication, planning and cooperation.

  CHAPTER four

  Meet the Neanderthals:

  250,000 to 130,000 years ago

  With brains, size is not everything, but it does matter. Since the beginning of the genus Homo, the human brain had been evolving larger capacities. From around 250,000 years ago, we have a human skull from Reilingen, Germany, that housed a brain with a larger volume than that of perhaps half the people who will read this book. It is this moment, when the modern brain size threshold is reached in Europe, that most researchers mark as the beginning of the time of the Neanderthals.

  What does brain size tell us? On its own, it does not tell us very much. But it is part of an intriguing pattern from this period which includes evidence of large-scale cooperative hunting and the manufacture of more complex stone tools. These developments point to a significant advance in the behaviour of the first Neanderthals. This advance is so interwoven into our own daily lives that it can be easy to forget just how revolutionary it was when it appeared. This behaviour, which separated the Neanderthals from their heidelbergensis ancestors and distinguished them from almost all other human species, can be summarized in two words: forward planning.

  Forward planning requires imagination – the ability to envision what a future situation will be and what intermediate steps are needed to bring that situation into being. It also requires understanding – the knowledge that animals, plants, rocks and other humans all have behaviours or properties that are predictable and consistent. In many cases, forward planning requires the kind of cooperation that can only come about through complex communication.

  All hominins must have possessed the ability to plan ahead to at least some degree. By 250,000 years ago we have evidence of a leap forward, an extension in the number of steps ahead that humans could reliably plan and the distances they travelled and carried materials. While we can see this only in evidence of hunting and toolmaking, we can safely assume that it applied to other areas as well.

  One significant area where forward planning would have given Neanderthals an advantage is in social relations, enabling them to increase their group size and their range. For anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who developed what he calls the social brain hypothesis, the reproductive advantages derived from successfully navigating complex social relations have been the main driver of the increase in brain size in our evolutionary past. We can see that larger brains could also help in improving food procurement through more efficient hunting.

  All of these strands of evidence – brain size, bone morphology, group hunting, stone tool technology – enable us to look back to 250,000 years ago as the moment that marks the full emergence of the Neanderthals. At the same time that the European Neanderthals were evolving a distinct body form, especially evident in the shape of the skull, a rival population in southern Africa was making similar cognitive leaps forward. The two main descendants of Homo heidelbergensis – the Neanderthals of Europe and the archaic Homo sapiens (which some call Homo rhodesiensis) of Africa – were both progressing in parallel, and neither could yet claim any advantage over the other.

  Neither of these groups was static, of course. The populations did not become ‘Neanderthal’ or ‘Homo sapiens’ overnight, and we cannot pinpoint a true start date. We have chosen 250,000 years ago, like many researchers, as an important point along a continuum of hundreds of thousands of years in which body types trended towards distinct forms and behaviour became more complex. Neanderthals continued to evolve into what is termed ‘classic’ or ‘late’ Neanderthals. We use similar terms to describe the parallel developments in southern Africa, which is why we favour calling that species archaic Homo sapiens (and we will avoid the oxymoronic ‘archaic modern humans’, though that is essentially what they were).

  Map showing the key Neanderthal sites discussed in this chapter, which have evidence for some of the earliest Neanderthal behaviour and body shape.

  During the period covered in this chapter, Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens – both now distinct and more advanced than Homo heidelbergensis – were flourishing in their separate homelands. Yet neither of the two species had spread into Asia (as far as we know) and they still had significant changes ahead of them. By the time we reach 130,000 years ago, which we discuss in Chapter Five, there is evidence of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens expanding into Asia, where they competed for resources and territory.

  The first Neanderthals

  The fossil record from 250,000 years ago, like that of the Homo heidelbergensis era before it, is sparse, but the few human bones that do survive indicate that a major change had taken place in Europe. This change is most evident in the skull.

  In 1978 fragments of an ancient cranium turned up in a gravel pit in Reilingen, Germany. The animal bones found with it suggest a date older than 200,000 years ago. Researchers have measured these fragments in every conceivable way and argued about the species they represent.

  There is agreement that certain features – especially a small depression and fold in the bun-shaped back of the skull – place it well on the evolutionary path to Neanderthals. Some, such as Ian Tattersall, describe it as Homo heidelbergensis with strong Neanderthal affinities. Others, such as Juan Luis Arsuaga, argue that this skull is among the first ‘true and complete Neanderthals’. Because evolution and change are constant features of the European fossil record, this can be viewed as a semantic point. Taking into account the contemporary behavioural developments we outline in this chapter, we think this skull is an appropriate one to consider as among the first of the Neanderthals. In addition, the one measurement that, for us, is the most telling is the estimate of this individual’s cranial capacity.

  How can you estimate the size of an ancient individual’s brain, when you only have part of the skull? Researchers used more complete skulls from later periods to model the likely shape of the missing pieces. Then they created a silicone rubber mould of the inside of the skull and put it in a tub of water to measure displacement. They did this a few different times using different assumptions and came up with an average result of around 1,430 ml (48 oz). This is an extremely large brain for such an ancient human skull – the largest one ever found up to that age anywhere in the world. Homo heidelbergensis brains range from around 1,100 ml up to 1,350 ml or so (37–45 oz). The Reilingen brain sits right on the average of modern Homo sapiens. Later, Neanderthals’ brains got even larger.

  There is another skull from Germany dated to the same period. Discovered in a limestone deposit near Weimar, the Ehringsdorf fossils – which include various remains of more than one individual in addition to skull fragments – show a mixture of advanced features, such as a high skull and forehead and a large brain, with more primitive ones, such as a strong brow ridge. Discovered in the early 20th century along with animal bones, invertebrates and plant remains that indicated a temperate climate, they were thought to be about 120,000 years old – the last time that the climate in Palaeolithic Europe was as warm as in modern times. This seemed to make sense because everyone agreed that by this time the Neanderthals had been fully formed, and the morphology of the fossils was Neanderthal-like enough that it did not contradict that age estimate. But more recently, dating with newly available scientific methods has pushed the site and the fossils
back to about 230,000 years old, placing them in an earlier warm stage of the Palaeolithic.

  With Reilingen and Ehringsdorf we have good evidence that by 200,000 years ago, the people of Europe were well on the way to taking the form of the ‘classic’ Neanderthals that came later and for which we have quite a lot more fossil evidence. At this early Neanderthal period, what can we say about the distinct Neanderthal form?

  The signature Neanderthal characteristic was prominent ridges above each eye. This contrasted with the single brow ridge of Homo erectus and the near absence of brow ridges in Homo sapiens. These ridges probably made Neanderthals look quite fierce. There is no getting past the fact that to a modern human, Neanderthals probably looked ugly. In contrast to the high cheekbones and prominent chins we find so irresistible to gaze upon, Neanderthals had enormous, broad noses, faces that jutted forward and no chins.

  At the back of their heads, they had what are called an occipital torus and suprainiac fossa, which are technical terms for a little protuberance with a small pit. These features probably came about from the strong muscles needed by Neanderthals, who used their jaws like vices or a third hand. This interpretation is supported by their teeth, which tend to be very worn down. Putting all this together, their heads were large, but flatter than ours. They seemed to thrust forward and back, while our heads are more globular with high foreheads. Recent research has shown that both Neanderthals and modern humans have elongated brains at birth, but modern humans develop globular-shaped brains (and skulls) during the first year of life, while the Neanderthal skulls retained their original shape. One of Dimitra’s students offered this analogy, referring to Neanderthals’ muscularity in contrast to our gracile build: if modern humans look like football (soccer) players, the Neanderthals were more akin to rugby players. We can push this analogy further: if a modern human skull, with its rounded top and back, resembles a football (soccer ball), a Neanderthal skull, with its elongated shape, shallow forehead and protruding bun at the back, resembles a rugby ball (or, indeed, an American football).

  One other site of note from this early Neanderthal period is Pontnewydd Cave in Wales. A total of nineteen teeth from children and adults have been recovered from this site and dated to about 230,000 years ago. They show a feature called taurodontism, where the roots of the molars do not branch in two as distinctly as in typical modern molars, but instead have a large single ‘pulp’ space for more of their volume under the gum line. Taurodontism is typical for Neanderthal molars, but in modern humans is a rare condition considered to be an abnormality.

  The Pontnewydd Neanderthals are notable for being not only among the first Neanderthals in Europe, but among the last in Britain for more than 100,000 years. According to researchers from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project, a major collaborative research team spanning a number of institutions, there seems to be a hiatus in the human occupation of Britain from about 200,000 years ago to 60,000 years ago. They associate this with the formation of the English Channel as a barrier, leading to the gradual extinction of the local early Neanderthal population in Britain. When the land area between Britain and France re-emerged during a subsequent glaciation, Neanderthals finally returned.

  A comparison between a Neanderthal skull found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints (top), and that of an anatomically modern human from Cro-Magnon (above), both sites in France, with key characteristic features labelled.

  Channel Island barbecue

  In 2008 an amateur archaeologist from the Netherlands called Jan Meulmeester found twenty-eight handaxes, along with mammoth bones, in a sand pile left by a company dredging the English Channel. It is hard to imagine a more potent reminder that this seaway was once a land bridge. Yet one does exist.

  Jersey, some 22 kilometres (14 miles) off the coast of Normandy, is the largest of the Channel Islands. Known mainly as an offshore tax haven, it contains one of the most impressive Neanderthal sites in Europe. Neanderthals returned here time and again for most of the period covered in this and the next chapter, when Jersey remained connected to France even as Great Britain was becoming cut off from the continent. What drew them to this place, which, fortuitously for us, is still above sea level, is that the conditions were perfect for ambushing large game.

  In 1910 the Oxford anthropologist Robert Marett started excavating at a dramatic seaside cliff on Jersey known as La Cotte de St Brelade (see p. 72). He found what turned out to be Neanderthal teeth and extensive evidence of habitation. His team was the first of three to work at the site. The second team, led by the Cambridge archaeologist Charles McBurney, worked at La Cotte for most of the 1960s and 1970s, uncovering an extensive pile of mammoth and rhinoceros bones, which dated to before the Last Interglacial, 130,000 years ago.

  As McBurney’s work was coming to an end, his field assistant, Katharine Scott, was wrapping the animal bones in fibreglass bandages to preserve them for the trip back to Cambridge, when she looked up, the freezing rain streaming down her face, and it occurred to her that the woolly mammoth and rhinos must have fallen from the cliff top directly above her. What clinched the argument for her was the quantity of skulls on the pile. Mammoth skulls are heavy relative to their nutritional value. If the animals were killed and butchered somewhere else, why did the Neanderthals bring so many useless body parts to this spot?

  Combined with the observation that the bones were concentrated closely together, Scott put forward the theory that the mammoth remains represented two separate mass-kill events. She argued that the animals were driven over the cliff to their deaths – a hunting method well documented in other parts of the world in more recent times – providing an instant, if excessively large, feast for the Neanderthal hunters.

  The effort involved in driving a herd of mammoths over a cliff is truly remarkable. There is extensive evidence of Native Americans creating ‘drive lanes’ to funnel bison over cliffs. They achieved this with controlled grass fires and by different members of the hunting party positioning themselves at key places along the route and then bursting forth at the right moment to keep the herd moving. For Neanderthals to achieve a cliff fall like this, they would have had to choreograph and execute a complex series of moves, testifying to their ability to plan several steps ahead and communicate that plan. While La Cotte would be the earliest and biggest cliff fall site, there are other possible examples throughout Europe attributed to the Neanderthals, which involve horses, bison, reindeer and wild cattle.

  Drawing of part of the pile of bones excavated beneath a rock overhang at La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey, which may be the result of Neanderthals driving animals over the cliff.

  After more than a century of archaeological work at La Cotte, the site has served as an inspiration for generations of Neanderthal researchers. Archaeologist Clive Gamble looked back to a visit to McBurney’s office in Cambridge as a key reason he was drawn into the field: ‘In his room were some of the rhino skulls, and he would explain in graphic terms how they were driven over the cliff edge and then dragged beneath the overhang. It was also the richness of the site in terms of artifacts – something quite remarkable for the British Middle Palaeolithic, a real super-site.’

  In 2010 a new team resumed excavations at La Cotte with the hope of reinterpreting the site. Co-directed by Martin Bates, Chantal Conneller, Matthew Pope, Beccy Scott and Andy Shaw, this project is a partnership that spans five institutions. This latest team has been prevented on health and safety grounds from excavating under the cliff, where the bone pile is located. Their analysis of the topography above the rockshelter led them to re-evaluate the cliff fall theory because they felt a cliff fall would be impractical here. In addition, they believe that the bone pile could be interpreted as a butchery and habitation site. They see the site not as a cliff fall but as an attractive rockshelter that had commanding views over the coastal plain.

  Many of the bones at La Cotte show signs of burning. The Neanderthals’ mastery of fire, which would have been necessary to survive in Europe,
especially in glacial periods, was clearly established. These bones may have been burnt as part of the cooking process or as a substitute for wood. This extensive evidence of burning invokes for us the image of a mammoth barbecue.

  In addition to the complex behaviour involved in hunting and cooking these large animals, one additional sign of modernity comes from handedness studies. Recall that the population at Sima de los Huesos (see Chapter Three) was predominantly right-handed. An examination of how the tools were made at La Cotte has led to an estimate that 80 per cent of the toolmaking Neanderthals of Jersey were right-handed, which is close to the proportion of modern humans today. For reasons possibly related to brain hemisphere functions and dating back to the earliest members of the Homo line, our species has evolved to be increasingly right-handed, and at La Cotte we see that Neanderthals had paralleled our trajectory.

  Pope has described La Cotte as the greatest long-term occupation site in Europe, by which he means that Neanderthals returned here consistently over many millennia, not that they lived here permanently. In addition, this is possibly the site with the longest evidence of barbecuing – spanning more than 200,000 years – in the human past. La Cotte is also remarkable for the fact that the Neanderthals imported good-quality flint and made what are called ‘Levallois’ flakes – which required as much forward planning as the hunt itself – resharpening them to the point of exhaustion. We now turn to these stone tools to find out what they tell us about Neanderthal cognitive abilities.