Neanderthal Behaviour Flashcards
What is Mousterian Tradition?
- 200,000- 400,000 mya
- handaxes, choppers, scrapers, backed knives, denticulates, points
Neanderthals Material Culture
- Middle Paleolithic tools
- prepared core technique
- more small, flaked tools
- Mousterian tradition
What is a denticulate tool?
A denticulate has one or more notched edges that is used like a saw
What is a backed knife?
A backed knife has one sharp edge and a natural cortical surface opposite
Material Culture in Anatomically modern Homo Sapiens
- Upper Paleolithic tools
- Blade-based technology
- more refined flaking techniques
- increase in variety of tools
Coping with cold
- Neanderthals have typical cold-adapted bodies
- Neanderthals were mobile and occupied sites for short periods of time
- temporary hunting, camping, food processing sites
- Mobility was limited. 5-80 km.
- distances necessary to exploit scarce resources
- Neanderthals used fire.
- charcoal deposites, ashy dump spots
- used skins & hides for cold protection
- no sewing implements found
- Moldova, Ukraine
- ring of mammoth bones
- 5-8 m in diameter
- dense concentration of artifacts, bones, ash
- Neanderthals more successful in colder climates than earlier hominins
- lived farther north during interglacial periods
- lived farther south during glacial periods
- never lived as far north as anatomically modern humans eventually did
- 5 cave sites in Israel show alternate use of the area between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans
- Neanderthals during cold spells
- modern humans during warm spells
- – Or could this represent one single, highly variable species?
Hunting and Subistence
- Diet heavily reliant on meat
- used various hunting strategies
- dependent on local conditions
- dependent on game available in area
- may have opportunistically scavenged
- little evidence for scavenging on broad scale
- competent hunters of large game
- engaged in coed hunting strategies
-Neanderthal diet included plants, berries, nuts
Cannibalism
Krapina, Croatia: 130,000 BP
- no intact long bones
- split open for marrow?
- many bones burned
- some bones with cut marks
Moula- Guercy, France: 100,000 BP
- 78 Neanderthals bone fragments mixed in with several hundred animal bone fragments
- numerous cut marks
- all crania animal & hominin bones treated in the same manner
Burial sites
Neanderthals are considered to be the first to have ritualistic burial
- Spy, Belgium
- 2 fully articulated & complete adult skeletons
- La Ferrassie, France
- several adults & subadults buried at a single cave site. Intentionally buried together.
- Amud Cave, Isreal
- infant burial with red deer upper jaw bone
- La chappelle- aux- Saints (50,000 BP)
- articulated adult skeleton
- bones unbroken
Neanderthal Burial behaviour
- Behavioural development of Middle Paleolithic
- No evidence of deliberate archaic H. Sapiens burial
- Neanderthal burials significantly different from UP burials of modern H. sapiens beginning 40,000 BP
- Neanderthals not buried with grave goods
- Neanderthal burials always occur in caves
Ritual & Symbolic Neanderthal Behaviour
- Neanderthal burials
- ritual activity?
- ritualistic beliefs?
- corpse disposal?
*Investment of times & energy into selecting site, preparing grave, placing body in grave, covering grave
- little evidence of Neanderthal symbolic behaviour in archaeological record
- strongest evidence is for personal adornment & other engraved items
- Most evidence is 55,000 BP or later
*Could have also just been a corpse disposal method
Th fate of the Neanderthals
- Disappeared from Asia by 45,000 BP
- Disappeared from Europe by 30,000 BP
- Popular explanations was that modern humans had:
- better clothing, shelter, & hunting technology
- more diverse subsistence strategies
- enhanced mobility
- larger social networks
Deteriorating climate conditions
- unstable conditions 25,000-40,000 BP
- most severe 30,000 BP
Diminishing food resources
- extinction of large herd animals
- proportion of reindeer in diet increased; horse, bison, red deer decreased
- famine
- population density decrease
*Modern human population increased tenfold
