Neanderthals used stone tool techniques that were once considered exclusively for Homo sapiens

The tangled history of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals in the Levant (the area around the eastern end of the Mediterranean) only got more complicated. Paleoanthropologists recently identified a tooth from the Shukbah Cave, 28 km (17.5 miles) northwest of Jerusalem, as a Neanderthal molar. This makes Shukbah the southernmost trail of Neanderthals ever found, and it also connects our extinct cousins ​​with a stone tool technology that used to be an exclusive trademark of Homo sapiens.

The Levant was one of the first areas to reach hominins when they began expanding outside Africa, and the archaeological report indicates that early expansion took place in a series of waves. In some areas low artifacts show that members of our species lived there for a while before being replaced by Neanderthals, and vice versa. It was a geographical crossroads, and like all such places, the story is dynamic and intricate – and it can be difficult to put together the pieces of bone and stone that are left behind.

Stone tools are often the best idea of ​​archaeologists about who lived on a site and when. There are many ways to shape a piece of flint into something useful like a scraper or a hand ax, and archaeologists recognize different cultures based on subtle differences in the methods and shape of the tools. One approach to tool making, which yields distinctive stone points, is called Nubian Levallois. It is one of the different variations on a common theme to cut flakes off of a prepared stone core to manufacture a tool. Another variation on the theme is Mousterian technology, commonly found on Neanderthal sites in Western Europe. Nubian Levallois tools tend to appear in places from southern Africa to northeastern Africa.

Archaeologists have until recently assumed that Nubian Levallois was a trademark of our species in Africa and the Levant, while Mousterian was a trademark of Neanderthals. But the Neanderthal molar (discovered by archaeologist Jimbob Blinkhorn of Royal Holloway, University of London and his colleagues) was buried in a layer of sediment next to a mixture of Mousterian and Nubian Levallois tools. ‘This is the first time it has been found in direct connection with Neanderthal fossils, suggesting that we can not make a simple link between this technology and Homo sapiens, ”Says Blinkhorn.

Make a mountain of a polling station

The lone tooth of Shukbah – a lower first electorate – spent most of the last century in Sir Arthur Keith’s private collection. It was eventually donated to the Natural History Museum in London, and archaeologists only recently got it up close. “In general, hominin fossils are rare, so it was a fantastic opportunity to study this find in more detail and open up broader comparisons with the Neanderthal populations in southwest Asia,” Blinkhorn told Ars.

Blinkhorn and his colleagues used computed tomography (CT) to measure the internal and external shape and structure of the tooth. They compared the shapes and dimensions with other Neanderthals and Homo sapiens constituencies of Southwest Asian sites. Finally, the tooth clearly belongs in a category with the Neanderthal molars.

And it looks like the Neanderthal in question was a young child, probably about 9 years old, who just got their first permanent teeth. The first molar is usually one of the first permanent teeth to grow into, and this shows almost no signs of wear, indicating that it was fairly new. So far, attempts to get ancient DNA out of the tooth have failed:

“A previous team tried it, and the borehole is clearly on the image of the tooth, but as far as I know it is unsuccessful,” Blinkhorn told Ars.

In the same layer of sediment as the tooth, the archaeologists who excavated at Shukbah in 1928 found old fireplaces and stone tools. Blinkhorn and his colleagues took a closer look at the earlier archaeologists’ notes and the tools they found, and many of them appear to have been made in the Nubian Levallois style.

“Illustrations of Shukbah’s collection of stone tools alluded to the presence of Nubian Levallois technology. Therefore, we revisited the collections to further investigate,” Blinkhorn said. “Eventually, we identified many more artifacts manufactured using the Nubian Levallois method than we expected.”

Finding fossils next to stone tools is relatively rare, but when it does, it links ancient hominins directly to the things they made and used. Archaeologists rely on the rare links to identify the makers of stone tools in other places where there are no fossils left. Stone tool technologies linked to a particular hominin species or culture help archaeologists track how, where and when early humans moved around the world.

But the molar Shukbah cave suggests that it is actually not that simple. “This study … provides a timely warning that there are no direct links between specific hominins and specific stone tool technologies,” said co-author Simon Blockley, an archaeologist at Royal Holloway, University College London. said.

Same idea, different times and places

Blinkhorn, who specializes in stone tools, told Ars that Neanderthals probably worked out the Nubian Levallois method themselves, apart from groups. H. sapiens who also invented the technology at different times and places. If he is right, it is similar to how human cultures around the world have independently come to the same solutions to other technological challenges, from pyramids to bows and arrows to fishing.

‘Within Africa, there is evidence of multiple, independent innovations of Nubian Levallois technology. “Its identification in southern Africa seems to be linked to its occurrence in North / East Africa,” Blinkhorn told Ars. ‘Given the general background in the use of other Levallois methods, the simplest explanation is that Neanderthals also developed Nubian Levallois methods separately.

Other scenarios are of course also possible, especially given the then overlapping and mixing of hominin species in the Levant. As always in archeology, additional evidence is needed to draw more detailed conclusions.

Scientific Reports, 2021 DOI: 10.1038 / s41598-001-822576 (on DOIs).