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Last Neanderthals Were Smart, SophisticatedJennifer Viegas, Discovery News |
June 23, 2008 -- Neanderthals were hardly a weak group just before their extinction around 30,000 years ago, suggests new research. On the contrary, Britain's last Neanderthals had sophisticated weapons and lived in strategic spots, demonstrating impressive command of their territory.
Archaeologists analyzing 180 flint tools and weapons, which survived an original collection of 2,300 artifacts found in 1900 at a site called Beedings near Pulborough, England, have traced them to the Neanderthals, according to an announcement made today by the University College London Institute of Archeology.
The discoveries were also recently reported in British Archeology magazine.
"The tools we've found at the site are technologically advanced and potentially older than tools in Britain belonging to our own species," said UCL's Matthew Pope.
"It's exciting to think that there's a real possibility these were left by some of the last Neanderthal hunting groups to occupy northern Europe," he added. "The impression they give is of a population in complete command of both landscape and natural raw materials with a flourishing technology -- not a people on the edge of extinction."
Pope is leading the recent excavations after Roger Jacobi of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project first linked the tools to others discovered in northern Europe, which dated to between 35,000 and 42,000 years ago. The Beedings collection, however, is more diverse and extensive than any others from the region.
Pope said many of the Beedings tools and weapons "were made with long, straight blades --blades which were turned into a variety of bone and hide processing implements, as well as lethal spear points" that could kill unsuspecting prey in an instant.
Beedings is now the hilltop setting of a retirement estate built for London physician John Harley in 1900. It was during the estate's construction that Harley first recorded the 2,300 tools and weapons, which he described as being "as sharp as when the broken fragments fell from the maker's hands."
"Clearly Neanderthal hunters were drawn to the hill over a long period of time, presumably for excellent views of the game herds grazing on the plains below the ridge," Pope explained.
The artifacts were excavated within a distinctive fissure system that has been identified in other places around southeast England. It's likely, especially given the similarity of the Beedings tools to others from the time period, that similar Neanderthal strongholds once dotted Britain's landscape.
Other studies suggest Neanderthals once flourished between Devon, England, in the west to Nietoperzowa Cave, Poland, in the east. The precise reasons for their extinction remain a mystery.
"This study offers a rare chance to answer some crucial questions about just how technologically advanced Neanderthals were and how they compare with our own species," said Barney Sloane, head of Historic Environment Commissions at English Heritage.
Archaeologist Mike Pitts, the publisher of British Archeology, echoed the sentiment.
Pitts told Discovery News that just "a generation ago, people thought the Paleolithic in Britain was little more than a lot of un-stratified flint hand axes and a few rare fossils, and now we are increasingly finding really well preserved in situ material."
"It was always there, but no one had the confidence to seek it out," Pitts added.
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