Neanderthals were skilled woodworkers, first-of-its-kind tool trove in Spain reveals

Amazing stuff!

"Home decorating isn’t unique to Homo sapiens. More than 40,000 years ago, bands of Neanderthals turned a spacious rock shelter in the mountains of Spain into a cozy home, fashioning wood into tools and windbreaks and burning it for heat and light. That picture comes from a first-of-its-kind trove of Neanderthal wooden artifacts from a domestic space, found at a cliffside site called Abric Romaní, 50 kilometers west of Barcelona. ...

Added to even older evidence from sites in Germany and Italy, the tools from Abric Romaní provide strong evidence that our ancient hominin cousins were craftspeople roughly on par with our own species ..."

From the abstract:

"Wood technology likely played a key role in human evolution, yet it remains poorly documented because organic materials rarely preserve in archaeological contexts.

The Middle Palaeolithic site of Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona) provides exceptional evidence of Neanderthal woodworking preserved through travertine incrustation.

We document 597 wooden imprints and charred wood remains recovered from 16 archaeological levels dated between ∼62,000 and 40,000 years ago.

The assemblage includes wood imprints, charred wood imprints, and charred macroremains, among which several anthropogenic objects can be identified.

These include tools and weapons, domestic artifacts, and structural elements, revealing a wide range of woodworking activities.

Key discoveries include wooden spears, pointed sticks, and domestic objects such as trays and tripods. A club-like artifact recovered from level P represents a unique object with no clear parallel in the prehistoric record. The Abric Romaní assemblage highlights the importance of wood within Neanderthal technological systems and provides previously unknown insights into the role of organic materials in Middle Palaeolithic societies."

Neanderthals were skilled woodworkers, first-of-its-kind tool trove reveals | Science | AAAS "Find in Spanish cave provides rare window into the domestic lives of our closest relatives"

Exploring the Wood Technology of the Neanderthals of the Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona) (original news release)

Més enllà de la pedra: l’Abric Romaní mostra un univers neandertal fet també de fusta (original news release)

Neanderthal woodworking at Abric Romaní: Insights into the role of wood in a Middle Palaeolithic domestic context (open access)

Fig. 1. Trays crafted from bark that have been preserved in a carbonized state, recovered from levels H and O.