Early Neanderthals chased ibex on steep mountain slope

Almost 300,000 years ago, Neanderthals had already figured out how to hunt mountain goats along verical cliffs and treat them in well -organized camps.

It is known for transferring large animals in Western Europe’s flat meadows and forests, and it seems that Neanderthals are adapted to the hills of Eastern Europe by adding IBEX to their hunting regime. The early people ripped and slaughtered the animals in a nearby cave before roasting their bones for marrow and fat, showing impressive skill and knowledge much earlier than expected, says Stefan Milošević at the University of Belgrade in Serbia.

“The approach to hunting IBEX is adhered to because it lives on a very robust and steep, Barnn terrain,” he says. “We now see that the early Neanderthals – who hardly had different therm – Even even anthropolic as a species – already exploded organic nices that no hominin had ever ever ploted before.”

Neanderthals evolved about 400,000 years ago, but most of what we know about them comes from places in Western Europe younger than 150,000 years. So finding clues that fill gaps in the Neanderthal Time Line, Habitat and Culture is critical, says Marie-Hélène Moncel at France’s National Museum of Natural History in Paris, which was not involved in the study.

In 2017, archaeologists Neanderthal found remains in an approx. 290,000 years old layer of the Velika Balanica cave in Serbia, making them the oldest such remains found in Eastern Europe.

Since then, Milošević and his colleagues have discovered hundreds of stone tools and sieved through approx. 30,000 animal bone fragments in the basement. Nearly three -quarters of the fragments are tiles of less than 2 centimeters long, and most of the identifiable are from IBEX and Red Deer killed in the spring and summer, suggesting that the Neanderthals were seasonal cave dwellers.

Some bones – especially long deer legs – were burned and broken up, which means these Neanderthals were probably warming bones to fly the margin for lighter extraction and remaining fragments in the fireplace so that the bone grease would keep the fire burning. Others showed signs of tendon harvesting, possible for ropes or nets.

Deer skeletons represent older young people and adults, a sign of selective hunting that promotes hot survival, says Milošević. But Ibex, we killed at all stages of life – suggested that the Neanderthals were still “rookies” up against mountain goats, probably hunting with sharpened sticks and rudimentary traps. “They probably had a lot of failed attempts,” he says.

In addition to these preferred food sources, the researchers also found a few processed residues from wild boars, hollow bears, wolves, foxes, leopards and various uses.

The organized positions of the bones in different sections of the cave point to different zones for specialized tasks. Hildden was in the middle, for example, with discarded bones stacked behind it, and the entrance seemed to have been used as a tool workshop.

In general, the results point to “remarkable cognitive flexibility,” says José Carrión at the University of Murcia in Spain. “It is a confirmation that Neanderthals were creative problem that controlled complex habitats of ingenuity and skill. Neanderthals were human-intelligent, social and extraordinary adaptive.”

“What comes out of Balanica is the image of Neanderthals that we not only resistant but are already experimenting with strategies and social organization that we tend to associate with much later periods,” says Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo at the Archaeological Institute of Merida in Spain. “It reminds us that Neanderthal-sophistication was not a late spark, but a deeply rotten flame that ignited the surprise early in human history.”

Neanderthals, old people and basement art: France

Embark on has captivating day through time as you explore key Neanderthal and upper palaeolithic sites in southern France, from Bordeaux to Montpellier, with New Scientist’s Kate Douglas.