Neanderthals and Middle Palaeolithic Archaeology

According to the more recent classification, the Middle Palaeolithic, which is characterised by Mousterian lithic assemblages, covers a long period spanning from some 250,000 years to the disappearance of the Neanderthal groups, around 30/35000 years in most of Europe and various regions of Asia. Following other classification methods, which do not consider the Pre-Neanderthals, the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic is to be referred to ca. 150,000 years ago

The distribution of classical Neanderthals covers a wide, region that from Portugal and northern Marocco, in the west, moves to Siberia, in the far East, as the recent discoveries, mainly from Denisova Cave would suggest.
Until a few years ago, the distribution of these individuals toward the east seemed to be limited to central Asia (Uzbekhistan), while their spread to the south is still badly defined.
Orhon Valley in Western Mongolia

The first Neanderthal remains were discovered by chance in 1856 in a small cave that opens in a narrow valley near Duesseldorf in Germany.
The limestone quarrying underway in the region led to the discovery of Feldhofer cave from which the first human bones were resumed
Feldhofer
After a few weeks the finds were shown to a naturalist,
Dr. Fuhlrott who recognised their “extraordinary shape… the existence of which was so far totally unknown”.
Unfortunately the bones had not been collected in a systematic way and without taking any field note on the spot

Feldhofer
Among the most important and unique characteristics of the human bones recovered from the cave of Feldhofer, which Dr. Fulhrott immediately attributed to one only individual, are those of the skull, unusually elongated, with a pronounced sopraorbital torus.
Regarding the long bones, the left ulna was slightly bent. It showed an old fracture, due to an accident occurred when the individual was alive, which had led to a shortening of the bone, no longer utilised since then.
The above data led some scholars to reject the antiquity of the finds and,
in contrast, to attribute them
to a patologically sick individual
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The human remains of Neanderthal individuals, both bones and/or isolated teeth, are many in western Europe, where a few burials are also known to date

Middle Palaeolithic finds and sites are particularly common in a few specific areas, for instance along the banks of the Perigord rivers of the mountain regions of Central Massif in France.

Among the Perigord sites particularly important are the two
Le Moustier rock shelters.
They gave the name to the Mousterian Culture that characterises the Middle Palaeolithic of Europe and other regions of Asia. Here a burial was found during the researches carried out in the 1800s.
The upper shelter
The sequence of the lower shelter
Rock-shelters of Le Moustier

The characteristics of the skull and other bones in general (see drawing on the left) show the sturdiness of the Neanderthal individuals.
Elongated skull
Robust hands
Short forearm
Short tibia
Long pubis
Large chest cavity
Furrow back

Examples of classical Neanderthal skulls from the Near East (Shanidar) and Central Europe (Predmost) (left), and the last Neanderthal so far discovered at Saint Cesaire (right)
Shanidar I
Predmost 3
Saint Cesaire

Among structural remains uncovered at Neanderthal sites are living floors.
On their surface chipped stone tools, other artefacts, and sometimes fireplaces delimited by pebbles have been recovered
hearths

The adaptation capabilities are remarked by the presence of their sites also at high altitudes, for instance in the Alps, Apennines, Rhodopes, Pindus and the uplands of Iran, which they seasonally exploited for different purposes. This is the case for the watershed between Western Macedonia and Epirus in Greece.

In the Pindus mountains of Greece they exploited the light grey limestone chert outcrops located above 1800m of altitude
Chert decortication area

And settled in several sites located on river terraces (colour dots), close to good quality chert sources, and exploited the high altitudes for hunting

Mousterian Levalloisian tools come also from the northwestern region of the Indian Subcontinent. They are suppposed to represent the southeasternmost spread of Neanderthal groups
Levallois Core
Great Indian Desert
Chert outcrops at Ongar

The rock shelter of Combe Grenal (Perigord) was settled many times by Neanderthal communities during the Middle Palaeolithic period. The Mousterian lithic assemblages from the site, greatly vary according to the different occupations through the time, and the human activities
Combe Grenal is located in central France, one of the richest Palaeolithic regions of western Europe that are mainly distributed along river courses that flow from east to west toward the Atlantic Ocean

The Cave of Divje Babe in the Alpine mountains of Slovenia that was settled by Neanderthals ca. 50/40,000 from now

Divje Babe opens at ca. 450 m above the course of the Idrijca in south Slovenia. Among the finds from this cave are chipped stone tools made from tufa, quartzite and chert (left).
A particular find is a pierced cave bear diaphisis (right) that has been interpreted as a musical instrument (flute)

The site of Mauran, in Upper Garonne (France), where indiscriminate hunting of bison took place in Middle Palaeolithic times. The flocks were directed toward the cliff, as shown in the scheme (top left).
The excavations at the site below the cliff showed evidence of butchering of the animals. Hunting one single species is characteristic of the Neanderthal groups
Cliff
Site surface

The chipped stone assemblages of the Middle Palaeolithic Mousterian Culture are systematically characterised by different varieties of two main tool types:
1) Points (blue) and
2) Side scrapers (red),
and the presence, in variable percentages, of the Levallois technique employed in the manufacture of flakes, points and blades

Mousterian lithic tools from a site of southern France. The three above are obtained with the Levalloisian technique, while the tree below are not of Levalloisian technique

Mousterian chert side scrapers from Tagliante rock-shelter in north Italy

Levallois chipping technique (left) and cores (right)

The Levallois points are characterised by a triangular form and two convergent ridges which give them a triangular shape.
They can be unretouched (left) or, more rarely, retouched. Their platform are always facetted
Levallois Points
Platforms

Levallois production stages of Levallois points (left)
and flakes (right)

In the recent past the study of the Mousterian lithic assemblages has been put forward mainly by three scholars: Francois Bordes, Lewis R. Binford and Paul Mellars.
F. Bordes (France) analysed in particular the typology of the Middle Palaeolithic chipped stone industries. He developed a new method of classification that is still largely employed mainly by the French archaeologists.
L.R. Binford (USA), devoted himself to the activities shown by the different groups of lithic assemblages that he interpreted as reflecting diverse, possible fuction developed within the archaeological sites.
P. Mellars (UK) studied the development of the chipped stone assemblages from the classical rock-shelter sequence of Combe Grenal in France, which is the most complete Middle Palaeolithic stratigraphy so far available in western Europe.
It is important to remember that the study of the Musterian assemblages is difficult also because of problems related with dificulties in their radiometric chronology.

Neanderthals were the first human beings to bury their deads. Funerary practices are known from both European and Asian sites. The excavations carried out during the last century at the cave of Chapelle aux Saints, in France, led to the discovery of an individual buried in a rectangular grave excavated into the limestone bedrock, just below the Mousterian deposits (left). Other burials are known from Le Moustier, Roc de Marsal, La Ferrasie and other French sites. La Ferrassie showed evidence of at least seven burials.
Chapelle aux Saints

A largely debated, although famous Neanderthal skull discovery comes from Cave Guattari on Mt. Circeo in Central Italy, which was recovered as shown (right)
Site location along the coast of
central-western Italy
Plan of the cave
with the excavation
trenches opened by
archaeologists
Profile of the sequence

The classic Neanderthal human skull from Cave Guattari at
Mt. Circeo (right), whose occipital forum had been widened artificially
Only some 25 years ago, the re-analysis of the skull led the specialists understand that the face scars and forum occipitalis widening had been caused by Hyaena spelea settled in the cave

Middle Palaeolithic, Neanderthal art anifestations are quite rare.
They consist of simple, linear signs scratched on bones and the cortex of chert nodules. Red ochre was also empoyed on a small scale, as is known from its presence on the surface of a small number of stone pebbles