The Neanderthals of the Abric Roman� (Capellades, Barcelona) site excavated a concave hole on the ground of 40x30x10 cm. It may have been filled with heated rocks and used them to heat water. This hole is located near the wall of the rockshelter and is surrounded by numerous hearths, limestones and speleothemes with thermical fractures.
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Excavations at the Abric Roman� cave site
[Credit: IPHES] |
The discovery took place during this month�s excavation managed by the IPHES (Institut Catal� de Paleoecologia Humana i Evoluci� Social); it started on August 7th and finished on August 28th. This fieldwork supplied new 10,000 archaeological remains whose provide very important information about the domestic activities of Neanderthals.
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An inner part of the cave is thought to have been used for sleeping, because far fewer
artefacts were found there and remains are small in size. The archaeologists claim
the site offers the first evidence of a Neanderthal �bedroom� and similar spaces
have only been discovered in early Homo sapiens dwellings
[Credit: IPHES] |
The archaeological excavation have been mainly focused on the archaeological assemblage from unit Qa with an age around 60,000 years ago. The deposit is very thin with a surface of 180 m2 and it is very rich on archaeological materials. This archaeological level shows a very intense occupation by Neanderthals which could be demonstrated by the high quantity of archaeological remains associated to hearths that delimitated the living areas. They are the result of the different domestic activities that Neanderthals developed in this strategic place.
The lithic stone and the faunal remainsThe lithic stone tools have been made by using a great variety of stone raw materials. The main used are flint, limestone and quartz and the retouched artefacts are essentially denticulates and notches.
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Stone tools have been recovered made from flint, limestone and quartz, as well as
bones of horses, red deer, aurochs and wild goats confirming what
Neanderthals hunted and ate [Credit: IPHES] |
Related to the faunal remains have been recovered horses, reed dear, aurochs and wild goats. These remains show a high level of fracturation to obtain of the marrow. The bones have also a lot of cutmarks produced with the stone tools during the butchering process of the animals hunting. The preliminary interpretations indicate that probably the faunal remains belong to 15 individuals, all of them hunted, dismembered and consumed by Neanderthals.
A visual mapIn August, during the fieldwork season a new photographical methodology has been applied to register the archaeological surfaces. The goal is to obtain images with the archaeological remains in situ and to insert this graphical documentation in the frame of a great digital composition of the excavated surfaces.
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A hole in the rock shelter found among hearths, suggests Neanderthals may have
heated rocks and used them to heat water 60,000 years ago
[Credit: IPHES] |
This information has a great interest to explain the spatial settlement pattern of the site and to allow to have a visual map of the areas where Neanderthals developed their subsistence activities. These reconstructed surfaces will be exhibit in the future in the Neanderthals Museum of Catalonia in Capellades. Precisely, the Minister of Culture from the Generalitat the Catalunya, Ferran Mascarell, visited the field where the Museum will be constructed. He also visited the Passeig of Cinglera del Capell� � not already opened for the public � and the Abric Roman� archaeological site.
A residential campThe fieldwork season of this year confirms that Neanderthals realized their subsistence activities around the hearths near the wall of the shelter, how have been already observed in other archaeological levels. In this inner part of the rockshelter the archaeological remains show a lower density than in other areas of the site and the remains are mainly of small size. This pattern shows similar analogies with the sleeping areas and allows us to propose the preliminary interpretation of level Q as a residential camp.
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Refuse area caused by the domestic activity
of the Neanderthals [Credit: IPHES] |
The existence of Neanderthals sleeping areas is a singularity in the world archaeological record. This type of record is only similar at some archaeological sites belongs to the Homo sapiens populations. This behaviour has been also recognized through the ethnological and ethnographical studies focused on the actual hunter-gatherer groups in different parts of the world. We would point out that the sleeping areas have been also identified before in the level N of the Abric Roman� site (dated around 50 000 years ago) and published in the Current Anthropology revue in 2011.
At the same time, the recent fieldwork excavation at the Abric Roman� have been provided areas in the outer part of the site where the hearths are bigger and show a higher density of remains. These areas could be interpreted as rubbish domestic areas.
Source: The Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) [August 26, 2015]
