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Archaeology

Neanderthals built underground

Nature volume 534, pages 43–44 (2016)Cite this article

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The finding of 175,000-year-old structures deep inside a cave in France suggests that Neanderthals ventured underground and were responsible for some of the earliest constructions made by hominins. See Letter p.111

Building is a frequent by-product of human activity, and some ancient constructions remain majestic to this day. However, all too often, constructions made by mobile populations do not preserve well. Evidence for structures made by prehistoric hunter–gatherers are scarce and usually consist only of an area of finds with intriguing spatial distributions, which may be associated with a fireplace. On page 111 of this issue, Jaubert et al.1 report the discovery of circular structures made of broken stalagmites deep inside a cave in southwest France. The structures are up to 40 centimetres high and 6.7 metres wide, and direct radiometric dating shows that they are at least 175,000 years old. Because Neanderthals were the only hominin group present in western Europe at that time, the discovery provides the first directly dated evidence for Neanderthals' construction abilities. It also shows that Neanderthals explored underground.

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Figure 1: Ancient structures.

Etienne Fabre, SSAC

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References

  1. Jaubert, J. et al. Nature 534, 111–114 (2016).

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  3. Guthrie, R. D. The Nature of Paleolithic Art (Univ. Chicago Press, 2005).

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  4. Clottes, J. & Lewis-Williams, J. D. Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire: Transe et Magie dans les Grottes Ornées: Suivi de Après les Chamanes, Polémiques et Réponses (Seuil, 1996).

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  1. Marie Soressi is in the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands.,

    Marie Soressi

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  1. Marie Soressi
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Correspondence to Marie Soressi.

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Archaeology: Art on the move

Palaeoanthropology: The time of the last Neanderthals

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Soressi, M. Neanderthals built underground. Nature 534, 43–44 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18440

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