Richard Collins: Distant cousins brighter than we thought

By Richard Collins

In 1924, a stone with mysterious lines on it was found at the Kiik-Koba cave site in Crimea.

Ana Majkic of the University of Bordeaux, and colleagues at Bergen University, carried out an in-depth examination of the object.

Their results have just appeared in the PLOS ONE journal.

Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia up to 35,000 years ago, although some may have survived in caves at Gibraltar for a further 10,000 years.

In 2013, the genome of a female was recreated from fragments of DNA. It showed that some interbreeding had taken place with modern humans.

A gene necessary for speech was also identified and an impression of vowel sounds produced using models of vocal tracts.

There is no actual proof, however, that these archaic humans used what we would call ‘language’.

The jury is still out has to what caused the Neanderthals’ extinction.

Although they disappeared soon after the arrival of modern humans from Africa around 45,000 years ago, it’s thought unlikely that direct conflict with our ancestors led to their demise.

Rather, it seems, a lack of cultural sophistication proved to be the Neanderthal Achilles heel; they seemed to have lacked our ancestors’ ability to record and pass on experience.

During the centuries of global imperialism, Europeans regarded people from elsewhere in the world as backward and culturally inferior to themselves.

There was even a gradient of supposed sophistication within Europe itself; Punch, for example, depicted Irish republicans as gorillas.

It is hardly surprising therefore that, when the first Neanderthal remains were discovered in the 19th century, these early hominids were assumed to lack all vestiges of what we call ‘culture’.

Although Neanderthals knew how to control fire, and their tools were just as effective as those of our forebears, no decorated artefacts were found initially in their settlements. These fellow hominids, it seemed, were yeti-like sub-human savages.

Then, tantalisingly, evidence to the contrary began to appear. Neanderthals, it was discovered, buried their dead; a child’s grave was discovered at Kiik-Koba.

Red-ochre drawings of hand-prints, on the walls of caves, turned out to be theirs. Jewellery made from bones and shells came to light.

Blade-like pieces of flint have been found at 27 ancient sites in Europe and the Middle East. The one from Kiik-Koba, examined by Majkic, is 3.6mm long.

It was fashioned 35,000 years ago, by Neanderthals. How was the zig-zag pattern of straight-line markings on its surface created? Did it result from a natural process?

Majkic and colleagues developed a system for interpreting engravings on stone artefacts.

Using microscopic analysis and 3D images of the grooves, they considered all explanations.

The analysis suggested no natural process was responsible. Nor was the pattern a biproduct of normal domestic activities at Kiik-Koba.

To produce impressions on such a hard stone, the research showed, would require ‘fine motor skills and attention to detail’.

The design’s creator, it was concluded, was a skilled craftsperson with a symbolic meaning in mind.

Majkic and her team have put in place another piece of the Neanderthal cultural jigsaw.

Their study supports the view that our ancient cousins were more sophisticated than we used to think.

With brains as big as our own, these long gone humans were capable of self-reflection.

Ana Majkic et al. Assessing the significance of Palaeolithic engraved cortexes. A case study from the Mousterian site of Kiik-Koba, Crimea. PLOS ONE. 2018.