All around this monumental frieze, a museographical area provides the visitor with an overview of Cap Blanc life and art. Objects, pictures, and a fresco tell the story of Prehistoric sculptors throughout Europe.

The limestone rock shelter of Cap Blanc, near Laussel, northeast of Les Eyzies in France’s Dordogne region, is well known to the world of prehistory as the site of one of the finest sculptured friezes to survive the last Ice Age, the first to be unearthed, and currently the best to remain open to the public. Its figures of horses, bison and deer, albeit found in a much damaged condition at the time of their discovery by Dr. Gaston Lalanne of Bordeaux in 1909, remain a moving and powerful ensemble. Lalanne dug here and unearthed a fine collection of typical Magdalenian – about 15 000 years old – stone, bone and antler tools, including harpoons, and a number of large stone implements that had clearly been used to produce the parietal bas-relief and haut-relief sculptures that his crude excavations brought to light on the back wall. (Ed: Parietal – term used to describe artwork done on cave walls or large blocks of stone, as opposed to portable art, such as most of the venuses)

In 1911, further digging in front of the shelter for the purpose of erecting a small construction to enclose and protect the frieze and for lowering the floor level to make the art more visible to visitors led to the discovery of a human skull. Work was suspended and prehistorians Louis Capitan and Denis Peyrony were asked to extract the skeleton, a task that took them three days.

The Cap Blanc skeleton is of tremendous importance – not only a relatively intact inhumation from the late Ice Age but also one of the very few found in close proximity to parietal art of the period.

Indeed, the body’s location directly in front of the central part of the shelter’s sculptured frieze can really only be compared with that of the double paleolithic inhumation of an adult woman buried with her arm around a 17-year-old male dwarf in front of the engraved block at the Riparo di Romito, Italy. It was suggested by the excavators that the Cap Blanc burial may even be that of the original sculptor (or one of them), and this is unquestionably a possibility; certainly the location of the inhumation indicates a person with a strong link to the site.

Conflicting Reports

In France, the excavation of the skeleton in 1911 led to a brief publication that discussed primarily the two skeletons unearthed at La Ferrassie by the same excavators. They gave few details about the Cap Blanc find, stating only that the skeleton lay at the bottom of the archaeological deposit, 2. 3 meters from the frieze and 60 centimeters below the hooves of the central horse. It had been buried amid stones, with three fairly big stones placed above it, one of them on its head and others at its feet. It had been placed on its left side, arms and legs flexed, occupying a space of only 3 feet by 2 feet (1 meter by 60 centimeters), immediately below a Magdalenian hearth.

It is curious that early reports of the Cap Blanc skeleton claimed that it was of a male aged about 25, whereas examination by physical anthropologists eventually established that it was of a young adult female.

A recent examination of the field Museum’s archive on the case made it possible to reconstruct much of the story. The earliest document in the archive is a letter, dated January 24, 1911, to Monsieur J. Grimaud, the site’s owner, from the president of the Société des Antiquaires de 1′Ouest in Poitiers, acknowledging receipt of a report on the rock shelters of Laussel (i.e. Cap Blanc) together with photos and five boxes, one containing reindeer teeth and bones and the other four containing flint tools. A letter, dated August 5, 1911, from Paul Leon, at the Ministère de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts in Paris, thanks M. Grimaud for reporting the discovery of the skeleton and states that he will ask Peyrony to take appropriate measures to preserve it. Peyrony himself (the Membre Correspondant de la Commission des Monuments Historiques aux Eyzies) writes on August 8 that the Minister has asked him to verify the authenticity of the Laussel skeleton, make all necessary scientific observations, and supervise the excavation. He therefore went to the site that very morning and examined the find in the presence of Grimaud’s guard, Veyret. The remains were indeed authentic.

Only two days later, Grimaud received a letter from Dr. Capitan, professor at the Collège de France, dated August 10, which is a key document for the site. The letter contains a sketch of the location of the bones and reports that they are 2. 3 metres from the big horse and around 70 centimetres below its muzzle. They occupy a kind of pit, 50 centimetres deep, and the skull was unfortunately broken by a blow from a workman’s pickaxe.

Capitan insists, rightly, that the excavation be carried out by experienced and qualified people and suggests himself and Peyrony for the task, as they have just unearthed the two older skeletons from La Ferrassie. To make matters clear, he proposes that the excavators produce the scientific report, while any finds would belong to Grimaud. In the meantime, the skeleton has been covered with stones and planks for its protection.

A new letter from Capitan, dated August 28, reports that the skeleton has been removed in its entirety in a number of blocks of earth, and it will now be possible to excavate the bones properly and carefully, once Peyrony has transported them to Paris by rail, probably in September or October. For the present, these blocks are in Peyrony’s care, and he will dry them out slowly. Most important is a brief sentence, stating that “All we found with the skeleton was a shapeless fragment. probably of ivory.” This is indeed a small ivory point measuring 0. 6 by 3 by 0. 4inches (16 by 74 by 10 millimetres), which is kept at the Field Museum, having been sold along with the skeleton.

It is described as “several thin laminae glued together along with bits of matrix and partially reconstructed or plastered over with some sort of filling material.” According to its original display case label, this point was “found over the abdominal cavity of this individual” and “the weapon may have been the cause of death. ”

This is certainly the theory that was promoted by Henry Field, the eventual acquirer of the skeleton for the museum. He claimed in a 1927 article that the skeleton died a natural death, yet also noted: A small ivory harpoon-point found lying just above the abdomen may give a possible clue to the cause of his death. This weapon may have caused blood poisoning which resulted in death. It has been suggested tentatively that the young man [sic] felt death approaching and returned to the rock-shelter, as he desired to die before the masterpiece he had helped to create. . . It is not plausible that some one who had nothing to do with the sculpture should have been allowed to desecrate the sanctuary unless he had assisted in the work or, at any rate, was directly connected with it.

In Field’s memoirs, his speculations were even more romantic: “Why had she been buried beneath the frieze of horses? Was she killed by her lover’s ivory lance point? Was it by another Cro-Magnon girl? Was her brother avenging the family’s honor? Was she killed in battle? Why was she buried in the sanctuary? Was she the daughter of the sculptor-high priest? There was no real evidence, except that death probably resulted from blood poisoning.”

No source is given for the theory that the ivory point was the cause of death or the claim that it was found above the abdomen – perhaps this was merely M. Grimaud’s opinion – but nevertheless it is baffling that such a potentially important object was completely omitted from the published report by Capitan and Peyrony. Indeed, were it not for this casual mention in Capitan’s letter, there would be absolutely no guarantee THE CAP BLANC LADY that the point had any connection with the Cap Blanc skeleton. Yet ivory is not common in Magdalenian contexts in southwest France, let alone ivory points that may be a cause of death. In this connection, it is worth noting that the only clear evidence we have of violence inflicted on humans during the last Ice Age consists of a probable flint arrowhead embedded in the pelvis of an adult woman from San Teodoro Cave, Sicily, and an arrowhead in the vertebra of a child from the Grotte des Enfants at Balzi Rossi, Italy.

A letter to Grimaud from Peyrony, dated August 31, 1911, notes that”we have been able to lift the whole thing in a pretty good state. The whole skeleton will be able to be reconstructed and will be a very good study piece. I have conserved it in Les Eyzies, as Mr Capitan was not able to take it. I will carry it to Paris next October. ” However, it is clear that Capitan had major problems in getting the skeleton dealt with in Paris. Letters from him complain of the difficulty in finding someone qualified and with sufficient time available to prepare the bones for casting and display. It is also interesting to learn that there were plans afoot to have a cast made and placed in the shelter; in fact, for some reason this was never done, and instead a miscellaneous collection of casts of other bones was put together for this purpose. In a letter dated July 29, 1913, Capitan tells Grimaud that an artist will be sent to carry out this assignment. A letter from Grimaud in 1924 notes that “in accordance with the Ministere des Beaux Arts, I have had a modern skeleton set in place at the foot of the sculptures, in place of the real skeleton. ”

Nevertheless, the original skeleton was eventually extracted from its sediments by J. Papoint of the Laboratoire de Paleontologie at the Musee National d’Histoire Naturelle under the direction of Marcellin Boule(director of the museum) and of Capitan. A letter from Papoint, dated February 27, 1915, records the state of the bones:

You will find the skull in the wooden box. It is in two pieces. It was impossible for me to reconstruct it because of the deformation caused by fossilisation. I left in the same block the upper and lower jaws as well as the seven cervical vertebrae which I extracted as well as I could. There are two upper incisors that I put to one side, since I could not fit them in their sockets. These two skull pieces are very fragile and need to be unpacked with care. The dorsal and lumbar vertebrae are all present. The ribs are incomplete. All the limb bones are in good condition. A few fragments of the shoulder-blades and pelvis bones are missing. This is due to the fragility of certain parts of these bones. A few phalanges are missing from the hands and feet.
The Sale of the Bones
By early 1915, the Cap Blanc skeleton had been restored to its owner. Monsieur Grimaud. It then disappeared from view until the start of his attempt to sell it to an American museum nine years later. According to Henry Field, “in 1916 M. Grimaud, having made no money out of the discoveries on his property, decided to reclaim his anticipated profit, and during the stress of war conditions was able to ship the skeleton to New York.” In his later memoirs, he added that “the skeleton was said to have been smuggled out of France during World War I in a coffin as an American soldier with the necessary papers forged.” Yet documentation available at the Field Museum provides no real clue as to why Grimaud decided to send it to America, or why he apparently waited a further eight years before trying to sell it. His initial choice was the American Museum of Natural History in New York, but, to cut a long story short, his protracted negotiations, via American lawyers in Paris, eventually came to nothing, in part because of his huge asking price ($12, 000, equivalent to about $250, 000today).

Finally, after steadily dropping his price, he sold it to Chicago’s Field Museum for a much lower amount. According to Field’s memoirs, a representative of the museum was sent to Monsieur Grimaud “with twenty-five thousand-franc bills (the equivalent of a thousand dollars) in one hand and a receipt ready for signature in the other. ” He continues, “Some days later a cable came from Paris saying that the Cap-Blanc skeleton was ours. I hurried to New York and in the basement of the Museum of Natural History packed her very carefully in cotton wool and carried her in a suitcase to a compartment on the Twentieth Century [train]. We had a very uneventful night together. ”

With the benefit of hindsight, Field’s memoirs claim that, as he laid out the bones in Chicago, “the pelvic girdle was definitely feminine” – yet, as noted above, his article of 1927 still saw the skeleton as a young man! The skeleton in its new case was first displayed prominently just inside the museum’s main entrance.

It was introduced to the media as “the only prehistoric skeleton in the United States”, and so became front-page news. The first day, 22 000 visitors came to see for themselves. At noon, the crowd was so dense around her that the captain of the guard. . . notified the director that two guards must be placed there to keep the people moving and orderly. . . . Nothing like this had happened before in the Field Museum. . . . This was the first exhibit in the new building to capture the public and press imagination. ”

In 1932, the skeleton was withdrawn from exhibition so that the skull could be restored by T. Ito under the direction of Gerhardt von Bonin of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Illinois. According to von Bonin:

When the skeleton arrived at the Museum, it was in an almost perfectly clean condition, only a few bones being still embedded in a matrix of somewhat gritty, loam-like matter. The long bones were almost all perfectly preserved. The pelvic and the shoulder girdle were somewhat damaged, particularly in the pubic region and the scapula. The vertebral column appeared to be complete, the vertebrae were for the most part still held together by adhering soil. Twelve left and ten right ribs were found, and a rather decayed square piece of bone, apparently all that was left from the manubrium sterni. The cervical column was firmly attached to the lower jaw and a part of the upper jaw.

The skull was broken into a number of fragments. The bones are of a brownish colour, darker in some spots and lighter in others. They are firm enough to be handled conveniently, yet somewhat brittle. In some spots, dental cement had been put on the bones in order to prevent them from crumbling.

Von Bonin’s conclusion, after a full anatomical study, was that these were the remains of a young woman, about 5 feet, 1 inch (156 centimeters) tall and about 20 years of age.

In an exhibition case next to the skeleton, the museum installed a life-size diorama of the Cap Blanc rock shelter, modeled by Frederick Blaschke. As the only complete European paleolithic skeleton on exhibition in an American museum, the Cap Blanc woman was seen by several million visitors in her first decade in Chicago alone. But the story does have a happy ending of sorts.

Thanks to the generosity of a private sponsor, a complete cast of the Cap Blanc lady – and of her ivory point  was made, and on July 14, 2001, the cast was installed in its rightful place beneath the central frieze in France.

 The cast of the Cap Blanc lady, restored to her original resting place in front of the center of the carved frieze on July 14, 2001.

Also in 1863, Marquis Paul de Vibraye, an archaeologist who also started searching Laugerie Basse, and the finder (1864) of the now famous “Immodest Venus of Laugerie Basse”, the first feminine statuette to be found in France came to Les Eyzies. In 1865, Elie Massénat succeeded the first 3 researchers and launched a 20-year long excavation campaign with Léonard Delpeyrat, an inhabitant of the neighbouring hamlet.

All excavated pieces were published in 1900.

The beginning of the XX century was marked by the threatening arrival from Bern of the Swiss Otto Hauser, all his discoveries were directly sent abroad to the detriment of Science.
Fortunately, in 1913, Laugerie Basse was sold to Achille Le Bel, an eminent chemist, and Jean Maury became head of the excavation team: at last Laugerie Basse was saved from this dangerous foreign hold.
Most of the work done during the following 3 years related to the Marseilles shelter. Jean Maury exploited the site and created a museum, of which he became the curator.
He also decided to stop the excavation campaign to preserve the site for future generations.

In the 80s, Alain Roussot, the curator of the Museum of Aquitaine, started clearing the section, which enabled the detailed recording and study of its stratigraphy: the first 4 layers described were subdivided into 27 different layers. One part of layer 15 was then carbon dated at 13,850 years.

Part of the Marseilles shelter still remains to be searched.

The site has been classified as a Historical Monument.

Magdalenians were Homosapiens or Cro-Magnon men offering minor differences with today’s men. Some of them have been carefully buried, as for example in Laugerie Basse.

The last major drop in temperatures in the climatic history of the Earth, also called last “ice era”, took place during the Superior Paleolithic period, and during the coldest periods the temperature could -on a yearly average- be 4 to 5°c colder than today. Such a difference has a marked influence on both the flora and the fauna.

The Vézère valley used to host animal species that are typical of cold climates and that have now disappeared, such as the mammoth or the hairy rhino, and also species that still live today under the polar circle, such as the musk ox, the polar fox or the reindeer. Reindeers were the most hunted of all during Magdalenian times in Périgord. Excavation campaigns in Laugerie Basse have revealed that 90% of all bones discovered were reindeer bones.

Dead animals were fully utilized: flesh and fat were consumed, the skin was used for clothing or building huts, bones and antlers were turned into needles, harpoons, assegais or works of art.

The Magdalenians were not only great hunters, but also fishermen fishing trouts, salmons, pikes, and creating for all these activities quite sophisticated weapons such as assegais, propellers, etc.

The two sites are 150 metres from one another.

The Prehistoric Shelter of Laugerie Basse : : Free or guided visits in French or in English.
Guide books are available in German, Dutch, Italian or Spanish.
The tour lasts 45 minutes.
The shelter is accessible to disabled persons.
Dogs are allowed.
Open from easter to october

Low season: from 10:00 a.m. to 06:00 p.m.
High season: from 09:30 a.m. to 07:00 p.m. (july – august)

The cave was discovered on 12 September 1940 by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, as well as Ravidat’s dog, Robot. Public access was made easier after World War II. By 1955, the carbon dioxide produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the art. After the cave was closed, the paintings were restored to their original state, and are now monitored on a daily basis. Rooms in the cave include The Great Hall of the Bulls, the Lateral Passage, the Shaft of the Dead Man, the Chamber of Engravings, the Painted Gallery, and the Chamber of Felines.

Lascaux II, a replica of two of the cave halls – the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery – was opened in 1983, 200 meters from the original. Reproductions of other Lascaux artwork can be seen at the Centre of Prehistoric Art at Le Thot, France.

The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures. Many are too faint to discern, while others have deteriorated. Over 900 can be identified as animals, and 605 of these have been precisely identified. There are also many geometric figures. Of the animals, horses predominate, with 364 images. There are 90 paintings of stags. Also represented are cattle and bison, each representing 4-5% of the images. A smattering of other images include seven felines, a bird, a bear, a rhinoceros, and a human. Among the most famous images are four huge, black bulls or aurochs in the Hall of the Bulls. There are no images of reindeer, even though that was the principal source of food for the artists.

The four black bulls are the dominant figures among the 36 animals represented in the Hall of the Bulls. One of the bulls is 17 feet long — the largest animal discovered so far in cave art. The bulls appear to be in motion. The most famous section of this cave is the great hall of the bulls, where there are bulls, horses, and stags.

A painting referred to as “The Crossed Bison” and found in the chamber called the Nave is often held as an example of the skill of the Paleolithic cave painters. The crossed hind legs show the ability to use perspective in a manner that wasn’t seen again until the 15th century.

The environment of the cave consists essentially of agricultural lots in front, surrounded by a dense tree cover. In order to preserve the natural landscape, there is no picnic area in close proximity. There is, however, a gravel parking lot around 100 meters from the cave entrance.

Just next to Les Combarelles, Rey Cave, excavated by Emile Rivière, yielded a magnificent decorated spatula made from reindeer antler.

Around 50 meters further up the valley, the two Les Combarelles caves open into one wide entrance on a ledge around 10 meters above the current valley bottom. Les Combarelles I is open to the public, Les Combarelles II is closed.
There is a free parking lot very close to the welcome center. Guided visits must be reserved ahead of time at the ticket office of Font de Gaume cave.
Discovered in 1901 by Louis Capitain Henri Breuil and Denis Peyrony, the engravings of Les Combarelles Cave made a major contribution to the acceptance of parietal art. Along with those of Font-de-Gaume Cave, discovered just a few days later, and those of La Mouthe, known since 1895, the parietal works of Les Combarelles convinced researchers who until then did not believe that prehistoric humans had the mental and technical capacities necessary to realize them.

The entrance of the cavity was long used as a stable by peasants who found many Magdalenian flint and antler artifacts. But at the time, their interest was not recognized and the stratigraphy of the site remained unstudied.

The enthusiasm of Prehistorians concerning the engravings, on the other hand, lifted the site to its rightful place as one of the most beautiful decorated caves known. Henri Breuil even referred to this discovery as “(…) an enormous firecracker in the world of prehistory”.

Les Combarelles I has belonged to the State since its discovery. It is classified as historic monument and is open to the public. To accommodate visitors, the floor of the cave, was lowered and covered with a metal walkway. The lighting is dim and Plexiglas covers protect some of the figures from rubbing. Due to the fragility of the walls and natural alterations such as calcite deposits, it is necessary to limit the number of persons to 6 per visit. Les Combarelles II is closed to the public.

The innermost part of the cave is covered with engravings from the Magdalenian period (about 12,000 years ago). Drawn over a period of 2000 years, many are superimposed one upon another, and include horses, reindeer, mammoths and stylized human figures – among the finest are the heads of a horse and a lioness.

Hours May 15-Sept 15 Mon-Fri and Sun 9:30am-5:30pm; Sept 16-May 14 Mon-Fri and Sun 9:30am-12:30pm and 2-5:30pm 
  
 Location On D47, 17km (11 miles) north of Bergerac 
  
 Phone 05-53-06-86-00 
  
 Prices Admission 6.50€ ($8.45) adults, 4.50€ ($5.85) students and ages 18-24, free for children under 18

The first remains now known to be Neanderthal were discovered in Belgium in 1829, and further remains were discovered in Gibraltar in 1848. However, it was the 1856 discovery of a partial skull and an assortment of arm, leg and rib bones in the Neander Valley that led to the recognition of Neanderthals as a separate species by Hermann Schaffhausen. ‘Tal’ is the word for ‘valley’ in modern German, having replaced the ‘Thal’ of the slightly dated 19th Century dialect, hence the confusion between Neandertal and Neanderthal. In the light of Darwin’s Origin of Species, published three years later in 1859, Neanderthals became the first bones to be recognised as a ‘missing link’ between humans and apes, of the type that Darwin predicted.

Appearance

Neanderthal and human remains can be difficult to distinguish, especially when dealing with very partial remains. Differences include an occipital bun (lump on the back of the head), lack of a chin, more prominent brow-ridge, broader nose, slightly bowed leg-bones and a generally more robust physique. Most of these features can be found in human skeletons to some degree; for instance, although humans have smaller skulls on average, it is not true to say that all humans have smaller skulls than all Neanderthals. We have no direct way of telling whether Hn had a variety of hair, eye or skin colours, or indeed how much hair they had.

Early Theories

Since Darwin’s theory of evolution was unpublished when the first Neanderthal bones were discovered, scientists struggled to work out what they were. They were clearly more similar to human bones than those of any other living creature, and yet they were at the same time clearly not those of ordinary men. One theory, proposed by Rudolph Virchow, was that they were the remains of a man (assumed to be from Napoleon’s army) who had suffered from a unique form of debilitating rickets as a child, gone on to become a horseman causing him further deformities, suffered a series of crippling head injuries and ended up dying naked in a German valley just miles from the nearest village.

When the first complete set of Neanderthal remains was found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, Pierre Marcellin Boule reconstructed the individual in what would become the classic image of Neanderthals, stoop-backed, bent-kneed and with a ‘dumb’ brow and jaw. Later revisions would show that this individual had suffered from severe arthritis of the spine, but probably had little stoop if any.

‘Out of Africa’ v ‘Multi-region Hypothesis’

From the late 19th Century onwards, it was believed that modern humans were the result of a mixture of genetic traits, developed in separate parts of the world in mutually interbreeding populations. During the 1980s and 1990s, this theory was displaced by the single origin or ‘Out of Africa’ model, which envisaged several species of human evolving in Africa and migrating outwards into Asia and Europe, with each wave of migration displacing the previous one. This was based initially on finds of anatomically modern humans living in Africa 200,000 years ago, backed up by analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of Neanderthals and sapiens, showing that they diverged roughly 500,000 years ago.

More recently, a compromise between these two models appears to have been reached. Although the ‘Out of Africa’ scenario is still held to be generally correct, there is now increasing genetic evidence that inter-breeding did occur between sapiens and Neanderthals, and possibly between sapiens and erectus1 as well. However, gene flow appears to have been very limited, so we seem to be looking at distinct but occasionally interbreeding groups, rather than a homogenised group. Individual hybrids must have been completely incorporated into the society of either sub-species.

More detail can be found in the ‘Science Bit’ below.

How Similar Were They To Humans?

Neanderthals were, until around 24,000 years ago when they disappeared, the closest known relatives to modern humans2. We now have partial remains of over 400 Neanderthal individuals, making them the best-studied and most recent of the relatives of modern man. None of these bones have been fossilised, and some are intact enough to have had fragments of DNA extracted. Perhaps because they were first known as ‘missing links’, they have always been portrayed in the mass media as midpoint between humans and apes, with a stooped posture, receding brow and no culture except, perhaps, a few strategically placed pieces of animal hide.

This has, however, long been at odds with scientific interpretation both of Neanderthal remains and of the artefacts associated with them. Although Neanderthals are not now widely considered to be directly ancestral to Homo sapiens (with both species instead being descended from other Homo species), they remain far more closely related to us than most of the other extinct hominins3.

Neanderthals had notably large brains – larger on average than Homo sapiens. The average modern human has a brain capacity of around 1400cc. Neanderthals actually had larger brains, at 1500cc, which may seem surprising except for the facts that brain size does not indicate intelligence (whales, anyone?), and Neanderthal brain volume to body mass ratio is actually lower than in sapiens. They would have walked with a fully upright posture, and were capable of making tools of equal quality to those of Homo sapiens. The oldest known musical instrument is a fragment of a bone flute found at a site associated with Neanderthals, so they may have been the world’s first musicians (not including the whales, of course).

Neanderthals are believed to have contributed genetic material to modern humans by interbreeding with early Homo sapiens. This means that they were of the same species as humans; and since the evidence is that this interbreeding continued until the disappearance of Neanderthals, it seems that Neanderthals were never reproductively isolated from humans.

First Appearance

Neanderthals lived in many varied locations, and over a great length of time. It is not surprising that they varied in appearance, with those from more southerly regions being less adapted to the cold than their more northerly cousins.

Many of the traits that distinguish Neanderthals from sapiens and erectus are related to temperature. Neanderthals lived in Europe during a cold period in the Earth’s history – an ‘ice age’ – and consequently had adaptations including a broader nose (more efficient at heating inhaled air) and a squat, compact frame that minimised surface area to volume ratio and so reduced heat loss. The defining image of Neanderthals in popular culture – their stupidity – is categorically incorrect. Neanderthals had a sophisticated culture, and made some developments before their sapiens cousins.

Some cold-adapted traits first appeared in European hominins as long as 1,000,000 years ago in Iberia. However, this does not necessarily indicate genetic separation of the African and Neanderthal strains, which from genetic data is supposed to have happened closer to 500,000 years ago.

At its greatest extent, the Hn subspecies occupied all of mainland Europe south of Denmark and Scandinavia, the southern UK (the Watford Gap is old indeed), and roughly what is now Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq and even Uzbekistan.

Culture

The culture of Neanderthals is technically known as Mousterian, after Le Moustier in France, where a Neanderthal skull was found. This refers largely to the design of stone scrapers, probably used for either scraping skins or simple woodwork. There is no evidence that Neanderthals ever developed the ability to sew, so it is unlikely that they wore clothing (despite the cold climate). It seems that Neanderthals made use of fire, but probably not for warmth. They do not seem to have constructed any structures, even tents. Mousterian technology includes stabbing spearheads and axes, but no throwing spears or arrowheads.

Animal remains are frequently associated with Neanderthal sites, indicating that they were meat-eaters. Interestingly, these remains are usually of animals in their prime, something usually associated with farming rather than hunting (where elderly or infirm animals would be easier to catch). Injuries found in Neanderthal skeletons are frequently similar to those found in rodeo clowns, which implies that Neanderthals often wrestled with large animals. This most likely indicates a close-quarters hunting method, although it is possible that livestock was also kept. Many of these injuries (for instance those suffered by the aged individual recovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France) would have been debilitating, which indicates a communal structure that tended to the infirm.

Whistles made from the phalange bone of a reindeer leg – what would be a finger or toe bone in humans – are known from 90-100,000 years ago, but it is unclear whether these were used for music; an artefact that may or may not be a flute is known to have come from 20,000 years later, although many maintain it is a bone with bear tooth-holes in it. Neanderthals buried their dead, and one burial at Shanidar in Iraq was accompanied by grave goods in the form of plants. All of the plants are used in recent times for medicinal purposes, and it seems likely that the Neanderthals also used them in this way and buried them with their dead for the same reason. Grave goods are an archaeological marker of belief in an afterlife, so Neanderthals may well have had some form of religious belief.

Some Neanderthal burials appear to show incisions on the bones that would indicate butchery. This may be evidence of cannibalism, either by Neanderthals or sapiens. Whether this was an act of desperation or a religious ritual is not known, but it is generally accepted. However, it must be seen in the light of the other, more careful Neanderthal burials that would indicate a general respect for the dead.

Extinction

Neanderthals were adapted for a colder climate than their African cousins. Temperatures in Europe have fluctuated greatly over the past half-million years, with glaciers covering Scandinavia for long periods. It was long believed that rising temperatures, in combination with competition from sapiens, led to the disappearance of Neanderthals.

More accurate measurements of palaeoclimate have altered this view. The temperature increased from around 24,000 years ago, reaching its highest levels for 130,000 years. Neanderthals had survived at least two such warm spells (interglacial periods) before, and this third warming appears after final decline.

Neanderthals shared Europe with Homo sapiens for several tens of millennia, during which Hn appear to have been in decline. It is unclear whether there was direct competition between the two species; it seems more likely that competition was indirect, with H. sapiens being better at running after prey and using hurling weapons, and H. neanderthalensis no longer having the advantage of its cold-weather adaptations. It is also possible that rapid changes in climate denuded the forests; without sufficient cover to sneak up on their prey, the Neanderthals slowly found their ambush-hunting methods becoming ineffective – contrast this with the sapiens, who were able to use ranged weapons and relied less on the cover of the forests to hunt. However, this idea would clash with the evidence that the Neanderthals farmed animals.

There is some evidence that the range of Neanderthal dwellings tailed the ice northwards, with Homo sapiens colonising Europe from the south. However, this is inconclusive; Neanderthals survived at the extremities of Europe, with the last known population being in Gibraltar (ironically, at the southern limit of their range).

The Science Bit

The ‘Multiregion Hypothesis’ was first proposed in 1964, dominated throughout the 1980s, then fell out of favour during the 1990s. Mitochondrial DNA analyses of modern humans show that the most recent female ancestor common to all living humans lived less than 170,000 years ago – long after we diverged from Neanderthals 500,000 years ago. Later Y-chromosome analyses showed that our most recent male ancestor is around 100,000 years old. Although this was good evidence, it could also be explained by all part-Neanderthal lineages passing through an all-male generation, so that no Neanderthal mtDNA was passed on. Recovery in 1987 of mitochondrial DNA from a Neanderthal bone offered further confirmation of this theory.

The discovery in 1999 of a 24,000-year-old adolescent skeleton in Lapedo, Portugal (the Lapedo Child) with an apparent mixture of Neanderthal and sapiens characteristics has led to speculation that rather than going extinct, Neanderthals may have interbred with modern-type humans. More recently, a second alleged hybrid has been unearthed in Romania, and this idea has been backed up by more detailed genetic analyses. Haplotypes are sections of DNA that do not appear to be reshuffled during sexual reproduction. Although the majority of human haplotypes are consistent with ’shallow ancestry’ – the idea that Homo sapiens evolved in Asia around 160,000 years ago – a small number seem to show deeper ancestry. A haplotype known as PDHA1 seems to have diverged around 1,800,000 years ago. It is difficult to explain how both varieties survived if humans were reduced to a small population (a bottleneck) much later than that; this gives support to the idea that it was introduced into the population by interbreeding with another population, such as Neanderthals. This re-introduction of genetic material is known as introgression.

Another example is the haplotype microcephalin, which diverged around 1,000,000 years ago but seems to have introgressed around 40,000 years ago. This ties in very neatly with the fossil dates for the appearance of Neanderthals and their simultaneous occupation of Europe with Homo sapiens. Both these examples are of genes that appear to offer an advantage, and have spread throughout the population by natural selection. This makes it impossible to tell whether they were introduced multiple times or just once, so they cannot be used to judge the frequency of Neanderthal/sapiens hybrids. The next step in research is to analyse ‘junk’ haplotypes, which cannot be selected for or against and are thus unaffected by natural selection. If these are found to be common, it would indicate frequent hybridisation events.

Finally, the RRM2P4 haplotype appears to have diverged 2,000,000 years ago. This pre-dates the separation of sapiens and Neanderthals, so it offers a hint that our ancestors may have bred with another sub-species, Homo erectus.

Any two groups that interbreed in the wild are defined as the same species, so Neanderthals are now recognised as a sub-species of humans, and are officially known as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, as opposed to Homo sapiens sapiens, which covers everything from Cro-Magnon man to ourselves.

Controversies

As if the debates described above were not enough, there are a number of theories somewhere on the spectrum from the radical to the ridiculous. Below are some examples of ideas that are not generally accepted by palaeontologists but that do occasionally circulate.

Some studies indicate that Neanderthals may have had considerably longer lifespans than humans. This is not widely accepted, as it is based upon the assumption that rates of maturation in Neanderthals are very similar to those in Homo sapiens. Specifically, ages are calculated according to tooth wear and this is then correlated to maturity of the specimen in terms of height, development, etc. The conclusion is that Neanderthals took longer than sapiens to reach maturity, and thus that their lifespan must have been correspondingly longer. Almost every stage of this line of argument is contentious, and it is highly notable that no Neanderthal remains of individuals with an apparent age greater than around 40 years have been found.

Creationists, naturally, contend that Neanderthals are fully modern humans, often arguing along the lines of Virchow’s discredited theory that the differences between Neanderthals and sapiens are caused by injuries and pathologies. The sheer quantity of Neanderthal remains now known make it difficult to conceive of all individuals suffering the same injuries, and means that palaeontologists universally reject this idea.

Finally, it has been proposed that the related group of neurological disorders that include autism, Asperger’s syndrome, dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) may be due to the presence of Neanderthal genetic material, rather than mis-functioning genes. Supporters of this theory draw parallels between the symptoms of autism and deduced behaviours of Neanderthals: dispraxia (lack of hand-eye coordination) compared to absence of Neanderthal throwing weapons; seasonal affected disorder (SAD) may indicate Neanderthals hibernated; autistic children typically have a slightly larger brain; and difficulty in learning a language. They also note that autism is more common among people of European descent, who would be expected to have more Neanderthal genes than those of purely African or Asian descent. Opponents point to the circumstantial nature of this evidence, maintain that there are many symptoms of autism that are not explained in this way, and object to the assumptions made (there is no direct evidence to support the idea that Neanderthals hibernated outside of the Neanderthal theory of autism, and Neanderthals may well have had a language).

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1 Homo erectus was another relative of both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.
2 With the possible exception of the disputed taxon Homo floriensis, known to the popular media as ‘hobbits’.
3 ‘Hominin’ is the term used for all humans, living and extinct. ‘Hominid’, formerly used for humans, has now been widened to include apes. It is now possible that Neanderthals may have been driven extinct by terminal confusion about their own identity.

Neanderthal – Episode 1 – Part 1 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 1 – Part 2 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 1 – Part 3 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 1 – Part 4 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 1 – Part 5 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 2 – Part 1 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 2 – Part 2 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 2 – Part 3 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 2 – Part 4 of 5

Neanderthal – Episode 2 – Part 5 of 5

The Lower Paleolithic Period

The oldest recognizable tools made by members of the family of man are simple stone choppers, such as those discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. These tools may have been made over 1 million years ago by Australopithecus, ancestor of modern humans. Fractured stones called eoliths have been considered the earliest tools, but it is impossible to distinguish man-made from naturally produced modifications in such stones. Lower Paleolithic stone industries of the early species of humans called Homo erectus include the Choukoutienian of China and the Clactonian, Chellean-Abbevillian, Acheulian and Levalloisian represented at various sites in Europe, Africa, and Asia, from 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Stone tools of this period are of the core type, made by chipping the stone to form a cutting edge, or of the flake type, fashioned from fragments struck off a stone. Hand axes were the typical tool of these early hunters and food-gatherers.

The Middle Paleolithic Period

The Middle Paleolithic period includes the Mousterian culture, often associated with Neanderthal man, an early form of humans, living between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. Neanderthal remains are often found in caves with evidence of the use of fire. Neanderthals were hunters of prehistoric mammals, and their cultural remains, though unearthed chiefly in Europe, have been found also in N Africa, Palestine, and Siberia. Stone tools of this period are of the flake tradition, and bone implements, such as needles, indicate that crudely sewn furs and skins were used as body coverings. Since the dead were painted before burial, a kind of primitive religion may have been practiced.

The Upper Paleolithic Period

In the Upper Paleolithic period Neanderthal man disappears and is replaced by a variety of Homo sapiens such as Cro-Magnon man and Grimaldi man. This, the flowering of the Paleolithic period, saw an astonishing number of human cultures, such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Perigordian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian, rise and develop in the Old World. The beginnings of communal hunting and extensive fishing are found here, as is the first conclusive evidence of belief systems centering on magic and the supernatural. Pit houses, the first man-made shelters, were built, sewn clothing was worn, and sculpture and painting originated. Tools were of great variety, including flint and obsidian blades and projectile points. It is probable that the people of the Aurignacian culture migrated to Europe after developing their distinctive culture elsewhere, perhaps in Asia. Their stone tools are finely worked, and they made a typical figure eight-shaped blade. They also used bone, horn, and ivory and made necklaces and other personal ornaments. They carved the so-called Venus figures, ritual statuettes of bone, and made outline drawings on cave walls.

The hunters of the Solutrean phase of the Upper Paleolithic entered Europe from the east and ousted many of their Aurignacian predecessors. The Solutrean wrought extremely fine spearheads, shaped like a laurel leaf. The wild horse was their chief quarry. The Solutrean as well as remnants of the Aurignacian were replaced by the Magdalenian, the final, and perhaps most impressive, phase of the Paleolithic period. Here artifacts reflect a society made up of communities of fishermen and reindeer hunters. Surviving Magdalenian tools, which range from tiny microliths to implements of great length and fineness, indicate an advanced technique. Weapons were highly refined and varied, the atlatl first came into use, and along the southern edge of the ice sheet boats and harpoons were developed. However, the crowning achievement of the Magdalenian was its cave paintings, the culmination of Paleolithic art.

Caves decorated with art from the late Paleolithic period, approximately 10,000 to 30,000 years ago, have been found only in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Russia and Mongolia. The largest cluster of Paleolithic art caves dot the Dordogne department of southwestern France the Vezere Valley, which is honeycombed ,with limestone caves and towering cliff shelters eaten out by glaciers and underground rivers as long as 140 million years ago. In this underground network, with constant temperature and humidity and isolation from light, the art has been very well preserved.

The most exciting sites open to visitors in the Dordogne include Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume, with drawings of bison, horses and deer; Combarelles, where Stone Age people left more than 300 engravings, and Cap Blanc, offering 14 animals gracefully sculptured in deep relief.

Cave art had been seen by villagers as least as far back as the 16th century, according to graffiti in the vast cavern at Rouffignac. But it was assumed to be modern until an explorer announced in 1880 that the paintings in the Altamira cave were prehistoric.

The notion of art as ancient as 30,000 years before the birth of Christ was met with skepticism on the ground that it conflicted with Christian belief. Only in the 20th century did scientists agree that humans indeed discovered how to artfully draw, sculpture and carve engravings during the Stone Age.

The Louvre of all the caverns is Lascaux. The cave entrance, less than a mile south of Montignac on the Vezere River, was sealed from harmful air for centuries by landslides. After trees covering the entrance were uprooted by a storm, four teen-agers seeking buried treasure discovered the cave in 1940.

Opened to tourists in 1948, Lascaux had to be closed in 1963 after green algae and white calcium deposits attacked the paintings. An exact copy built in cement nearby was inaugurated in November 1984. The cement cannot be harmed by bacteria and outside air and the paintings are covered with a transparent film.

Contrary to widespread belief, the original Lascaux, guarded by a wire fence and two German shepherds, can be seen by qualified people. Applicants connected with science, journalism, teaching, art, museums, even politics, have received invitations after waiting for months.

On an authorized visit one recent day, a guide, Jacques Marsal, led the way past the dogs and wooden towers with instruments that record humidity, temperature and air pressure in the cave, monitored by the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Visitors must wet the soles of their shoes in antiseptic and descend to the dark, cold cave through three anterooms that keep out air. Then the electric lights go on, and the stereotype of the Stone Age brute is crushed. The cave gleams with delicate drawings in ocher and brick red, outlined in deepest black by artists who were obviously sensitive people. Deer with graceful horns, drawn with sensual lines, recall works of Picasso. The guide’s flashlight plays on a splendid herd of deer, apparently clambering out of water, each with a different expression, each in a different position.

On the cold stone walls, a calf stumbles before a three-sided square that could depict a trap. A horse falls over a cliff, its face showing fright, possibly depicting organized stampedes to slaughter animals.

”The artists painted the outline of each animal all in one movement without hesitation, quite a feat,” says the guide.

The final shock is emerging from the Stone Age cave to see white trails from jet fighters crisscrossing the blue sky. A two-minute walk downhill stands Lascaux II, the cement reproduction built by the owner of the land and the state, now the proprietor.

Molded above ground by 12 Brazilian, Greek and French sculptors over nine years, the cave is a feat in itself as the cement truly resembles rock. A French artist worked seven years with prehistoric tools and pigments to copy the paintings from photographs. The copiers even repeated holes where the prehistoric artists had inserted logs to stand on so they could reach a high ceiling to paint a circle of horses reminiscent of Chinese art.

The reproduction is impressive. But the ancient Lascaux, like any original artwork, is worth the wait. Lascaux II lacks the impact of antiquity, and the drawings appear flat because the real Lascaux walls glisten with crystals.

Some 200 paintings and 1,500 engravings decorate Lascaux I, which is 819 feet long. Lascaux II, 131 feet long, displays 100 or so paintings and no engravings.

Those startling handprints are a frequent motif in art of the late Paleolithic period. Handprints fringe paintings in the Pech Merle grotto, including one of a black polka-dotted horse. Two hundred fifteen handprints, usually of the left hand, decorate the Gargas cave in the Hautes-Pyrenees department near Spain.

Experts say 11 footprints at Pech Merle were those of a woman and child. They believe women and children often visited the caves to see the art, or to worship. The caves are believed to have been sanctuaries, devoted to the worship of animals, magic or the hunt, but scientists do not know for sure. The guides emphasize that prehistoric people were not ”cave men.” Because of the dampness of grottos and the need to build fires, Cro-Magnon people lived only at cave entrances, in minuscule caves or under overhangs of giant cliffs.

Patterns emerge in their art. Most of the subjects are grass-eaters such as horses, bison, deer, reindeer and ibex. Less numerous are meat-eating mammoths and rhinoceroses, which once roamed France, boars, wolves and fox, plus fish, birds and reptiles. A fish was engraved on the ceiling of a riverside shelter north of Les Eyzies, a Dordogne town dotted with prehistoric sites that calls itself the Prehistoric Capital of the World.

Drawings of humans are rare and not realistic. Men appear more often than women (although many prehistoric statuettes of women have been dug from sites throughout the world). In Lascaux, a man falls dead before a bull pierced with a spear, its entrails dangling. Arrows were thrust into men drawn at Lascaux, Pech Merle and Cougnac, north of Cahors. Evidence of war? Experts say flints have not been found in Paleolithic skeletons, but they have in later Neolithic graves after agriculture was discovered and people became property owners, and thus could have been defenders and aggressors.

The Cro-Magnons painted under the light of small stone lamps, which have been found in cave digs. They applied charcoal, ocher or red and yellow pigments of oxidized iron with brushes or their fingers or dabbed on colors with fur or blew them through tubes. Engravings were made with bone, horn or stone.

The art is seldom seen near cave entrances, perhaps for religious reasons – or because paintings near airy entrances did not last. The gigantic grotto at Rouffignac offers a mile and a half ride on a small train to view paintings of mammoths, some overdrawn with graffiti of modern explorers.

At Cap Blanc, near Les Eyzies, a 14,000-year-old frieze of five horses, carved in relief, rivaling those of ancient Greece, was even more ruined by the pickaxes of overenthusiastic diggers in the 20’s.

A visitor can see the major Paleolithic caves in the Dordogne within a week.

Most tours are in French, although descriptive pamphlets in English, Spanish and German are sold in most grottos. Large luxury chain hotels are absent, in favor of small, comfortable hotels.

Perigord and Quercy restaurants serve local specialties such as foie gras, truffles, walnuts and wild mushrooms. Canoeing and swimming in rivers and visiting more chateaus than are found in the Loire valley are other temptations.

But the passion for prehistory is catching. At La Madeleine, a site near Les Eyzies, prehistoric families lived in a riverside cliff shelter to be near fish. In the ninth century, about 80 people lived higher up, apparently so they could hurl stones on invading Vikings. The visitor turns away from the cliffside village, disappointed. Ninth century? That’s modern.

Discovered in 1901 by D. Peyrony, the Cave, 130 m long, contains about 250 paintings. The visitor can only see 30 of them, the most beautiful ones and the best preserved. After 60 m underground, the “Rubicon” is the beginning of the decorated part of the cave, with red dots on the left wall. These caves were not used as dwellings, they were shrines, according to A. Leroi-Gourhan The Grotte de Font-de-Gaume is famous for its cave paintings from the Magdalénien period. It is entrance is 20 m above the valley floor of the Beune valley, at the lower edege of a huge limestone rock.

There are many polychrome paintings and some engravings. The 240 figures show 80 bisons, which are the dominant motive. Most other pictures are also animals, 40 mammoths, 23 horses, 17 reindeers and deer, eight primitive cow, four goats, a wolf, a bear, and two rhinoceroses. More interesting, but less frequent, are four hand outlines and 19 geometric figures.

The cave was first settled by Stone Age people during the last Ice Age – about 25,000 BC – when the Dordogne was the domain of roaming bison, reindeer and mammoths. The cave mouth is no more than a fissure concealed by rocks and trees above a small lush valley, while inside, it’s a narrow twisting passage of irregular height in which you quickly lose your bearings in the dark. The first painting you see is a frieze of bison, at about eye level: reddish-brown in colour, massive, full of movement, and very far from the primitive representations you might expect. Further on a horse stands with one hoof slightly raised, resting. But the most miraculous of all is a frieze of five bison discovered in 1966 during cleaning operations. The colour, remarkably sharp and vivid, is preserved by a protective layer of calcite. Shading under the belly and down the thighs is used to give three-dimensionality with a sophistication that seems utterly modern. Another panel consists of superimposed drawings, a fairly common phenomenon in cave painting, sometimes the result of work by successive generations, but here an obviously deliberate technique. A reindeer in the foreground shares legs with a large bison behind to indicate perspective.

Useful Information

Location: Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. 1km from the centre of Eyzies on the left side of the Beune valley.

Open:

• MAR Thu-Tue 9:30-12 + 14-17:30,
• APR-SEP Thu-Tue 9-12 + 14-18,
• OCT Thu-Tue 9:30-12 + 14-17:30,
• NOV-FEB Thu-Tue 10-12 + 14-17.

Closed 01-JAN, 01-NOV, 11-NOV, 25-DEC.