Neanderthals’ Tools Were Their Own Work

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OBSERVATORY

Neanderthals’ Tools Were Their Own Work

Julien Riel-Salvatore

Neanderthals used tools that they had developed on their own.

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

Published: September 27, 2010

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Neanderthals living in southern Italy 42,000 years ago developed bone and stone tools, decorative ornaments and pigments on their own, not through interactions with Homo sapiens, according toJulien Riel-Salvatore, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado, Denver.

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Until now, tools and ornaments used by Neanderthals were thought to have come about because of contact with the species that replaced them. But Dr. Riel-Salvatore said his paper in theJournal of Archaeological Method and Theory “counters the persistent idea about Neanderthals and shows that they were really able to innovate.” Dr. Riel-Salvatore spent several years studying artifacts from Neanderthal communities in southern and central Italy as well as human artifacts from the same time period in northern Italy.

Humans in northern Italy developed a diverse set of tools unique from those found in the Neanderthal community of southern Italy.

Meanwhile, Neanderthals in central Italy used the same large, primitive stone tools for 100,000 years, taking no inspiration from their neighbors to the north or south, Dr. Riel-Salvatore said

“If humans introduced tools to southern Italy, you would have found these new tools in central Italy first; that would be the natural geographic progression,” he said.

Because Neanderthals in central Italy were so primitive, it is likely that the innovations in the north and south occurred independently, he said.

Until recently, it was also unclear whether Neanderthals and humans interbred, but earlier this year, researchers determined that Neanderthals mated with some modern humans.