The Neanderthal as an artist? Ancestor decorated bones over 50,000 years ago Find from Unicorn Cave in Lower Saxony sheds new light on ancestors' cognitive abilities
Since the discovery of the first fossil remains in the 19th century, Neanderthal man has had the image of a primitive pre-human. That he was able to effectively make tools and weapons has long been proven, but could he also make ornaments, jewellery or even art? A research team led by the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the University of Göttingen, with the participation of TU Braunschweig, has analysed a new find from the Unicorn Cave in the Harz Mountains and comes to the conclusion: Neanderthal man, our genetically closest relative, already had amazing cognitive abilities. The results of the study have been published in the scientific journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution”.
In cooperation with the Unicornu fossile e.V. society, the researchers have been carrying out new excavations at the Unicorn Cave in the Harz Mountains since 2019. For the first time, they succeeded in uncovering well-preserved cultural layers from the Neanderthal period in the cave’s ruined entrance area. Among the preserved remains of hunting prey, an inconspicuous foot bone turned out to be a sensation: After removing the adhering soil, the bone revealed an angle-like pattern of six notches. “We quickly realised that these were not butcher’s marks but clearly ornamental,” says excavation director Dr. Dirk Leder of the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. The incorporated notches could then be analysed with 3D microscopy at the Department of Wood Biology and Wood Products at the University of Göttingen.
Foot bones of a giant deer
To make a comparison, the team conducted experiments with foot bones of present-day cattle. They show that the bone probably had to be boiled first, and then the pattern carved into the softened bone surface with stone tools in about 1.5 hours. The small foot bone now discovered has been assigned to a giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus). “It is probably no coincidence that the Neanderthal chose the bone of an impressive animal with huge antlers for his carving,” says Prof. Dr. Antje Schwalb from the Institute of Geosystems and Bioindication at Technische Universität Braunschweig.
The Leibniz Laboratory at Kiel University was able to determine an age of over 51,000 years for the decorated bone using the radiocarbon method. This is the first time that an object decorated by Neanderthals has been reliably dated using this method. Until now, a few ornamental objects from the time of the last Neanderthals in France were known. However, these finds, which are about 40,000 years old, are considered by many researchers to be imitations, because by this time modern humans had already spread to parts of Europe. Jewellery objects and small ivory sculptures have survived from cave sites of modern humans on the Swabian Alb in Baden-Württemberg that were found at about the same time.
“The great age of the new find from the Unicorn Cave now shows that Neanderthal man was already able to independently produce patterns on bones and probably also communicate with symbols thousands of years before the arrival of modern man in Europe,” says project leader Prof. Dr. Thomas Terberger from the NLD and the Seminar for Prehistory and Early History at University of Göttingen. “This speaks for an independent development of the Neanderthal’s creative power. The bone from the Unicorn Cave thus represents the oldest decorated object in Lower Saxony and one of the most important finds from the Neanderthal period in Central Europe.”
Fossil bat bones discovered
Dr. Hildegard Rupp from the Institute of Geosystems and Bioindication at TU Braunschweig was also able to find fossil bat bones in sediments inside the cave that presumably correlate in time. In order to find the tiny jaw fragments, some of which are only ten millimetres long, the excavated material with a volume of around 280 litres had to be washed and meticulously searched. A total of 29 fragments were found, which can be traced back to ten species. Since bats make high demands on their habitat, these finds can be used to infer the ecological conditions outside the Unicorn Cave during the sediment deposition period. According to these findings, forests predominated during this period and the average summer temperatures were comparable to those of today. These results prove the high value of the sediments of the Unicorn Cave with the fossil remains of former inhabitants embedded in them. Such climate and environmental archives for the Neanderthal time slice with such well-preserved bones are extremely rare.
Findings that revise our picture of prehistory
Lower Saxony’s Minister of Science Björn Thümler says: “Lower Saxony’s archaeology repeatedly provides findings and discoveries that rewrite our history. Now research in the Unicorn Cave has revealed that even the Neanderthals produced elaborate signs before the arrival of modern humans – yet another far-reaching new finding that thoroughly revises our picture of prehistory.”
Project partners
In addition to the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, the University of Göttingen and Technische Universität Braunschweig, the universities of Kiel, Tübingen and the FU Berlin were also involved in the project. It was funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture as part of the Pro*Niedersachsen programme.
Joint press release by TU Braunschweig, Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the University of Göttingen