The Stone Age owes its name to tools that have survived to our time. However, the material that early humans worked with most was probably wood because it is so much easier to work with. Unfortunately, we know very little about Paleolithic woodwork because wood rots relatively quickly. But at Abric Romaní, a rock shelter in Capellades, west of Barcelona, mineral-rich water coated wooden Neanderthal tools with a limestone-like crust. As the wood rotted, it left behind hollow molds that faithfully reflect its shape.
In a recent Science Advances study, a team of Spanish archaeologists cataloged 597 wooden remains from Neanderthal habitats dating back to 62,000 to 40,000 years ago. They found spears, digging sticks, bark bowls, parts of shelters and a club the likes of which had never been seen before, suggesting that Neanderthals were probably much more than just the dumber cousins of Homo sapiens.
More than hunting equipment
The oldest wooden artifacts we have are mainly weapons. These include spears from a German town called Schöningen, a spearhead from Clacton-on-Sea in England, and the spear found next to an elephant skeleton in Lehringen, Germany. Most came from flooded sediments where lack of oxygen slowed decay.
Above all, the spears give us information about how Neanderthals hunted. The finds at Abric Romaní are different because the finds come from a place where Neanderthals lived, slept, cooked and made tools over the course of about 20,000 years.
“We have a range of wooden tools for different subsistence activities, not just hunting,” says M. Gema Chacón, archaeologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) and co-author of the study. Since wood appears again and again, this shows that woodworking was routine for Neanderthals and not just an occasional isolated incident.
