Dennis Sandgathe

On the Role of Fire in Neandertal Adaptations in Western Europe: Evidence from Pech de l'Azé and Roc de Marsal, France

Though the earliest evidence for the use of fire is a subject of debate, it is clear that by the late Middle Paleolithic, Neandertals in southwest France were able to use fire. The archaeological record of fire use in this place and time is, however, quite patchy. While there are a growing number of sites with impressive evidence for fire use, there are also a much larger number of sites without such evidence. Based primarily on evidence from two recently excavated well-stratified Middle Paleolithic sites, we argue here that taphonomic issues, sampling bias, or site use are not sufficient explanations to account for the relative lack of evidence for fire. Given that modern huntergatherers use fire daily and in a wide variety of circumstances, the prolonged periods of Mousterian occupation without fires, even during some of the harshest conditions of the late Pleistocene, raises significant issues regarding the role of fire during these times. In our view, the evidence suggests that Western European Neandertals were not habitual fire users. One explanation advanced here is that at least some Neandertals, even in the late Middle Paleolithic, lacked the technological skill to make fire on demand, and thus relied on access to natural sources of fire. PaleoAnthropology 2011: 216−242.

The Roc de Marsal Neandertal child: A reassessment of its status as a deliberate burial

Whether Neandertals buried their dead has considerable bearing on the debate concerning the nature of their cultural behavior. Among the claims for intentional Neandertal burial in Europe, the child from Roc de Marsal has long been one of the less contentious examples because its articulated skeleton was found in what has become widely accepted as an intentionally excavated pit. However, what is known about the context of the Roc de Marsal remains from the original descriptions, coupled with new stratigraphic, sedimentological, and archaeological data on the site from recent excavations, cast serious doubt on this interpretation.

New excavations at the site of Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco

PaleoAnthropology 2012: 145−201.

Did neanderthals eat inner bark

Using ethnographic parallels the authors identify ‘bark peelers’ used in Ice Age Europe. They suggest that Palaeolithic Europeans used these to extract edible and nourishing new growth from the trunks of spring trees.

Identifying and describing pattern and process in the evolution of hominin use of fire

Although research relating to Paleolithic fire use has a long history, it has seen a particular resurgence in the last decade. This has been fueled in part by improved analytical techniques, improved standards of data collection and reporting, and the discovery of new sites with important fire residues in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. A major component of this new research has been to identify when “controlled use” and “habitual use” of fire developed among Pleistocene hominins. However, an important starting point of this discussion is defining what is meant by “controlled use” and “habitual use,” as these terms have come to be used in undefined, inconsistent ways in the literature. We also need to lay out clearly how these behaviors might be recognized in the archaeological record and come to some understanding of what the potential implications of the development of these technologies and their geographic and climatic contexts are for the course of hominin evolution.

How did hominins adapt to ice age Europe without fire

Analyses of archaeological material recovered from several Middle Paleolithic sites in southwest France have provided strong corroborating data on Neanderthal use of fire. Both direct and indirect data show that Neanderthals in this region were frequently and/or intensively using fire during warmer periods, but such evidence declines significantly in occupations that took place during colder periods. One possible explanation for this pattern is that it reflects the inability of Western European Neanderthals to make fire, simply because natural sources of fire occur much more frequently during warmer climatic periods. Regardless of the explanation, the long periods of diminished evidence of fire shows that, unlike modern humans, these hominins were not obligate fire users, and this fact in itself raises important questions of how they adapted, physiologically and/or technologically, to the generally harsh glacial conditions of the middle latitude of Europe and to reduced energy returns typical of raw food. As a corollary, it also raises questions regarding their need for and use of fire during the warmer periods.

Fire and the Genus Homo: An Introduction to Supplement 16

Employing fire as an adaptive aid represents one of the most important technological developments in the course of hominin evolution, and, not surprisingly, research into the prehistoric use of fire has a long history. Over the last decade or so there has been a notable increase in research. Some people have continued to focus on better understanding of the timing of the beginning of fire use, but some have also been trying to understand something of its role in the evolution of the genus Homo. In the fall of 2015 a symposium was held in Portugal that brought together 17 researchers who have contributed significantly in recent years to this subject. These contributions include improving the type and quality of archaeological and ethnoarchaeological data, collecting and interpreting fire residue data from archaeological sites from various time periods and regions, and developing models of fire as an ecological resource and the role of cooking in hominin evolution. A result of the symposium was the recognition of the need to focus less on data from individual sites and more on the broader role of fire in hominin adaptations and to concentrate more on developing the analytical methods and skills to confidently interpret what we see in the archaeological record.

Testing the Roc de Marsal Neandertal “Burial” with Geoarchaeology

The question of intentional Neanderthal interment continues to be debated in paleoanthropology. Among the criteria that can be used to investigate the intentionality of a burial, many of them rely on geoarchaeological data that speak to the context of the human remains. In this paper, we revisit the original attribution of the Roc de Marsal Neandertal infant as an intentional burial by evaluating the sedimentary context, pit structure, and taphonomical aspects of the remains and their integration with data from the most recent excavations at the site. From a geoarchaeological point of view, no clear anthropogenic ritual signature was found. On the contrary, all the available evidence points towards natural formation processes associated with the initial deposition and subsequent burial of the Roc de Marsal Neandertal infant.

The Lithic Assemblages

Prior to excavating Pech IV, we studied Bordes’ collection from his 8 years of excavation at the site.

Stratigraphy, deposits, and site formation

From the outset of the Pech IV project, geoarchaeology played an integral role in the excavations.