A Neanderthal cave in northern Spain has yielded 15 marine fossils, indicative that our extinct ancestors might have been collectors, just like we are with certain small objects and memorabilia. Though no extensive evidence is in place to track these discoveries, there is definitely a sense that Neanderthal children practiced this advanced cognition, requiring everyday items to be imbued with symbolic meaning!
Collectors with Sharp Cognition: Neanderthals Weren’t ‘Apeish’
The constantly unresolved debate about purported Neanderthal intelligence rests on a spectrum, and while gathering seems like basic behavior, it is indicative of both abstract thought and a complex imagination. What can thus be gleaned is also that hoarding and collecting predated anatomically modern humans, thus adding further gravitas to the debate.
The authors of the study published in the journal Quatenary write:
“These fossils can be understood as evidence of an artistic interest or an attraction or curiosity for the forms of nature. Perhaps, like we do today, the people who collected them derived pleasure from the act of looking for them or finding them and keeping them.”
The Prado Vargas cave hoard is unprecedented because most assemblages that have historically been found consist of just one or two items at best. Taken together with the remains of Neanderthal children found at the site, the researchers speculate that the collection patterns are reminiscent of modern children – who like to amass stickers, sea shells, and even bottle tops; thus, similar behavior has been attributed to Neanderthal children.
Marine fossils excavated at the Prado Vargas Cave, Cornejo, Burgos and Spain. (Ruiz, M.N., et al. 2024/Quatenary)
There are, in fact, numerous instances of the ancient species producing art, caring for the elderly and disabled, and developing religious practices, including worshipping a ‘bear cult’. Time and again, the ‘ape-like’ Neanderthal stereotype – slow, dumb, not as cognitively sharp, has created a damaged understanding of our ancestral past, but more and more research is upending this.
Neanderthals Across Europe: A Hoarding Behavior Pattern
Just last year, it was learnt that Neanderthals living 70,000 years ago hoarded and deposited the skulls and horns of huge animals, including bison, wild bulls, deer, rhinoceros – 35 skulls in total were recovered. Other deposits from Europe, like Cueva Anton in Murcia, show perforated shells used as ornaments found from the Cueva de los Aviones.
Neanderthals at sites like the Bruniquel Cave in France appear to have deliberately collected mineral formations, such as stalactites and manganese dioxide blocks, while evidence from other sites in Europe shows that Neanderthals collected bird feathers and claws, likely for decorative or symbolic purposes. With numerous examples that support this hypothesis, we can perhaps gauge that Neanderthals were perhaps ‘the first collectors’.
The fossils have been dated to between 39,400 and 54,600 years ago, from a time and place with no Homo sapiens presence. The writers observe that:
“the Neanderthal groups that inhabited the Prado Vargas cave gathered and collected fossils, just as we look for fossils, even of these human species, to study them and finally “collect” them in museums. This seems to become an infinite spiral through which, at some point, we will be part of what we collect.”
What is curious, of course, is that the flora and fauna are from cold and humid conditions, with the presence of pines acting as fuel, and a diet based on deer, goats, and other animals. These fossils, mainly mollusks and echinoderms, do raise questions about what the purpose could be in a place so far from the sea.
Top image: Representative image of Neanderthal child playing with a collection of stones. Source: Sippung/Adobe Stock
By Sahir Pandey