Cave Discoveries in Czech Republic Hint at How Humans Outlasted Neanderthals

An international team of archaeologists has provided a window into one of the most exciting periods in human history — the transition between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

A suspected speartip made from material sourced more than 60 miles (100 km) east of Pod Hradem Cave. Image credit: Miroslav Kralik.

The team, led by Dr. Ladislav Nejman of the University of Sydney, has discovered evidence of ancient artifacts in a cave site in the Czech Republic, suggesting Neanderthals and modern humans occasionally traveled through the area 50,000 to 28,000 years ago.

The dig — in Pod Hradem Cave in the central part of the Moravian Karst, in southern Moravia, near Brno — has unearthed over 20,000 bones of prehistoric animals (reindeer, aurochs, wild horses and woolly rhinoceros) as well as stone tools, weapons, charcoal, and an engraved bone rod that is the oldest of its kind in Central Europe.

“We found that somewhere between 48,000 and 40,000 years ago people became highly mobile,” Dr. Nejman said.

“Instead of moving short distances near the cave where they lived, they were walking for hundreds of miles quite often. We know that because we found various artifacts where the raw material comes from 60-125 miles (100-200 km) away.”

“The artifacts were also made of different materials from different regions. Some from the North-West, some from the North, some from the East.”

An analysis conducted by the team incorporated a recently developed improvement to radiocarbon dating, using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, where the pre-treatment of samples is able to give a precise timeline for the numerous human visits to the cave.

“Such a relatively precise timeline for such an old site would be unthinkable even 10 to 20 years ago. We also gleaned a lot of information about the climate, the plants that grew around the cave, the type of wood that people brought into the cave to make fires and even what they ate,” Dr. Nejman said.

A pine nut from the Swiss pine (Pinus cembra) — which is now extinct in the area because the climate is too warm — was roasted and consumed by somebody in the cave between 45,000 to 48,000 years ago.

The researchers hope to learn if it was a Neanderthal or a Homo sapiens who roasted the pine, through an emerging technique called sediment aDNA (ancient DNA).

Analyzing sediment aDNA can work out what type of animals and humans visited the cave, even without their bones.

Tubular bone rod discovered during the 2011 field season in Pod Hradem Cave. Image credit: Nejman et al.

“The most significant thing we found in a 2011 excavation of the cave is a unique bone rod — probably part of a necklace — that is a testament to the incredible skill and exquisite craftsmanship these people possessed,” Dr. Nejman said.

“This is the oldest portable art object of its type found anywhere in Central Europe and provides evidence of social signaling, quite possibly used as a necklace to mark the identity of the wearer,” added co-author Dr. Duncan Wright, of the Australian National University.

Ends of the tubular bone rod: note sawing marks (left), sawing and grinding marks (right). Image credit: Francesco d’Errico / Wright et al, 10.1017/S0003598X00050201.

“We can tell by the artifacts that small groups of people camped at this cave. This was during glacial periods suggesting they were well adapted to these harsh conditions. It’s quite possible that the two different species of humans met in this area,” Dr. Wright said.

“Neanderthals had a tendency to live in one place and although we know they had very high levels of physical activity, they tended to return to the same place most of the time. In contrast, modern humans tended to move their place of residence much more frequently,” Dr. Nejman said.

“This difference in residential mobility levels probably helped the modern humans to survive in this harsh environment, because they could meet more often with other groups, reducing inbreeding.”

The research was published recently in the online edition of the Journal of Human Evolution.

_____

L. Nejman et al. 2017. Hominid visitation of the Moravian Karst during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition: New results from Pod Hradem Cave (Czech Republic). Journal of Human Evolution 108: 131-146; doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.03.015