Episode 214

Gimme (Rock)Shelter: Neanderthals at Home

We've discussed Neanderthals quite a bit on The Dirt (it's a whole section of Anna's contract). But while we've talked about their diet, their bodies, and their genes, we haven't spent much time thinking about their daily life, their living spaces, and the idea of "home." How did Neanderthals organize their domestic spaces? How do you make a cave cozy? How did people keep track of familiar places tens of thousands of years ago? What's cooking at Chez Neanderthal? Tune in to learn more!

Show notes:

Organization of residential space, site function variability, and seasonality of activities among MIS 5 Iberian Neandertals (Scientific Reports)

Neanderthals in the Levant: Behavioural Organization and the Beginnings of Human Modernity (Google Books)

Why this spot on the Jersey coast was like a magnet for Neanderthals (The Conversation)

Sleeping Activity Area within the Site Structure of Archaic Human Groups Evidence from Abric Romani Level N Combustion Activity Areas (Current Anthropology)

Variability of limestone knapping methods in Middle Palaeolithic levels M and Ob of Abric Romaní (Barcelona, Spain) (Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences)

Neanderthal Homes Were at The Cutting edge of Modern Living (University of Southampton)

Palaeolithic wooden artefacts from the Abric Romani (Capellades, Barcelona, Spain) (ScienceDirect)

The Paleolithic Age Cooked Up Creative Chefs (Sapiens)

Vegetation and climate record from Abric Romaní (Capellades, northeast Iberia) during the Upper Pleistocene (MIS 5d−3) (ScienceDirect)

Abundant molds of wooden remains were found in the Abric Romaní site evidences from 60,000 years old Neanderthal communities (IPHES News)

Neandertal Behavior at the Middle Palaeolithic Site of Abric Romaní, Capellades, Spain (Journal of Field Archaeology)

Neanderthals: an ecologically selective species? Experimental methods to research fire use in the Abric Romani rockshelter (UK Research and Innovation)

Science: Good housekeeping, Neanderthal style (New Scientist)

The complexity of Neanderthal technology (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Neanderthals may have enjoyed hot baths at home in their caves (Cnet)

Archaeologists "Exceptional Find" Reveals Secrets Of Human Origins (Madrid Metropolitan)

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Dirt Podcast
The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.