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Neanderthals built underground

2016; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 534; Issue: 7605 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nature18440

1476-4687

Marie Soressi,

The finding of 175,000-year-old structures deep inside a cave in France suggests that Neanderthals ventured underground and were responsible for some of the earliest constructions made by hominins. See Letter p.111 Very little is known of the cultural life of Neanderthals, the extinct hominins most closely related to modern humans, and of the earliest Neanderthals we know next to nothing. Since its natural closing during the Pleistocene period and until its discovery in 1990, no humans entered Bruniquel Cave, located in southwest France. Now Jacques Jaubert and colleagues describe and date two ring-like structures made of low walls of broken stalagmite pieces, deep in Bruniquel Cave. The construction of the structures 336 metres from the cave entrance, the larger more than five metres across, speaks of human industry, and the date of around 176,000 years ago places it within the compass of early Neanderthals and among the earliest well-dated structures made by humans. Traces of burning are found associated with the stalagmites, but the function of these structures remains conjectural.