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Becky Wragg Sykes Profile picture
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5 Jul, 5 tweets, 3 min read
New paper showing more structured material engagement by #Neanderthals: alternating engraved marks on giant deer bone, Einhornhöhle (Unicorn Cave), Germany.
Congratulations to the authors!

(transparency: peer review docs are available, I signed as R1)
nature.com/articles/s4155…
3D model publicly available here : denkmalpflege.niedersachsen.de/live/instituti…
Paper is not OA, but as usual the Supplementary materials docs (appendices) are, and contain a lot of info including on the marks analysis.

static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1…
If you're interested in *how* finds like this are critically assessed before they get published, it's worth looking at the peer review docs since they show the entire process of multiple rounds of reviewer comments & author responses.
I'll be writing a mini-thread on the archaeological context of this very intriguing find tomorrow!

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More from @LeMoustier

Becky Wragg Sykes Profile picture
7 Aug 20
#FlintFriday
Flint and clay-ironstone resharpening flakes, Ash Tree Cave, Derbyshire.

Even tiny objects show #Neanderthals moving around their land.
These two artefacts were waste from tool edge maintenance (scrapers or bifaces), but don't match anything in the cave.
1/n Red-brown thin stone flake, under 2 cm long.White flint flake with fine tiny scars, 2 cm wide.
But a few kms from Ash Tree Cave is @CreswellCrags, where scrapers & bifaces made of these stones were found in Church Hole and Robin Hood Cave.

We can't know if they were directly connected, but #Neanderthals were using the caves at Creswell & Ash Tree differently.

2/n
Clay-ironstone is a local, quite soft stone, probably used casually.
Flint however is trickier; there are occasional glacial cobbles of northern-type flint, but southern-type flint – which the scraper looks like – was probably brought into the region by #Neanderthals.

3/n
Read 5 tweets
Becky Wragg Sykes Profile picture
9 Apr 20
Aaaand it's out!

#Neanderthals made fine twine 45-50,000 years ago!

newscientist.com/article/224011…

I gave comments to the above article, and here's my more detailed thread (on THREAD)

😁
This find comes from Abri du Maras, SE France, which has already shown exceptional organic preservation due to unusual thin mineral films on the artefacts.
Previous finds included proof of small game butchery: fragments of raptor feathers, rabbit/hare fur and fish scales.
Another find from 7 yrs ago was *possible* evidence of 'string' .
Tiny plant fibres were found on stone artefacts, twisted in a way that didn't look natural.
It was slim evidence and some (inc. me) were skeptical. But the team continued, upping digging & conservation protocols.
Read 15 tweets
Becky Wragg Sykes Profile picture
18 Feb 20
Oh my GOSH
1st new #Neanderthal skeleton in +20 years

This is BIG stuff: plenty of bits & pieces found in that time plus vital re-examination of old claimed burials, but what's been missing is a new mostly-complete find we can use 21stC methods on

[off to read paper]
Might tweet as I read 😁

But note: Shanidar is a tricky site and there's long been evidence of both potential intentional body deposits, AND natural rockfall as ways #Neanderthal bodies got into the ground.
Plus there's a lot of individuals but while some are close to each other spatially (and relative to unexcavated area of this humungous rockshelter, all are clustered in centre), they're not all from same period in time.
Read 26 tweets
Becky Wragg Sykes Profile picture
15 Jan 19
Right I can't bear #Brexit so am treating everyone to a GIGANTIC THREAD on TRADE- #Neanderthal-style.

Hold onto your handaxes!
1/n
DID #NEANDERTHALS TRADE? An excellent question but extremely hard to answer (even for early Homo sapiens) because it relies on a lot of assumptions about how Neanderthal society was organised.
We’ve got two ways in:
- how things were moved around
- how people moved around
The biggest & best-studied category of artefacts to help us look for #Neanderthal trade is lithics: stone tools. Decades of research on where rock was sourced vs. where it ended up shows everybody, including Upper Palaeolithic H. sapiens, mostly shifted stone small distances.
Read 33 tweets

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