Neanderthals and Seafood

Scholarly debates about the differences between Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans, two human species who shared the planet between about 150,000 and 30,000 years ago, often include some discussion of dietary differences.

In general, EMH has been demonstrated to have a broader range of diet choices than Neanderthals. Basically, Neanderthals are thought to have relied primarily on hunting and scavenging meat from terrestrial herbivores, while EMH were more omnivorous, hunting and scavenging a range of plants and animals.

Gorham's and Vanguard Caves

But on-going work at two caves on the Rock of Gibraltar, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on September 23, 2008, suggests that near coastal areas Neanderthal people also ate fish, shellfish, dolphins and monk seals.

Gorham's Cave and Vanguard Cave are two of several caves and sites on the Rock of Gibraltar that have been found to contain Mousterian artifacts---artifacts which are associated with Neanderthals in Europe. Research has been conducted there for some time by a team led by Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar Museum. You may remember that Gorham's Cave made the news a couple of years ago, because the latest Neanderthal occupations are so recent---only 25,000 years ago, about 3,000-5,000 years later than any other Neanderthal site found to date.

Marine Resources on Gibraltar

The latest report written by Finlayson and Chris Stringer and colleagues, addresses the marine resources which were utilized at Gorham and Vanguard caves. Butchering of marine resources took place at Vanguard and Gorham's cave not just during the most recent occupations, but several times. In particular, Vanguard Cave had at least three episodes where monk seals and dolphins were butchered alongside wild boar, wild cat and bear. Dates on the site are, at the moment anyway, somewhat fuzzy, because they are radiocarbon dates at the edge of usefulness, simply greater than 41,000 years ago.

So what Stringer and Finlayson and colleagues are reporting, is that Neanderthals had a broader diet than previously considered, at least in coastal zones. Such things could be, and probably will be as a result of this work, tested at more Neanderthal sites, because it is possible to identify whether seafood was part of a person's diet by undertaking stable isotope analysis of their bones.

To me, an interesting thing about the study is how close these sites are to North Africa. It's only about 14 kilometers across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco. And in Morocco are the EMH Mousterian sites of Grottes des Pigeons and Djebel Irhoud. Granted, the sea is pretty stormy there, but at the lowest sea levels there would have been islands available to shorten the crossing. How much contact might there have been and what would that have been like?

Sources

Both of these links lead to abstracts

Close, A. E. and T. Minichill 2007. Archaeological Records: Global Expansion 300,000-8000 years ago, Africa. Pages 99-107 in Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, edited by Scott A. Elias. Elsevier, Ltd: London.

Stringer, C. B., et al. 2008 Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(38):14319–14324.

• Gorham's Cave
• Mousterian Tradition
• Grottes des Pigeons
• Neanderthals
• Early Modern Humans