Excavations in a Georgian cave suggest that the evolutionary advantage modern humans had over Neanderthals was control of a larger portion of their environment, and not, as has been suspected in the past, the ability to hunt successfully. Results of investigations at Ortvale Klde are reported by an international group of researchers led by Daniel S. Adler in the February 2006 issue of Current Anthropology.
Ortvale Klde was first excavated in 1973 by the Georgia State Museum under the direction of David Tushabramishvili, with subsequent excavations in the 1990’s led by Nicholaz Tushabramishvili. The research reported here stems from collaborative efforts by the Georgian State Museum, Harvard University, and a variety of international specialists.
Neanderthals and Modern Humans in Georgia
By about 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals and Modern humans shared planet earth and had done so for some tens of thousands of years. But shortly afterward, Neanderthals disappeared from our world. The reasons for the failure of Neanderthals and ultimate success of Modern human beings have puzzled archaeologists; but recent excavations at Ortvale Klde, a rockshelter in western Georgia, are providing new data concerning this early human Darwinian competition.
>Ortvale Klde ("Two Eyes Cave") is a shallow cave located in the footslopes of the Caucasus Mountains of the republic of Georgia. It was occupied by hominins-Neanderthals and Modern humans-between about 50,000 and 21,000 years ago, during the so-called Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic periods. Hominin remains are rarely found in Georgia, and as a result their sites are identified by the set of stone tools they used-called lithic assemblages by archaeologists. Neanderthals had a fairly limited stone tool assemblage with tools used for many different purposes. Early Modern humans made a wider variety of stone tools, some made for specific purposes as well as tools of bone and antler. At Ortvale Klde the Neanderthal tool kit included elongated blades and scrapers for general use.
Discrete Occupations at Ortvale Klde
At Ortvale Klde there is an abrupt break in the cultural deposits about 36,000 years ago. In the excavation levels dated before that time were found tools typical of Neanderthals; in the levels above those and more recently, there were found only tools typical of Modern humans. Preservation of animal bone in the cave deposits is excellent, allowing researchers to make comparisons of the animal meat used by both Neanderthals and Modern humans. [
Interestingly, both Modern humans and Neanderthals spent the late fall through early spring in the cave, hunting and eating the Caucasian tur, a kind of goat that spends its summers high in the Caucasus mountains, and its winters in the footslopes. Comparing the ages of the animals recovered from the cave indicates that both Neanderthals and Modern humans were able to successfully hunt prime adult animals. Were they scavengers, the bones in the cave would be likely juveniles or older animals, that have comparatively less fat and meat.
It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know
However, the lithic assemblage, particularly the source of the raw material used for stone tools, indicates that the Modern humans who used the cave knew about and could obtain resources from farther away from the cave than their Neanderthal cousins. Stone outcrops in the near neighborhood of Ortvale Klde contain fairly high quality chert; but 100 kilometers away is a source for very high quality obsidian. The Neanderthal deposits at Ortvale Klde are 99.6 percent local chert and .4 percent obsidian; while the Modern human deposits at Ortvale Klde have between 5 and 7 percent obsidian, suggesting that Modern humans had a greater (or more frequent) access to the obsidian quarry.
The researchers believe that this variation in lithic raw material coupled with the similarities in bone assemblages suggests the Modern humans ultimately had control, or access to, a larger region than the Neanderthals. They speculate that the control was not necessarily increased mobility of Modern humans, but because there were more Modern humans, they needed and used social networks--a pool of people one knows and shares information with. The increased knowledge of a larger region made Modern humans more able to compete successfully for resources in the Caucasus mountain valleys.
Sources
Daniel Adler's home page at the University of Connecticut has updates on his research including Ortvale Klde.
This glossary entry is part of the Guide to the Middle Paleolithic and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Adler, Daniel S., Guy Bar-Oz, Anna Belfer-Cohen, and Ofer Bar-Yosef 2006 Ahead of the Game: Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Hunting Behaviors in the Southern Caucasus. Current Anthropology 47(1):89-118.
Nicholaz Tushabramishvili, Daniel S. Adler, Ofer Bar-Yosef, and Anna Belfer-Cohen. 2003. Current Middle & Upper Palaeolithic Research in the Southern Caucasus. Antiquity 7 (295) March 2003
The Caucasian tur is an endangered species on the brink of extinction. Work is being conducted on the protection of these animals by the Caucasus Environmental NGO Network and Noah's Ark Centre for the Recovery of Endangered Species
Thanks to Daniel Adler for his assistance with this article. Any errors are mine.
