{"id":924445,"date":"2026-10-07T20:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/924445\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T20:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:50:18","slug":"a-wooden-club-and-other-rare-finds-reveal-invisible-side-of-neanderthal-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/924445\/","title":{"rendered":"A Wooden Club and Other Rare Finds Reveal ‘Invisible’ Side of Neanderthal Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

As one of our closest ancient human relatives, the Neanderthals knew how to exploit natural resources for their benefit. That said, some Neanderthal tools survived the wear of time much better than others, so the archaeological record had a large wooden gap\u2014until now.<\/p>\n

In a Science Advances study published today<\/a>, scientists report the first comprehensive analysis of wooden Neanderthal tools retrieved from Abric Roman\u00ed, an archaeological site near Barcelona, Spain. The collection added up to 597 wooden remains and imprints from roughly between 62,000 and 42,000 years ago. The team identified 13 objects that resemble spears and pointed items, bark containers, structural elements, and a club-like object. Although this is not the first time archaeologists have discovered wooden objects attributed to Neanderthals, the findings expand our knowledge of our relatives\u2019 lifestyles.<\/p>\n

\"AbricDrawing and recording work during the excavation of the wooden object at Abric Roman\u00ed. Credit: Gerard Campeny \/ IPHES-CERCA <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the main message is quite simple,\u201d Josep Vallverd\u00fa<\/a>, a study co-author and an archaeologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA), told Gizmodo. \u201cWood was probably a much more important part of Neanderthal life than we normally see in the archaeological record.\u201d<\/p>\n

A wooden hole <\/p>\n

In many ways, archaeology is a race against time. This isn\u2019t a fancy analogy\u2014even now, objects of varying archaeological value are literally decomposing from existing for hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years. Some items tend to survive better than others, and while archaeologists can make educated guesses on the evolution of ancient technology, it\u2019s not always possible to identify physical evidence to back their stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cStone survives extremely well, so naturally stone tools dominate the archaeological record,\u201d Vallverd\u00fa explained. \u201cWood usually disappears. But wood is an incredibly versatile material.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NeanderthalIllustration depicting different scenes of Neanderthal groups at Abric Roman\u00ed using wooden objects. Credit: Hugo Prades \/ IPHES-CERCA <\/p>\n

Wood is much easier to shape than stone or metal. So ancient humans could use it to make weapons, tools, containers, and likely \u201cmany other things that we simply cannot see archaeologically,\u201d Vallverd\u00fa added. \u201cSo when we talk about Neanderthal technology, we have to remember that what archaeologists normally recover is only part of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nature\u2019s gift to archaeology <\/p>\n

Given the limitations, Abric Roman\u00ed represented a rare case in which nature had decided to preserve just enough traces for archaeologists. In fact, archaeologists had known this for a while and had intermittently studied individual elements discovered at the site, Palmira Saladi\u00e9<\/a>, the study\u2019s first author and an archaeologist at IPHES-CERCA, told Gizmodo.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we had never really brought all of this evidence together and looked at it as a whole,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd, to be honest, this was something we had wanted to do for years. These remains are extraordinary, but they are also very difficult to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NivellDrawing and recording work during the excavation of the wooden object from Abric Roman\u00ed interpreted as a wooden club. Credit: Gerard Campeny \/ IPHES-CERCA <\/p>\n

Previously, investigating wooden remains and imprints involved a complex process of making molds and treating the samples further with conservation and restoration techniques. But recent developments in 3D recording technology enabled the team to rapidly reconstruct a sample, which prompted the latest, larger-scale analysis, Saladi\u00e9 explained.<\/p>\n

Not a fluke <\/p>\n

Again, archaeologists had already<\/a> identified<\/a> wooden artifacts associated with Neanderthals at other sites, so there was already reason to believe Neanderthals were capable woodworkers. What sets Abric Roman\u00ed apart, however, is that we \u201csee wood again and again, in different archaeological levels, over thousands of years, and being used for very different things,\u201d study co-author Gema Chac\u00f3n<\/a>, also of IPHES-CERCA, told Gizmodo.<\/p>\n

\u201cStone survives. Wood usually doesn\u2019t. So there is an enormous part of their material world that we almost never get to see.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis suggests that woodworking was not occasional or exceptional. It was simply part of their technology,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd I think that is important. We should not think about Neanderthal woodworking only in terms of a few spectacular wooden spears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saladi\u00e9 added that the diversity of the wooden tools further supports this idea. There are objects that stand out more than others, like the club-like item with a narrow handle and a larger, bumpy head. But the entire assemblage boasts weapons, containers, pointed items, and items \u201crelated to the organization of living spaces,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\"WoodenWooden object from Abric Roman\u00ed interpreted as a wooden club. Credit: Gerard Campeny \/ IPHES-CERCA <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you put all these objects together, you suddenly see wood appearing in many different parts of Neanderthal life,\u201d she went on. \u201cIt gives us a glimpse of a Neanderthal material world that is normally almost completely invisible to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u2018invisible\u2019 Neanderthal life \"NeanderthalIllustration depicting different scenes of Neanderthal groups at Abric Roman\u00ed using wooden objects. Credit: Hugo Prades \/ IPHES-CERCA <\/p>\n

And the team hopes to find more to add to this \u201cinvisible\u201d story. Chac\u00f3n explained that the team was still excavating Abric Roman\u00ed and new imprints kept popping up as the researchers exposed more surfaces and layers. They\u2019d also like to explore other questions, like how much work went into creating and maintaining a wooden tool, or how these relate to Neanderthal activities observed elsewhere at the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the simplest message is that the Palaeolithic was not a world made only of stone,\u201d Vallverd\u00fa concluded. \u201cWe tend to imagine prehistoric people through the things archaeologists find, and that can be misleading. Stone survives. Wood usually doesn\u2019t. So there is an enormous part of their material world that we almost never get to see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As one of our closest ancient human relatives, the Neanderthals knew how to exploit natural resources for their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[53157,11419,49,48,34378,41595,66],"class_list":["post-924445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ancient-humans","tag-archaeology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-human-evolution","tag-neanderthal","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}