First burials: Neanderthal and Homo sapiens interactions in the Mid-Middle Palaeolithic Levant

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Exposed section of archaeological sediments dated to to 110 thousand years ago at Tinshemet cave

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Credit: Credit- Yossi Zaidner

The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioral innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.

Link to the images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19p__omKCSSPkGBI3b8beF1QXqeRahGk1?usp=drive_link

A new discovery at Tinshemet Cave in central Israel is reshaping our understanding of human interactions during the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) period in the Near East. The cave, remarkable for its wealth of archaeological and anthropological findings, has revealed several human burials—the first mid-MP burials unearthed in over fifty years.

This research, published in Nature Human Behaviour, marks the first publication on Tinshemet Cave and presents compelling evidence that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the region not only coexisted but also shared aspects of daily life, technology, and burial customs. These findings underscore the complexity of their interactions and hint at a more intertwined relationship than previously assumed.

The excavation of Tinshemet Cave, led by Prof. Yossi Zaidner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Marion Prévost of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been ongoing since 2017. A primary goal of the research team is to determine the nature of Homo sapiens–Neanderthal relationships in the mid-Middle Palaeolithic Levant. Were they rivals competing for resources, peaceful neighbours, or even collaborators?

By integrating data from four key fields—stone tool production, hunting strategies, symbolic behaviour, and social complexity—the study argues that different human groups, including Neanderthals, pre-Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens, engaged in meaningful interactions. These exchanges facilitated knowledge transmission and led to the gradual cultural homogenization of populations. The research suggests that these interactions spurred social complexity and behavioural innovations. For instance, formal burial customs began to appear around 110,000 years ago in Israel for the first time worldwide, likely as a result of intensified social interactions. A striking discovery at Tinshemet Cave is the extensive use of mineral pigments, particularly ochre, which may have been used for body decoration. This practice could have served to define social identities and distinctions among groups.

The clustering of human burials at Tinshemet Cave raises intriguing questions about its role in MP society. Could the site have functioned as a dedicated burial ground or even a cemetery? If so, this would suggest the presence of shared rituals and strong communal bonds. The placement of significant artifacts—such as stone tools, animal bones, and ochre chunks—within the burial pits may further indicate early beliefs in the afterlife.

Prof. Zaidner describes Israel as a "melting pot" where different human groups met, interacted, and evolved together. “Our data show that human connections and population interactions have been fundamental in driving cultural and technological innovations throughout history,” he explains.

Dr. Prévost highlights the unique geographic position of the region at the crossroads of human dispersals. “During the mid-MP, climatic improvements increased the region’s carrying capacity, leading to demographic expansion and intensified contact between different Homo taxa.”

Prof. Hershkovitz adds that the interconnectedness of lifestyles among various human groups in the Levant suggests deep relationships and shared adaptation strategies. “These findings paint a picture of dynamic interactions shaped by both cooperation and competition.”

The discoveries at Tinshemet Cave offer a fascinating glimpse into the social structures, symbolic behaviours, and daily lives of early human groups. They reveal a period of profound demographic and cultural transformations, shedding new light on the complex web of interactions that shaped our ancestors’ world. As excavations continue, Tinshemet Cave promises to provide even deeper insights into the origins of human society.

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Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-025-02110-y 

New fossil discovery of an early human ancestor reveals that it walked upright, just like humans

 

Remarkable new fossils from Swartkrans Cave reveal that a prehistoric relative of humans was also extremely small and vulnerable to predators.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of the Witwatersrand

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The new Paranthropus robustus thigh and shin bones, articulated at the knee joint. 

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Credit: Jason L. Heaton

Paranthropus robustus was a species of prehistoric human that lived in South Africa about two million years ago, alongside Homo ergaster, a direct ancestor of modern people. Fossils of Paranthropus robustus are found in abundance at Swartkrans Cave, situated about halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Much has been revealed about the diet and social organisation of this extinct species based on studies of its many skulls and hundreds of teeth, which have been recovered from Swartkrans since scientific excavations began there in 1948. 

For instance, the extremely heavy jaws and thickly enameled teeth of Paranthropus robustus suggest that, when times were lean, it was capable of subsisting on low quality foods that were difficult to chew. Moreover, some of the skulls and teeth of Paranthropus robustus are exceptionally large, while others are robust but not as large as those in the first group. This suggests that Paranthropus robustus was characterised by larger males and smaller females, indicating a mating system called polygyny, in which a single dominant male mates with multiple females.

Unfortunately, Swartkrans has over the years yielded many fewer bones from the rest of the Paranthropus robustus skeleton, limiting our understanding of its stature, posture, and locomotion, essential characteristics related to finding food and mates. A major new find from Swartkrans, the first articulating hipbone, thigh bone, and shin bone of Paranthropus robustus, changes that. 

A team of international researchers affiliated to the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), in South Africa including Travis Pickering, Matthew Caruana, Marine Cazenave, Ron Clarke, Jason Heaton, A.J. Heile, Kathleen Kuman, and Dominic Stratford, indicates in new research that this group of fossils belong to a single, young adult Paranthropus robustus. The fossil not only demonstrates that the species was, like modern humans, a habitual upright walker, but also confirms it was also extremely small. The research was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

“It is estimated that this individual, probably a female, was only about a meter tall and 27 kg when it died, making it even smaller than adults from other diminutive early human species, including those represented by the famous ‘Lucy’ (Australopithecus afarensis, about 3.2 million years old) and ‘Hobbit’ (Homo floresiensis, about 90,000 years old) skeletons, from Ethiopia and Indonesia, respectively,” says Professor Pickering from the Univesity of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the research. 

The small size of the new Paranthropus robustus individual would have made it vulnerable to predators — such as sabertooth cats and giant hyenas — known to have occupied the area around Swartkrans Cave. This notion is confirmed by the team’s investigation of damage on the surface of the fossils, which includes tooth marks and other chewing damage identical to that made by leopards on the bones of their prey. 

“Although it seems that this particular Paranthropus robustus individual was the unfortunate victim of predation, that conclusion does not mean that the entire species was inept. We know that Paranthropus robustus survived in South Africa for over a million years and is found invariably, and at various sites, in spatial association with stone and bone tools,” says Pickering. 

Those implements were used for a variety of purposes, including butchering animals for their meat and digging for edible roots and underground insects. It is a matter of current research whether Paranthropus robustus, contemporaneous Homo ergaster, or both, was the maker and user of those important tools—but the Swartkrans team believes that Paranthropus robustus very likely possessed the cognitive and physical capabilities to do both.

The team’s continued investigation of the fossils includes CT-scan analyses of internal bone structures, which will provide additional information on the growth and developmental patterns of Paranthropus robustus, as well as adding details to our growing appreciation of its locomotor behaviours.

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Journal

Journal of Human Evolution

Prehistoric bone tool ‘factory’ hints at early development of abstract reasoning in human ancestors

The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one million years earlier than thought, finds a new study involving researchers at UCL and CSIC- Spanish National Research Council.

The paper, published in Nature, describes a collection of 27 now-fossilised bones that had been shaped into hand tools 1.5 million years ago by human ancestors.

It’s the earliest substantial collection of tools made from bone ever found, revealing that they were being systematically produced one million years earlier than archaeologists once thought.

Early human ancestors known as hominins (human ancestors who could walk upright) had already been making tools out of stone in some capacity for at least a million years, but there’s been scant evidence of widespread toolmaking out of bones before about 500,000 years ago.

The hominins who shaped the recently-discovered bone tools did so in a manner similar to how they made tools out of stone, by chipping away small flakes to create sharp edges – a process called ‘knapping’.

This transfer of techniques from one medium to another shows that the hominins who made the bone tools had an advanced understanding of toolmaking, and that they could adapt their techniques to different materials, a significant intellectual leap. It could indicate that human ancestors at that time possessed a greater level of cognitive skills and brain development than scientists thought.

Co-author Dr Renata F. Peters (UCL Archaeology) said: “The tools show evidence that their creators carefully worked the bones, chipping off flakes to create useful shapes. We were excited to find these bone tools from such an early timeframe. It means that human ancestors were capable of transferring skills from stone to bone, a level of complex cognition that we haven’t seen elsewhere for another million years.”

Lead author Dr Ignacio de la Torre of the CSIC-Spanish National Research Council added: “This discovery leads us to assume that early humans significantly expanded their technological options, which until then were limited to the production of stone tools and now allowed new raw materials to be incorporated into the repertoire of potential artifacts.

“At the same time, this expansion of technological potential indicates advances in the cognitive abilities and mental structures of these hominins, who knew how to incorporate technical innovations by adapting their knowledge of stone work to the manipulation of bone remains.”

The tools were discovered in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, a site renowned for its long history of important archaeological discoveries revealing the origins of humans.

The researchers found 27 bones that had been shaped into tools at the site. The bones mostly came from large mammals, mostly elephants and hippos. The tools are exclusively made from the animals’ limb bones, as these are the most dense and strong.

The tools originate from a time in prehistory where early hominin cultures were undergoing one of the first ever technological transitions.

The very earliest stone tools come from the “Oldowan” age which stretched from about 2.7 million years ago to 1.5 million years ago. It employs a simple method for making stone tools, by chipping one or a few flakes off a stone core using a hammerstone.

The bone tools reported in this study were from the time that the ancient human ancestors were progressing into the “Acheulean” age which began as far back as about 1.7 million years ago. The Acheulean technology is best characterised by the use of more intricate handaxes that were carefully shaped by knapping – allowing the production of tools through more standardised means. 

The bone tools show that these more advanced techniques were carried over and adopted for use on bones as well, something previously unseen in the fossil record for another million years, much later into the Acheulean age.

Prior to this find, bones shaped into tools had only been identified sporadically in rare, isolated instances in the fossil record and never in a manner that implied that human ancestors were systematically producing them.

Though it’s unclear precisely what the tools were used for, because of their overall shape, size and sharp edges, it’s likely that they may have been employed to process animal carcasses for food.

It’s also unclear which species of human ancestor crafted the tools. No hominin remains were found alongside the collection of bone artefacts, though it’s known that, at the time, our human ancestor Homo erectus and another hominin species known as Paranthropus boisei were inhabitants of the region.

Because these tools were such an unexpected discovery, the researchers hope that their findings will prompt archaeologists to re-examine bone discoveries around the world in case other evidence of bone tools has been missed.

The first Bronze Age settlement in the Maghreb

 

UB researcher leads discovery of great significance for the history of Africa and the Mediterranean.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Barcelona

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Kach Kouch is located ten kilometres from the present-day coast, near the Strait of Gibraltar, and thirty kilometres southeast of Tétouan. 

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Credit: Hamza Benattia Melgarejo ( University of Barcelona)

Most Bronze Age settlements have been documented in European territory. Despite its geographical proximity, the Maghreb has always been absent from these historical narratives, erroneously characterized as an ‘empty land’ until the arrival of the Phoenicians around 800 BC. Now, a research study led by Hamza Benattia Melgarejo ( University of Barcelona) has uncovered the first Bronze Age settlement in this geographical area, predating the Phoenician period. This discovery is of great significance for the history of Africa and the Mediterranean. 

 

According to the results published in Antiquity, excavations at Kach Kouch, located in northwest Morocco, reveal a human occupation datable to between 2200 and 600 BC. This would show that it would be the earliest site of this chronology in Mediterranean Africa, except for Egypt. 

The international research team, led by Hamza Benattia Melgarejo, PhD student at the UB’s Faculty of Geography and History and member of the UB’s Classical and Protohistoric Archaeology Research Group, has been working on the prehistoric settlement of Kach Kouch, which extends over an area of approximately one hectare near the Lau River. It is located ten kilometres from the present-day coast, near the Strait of Gibraltar, and thirty kilometres southeast of Tétouan. 

Excavations have revealed different phases of occupation. The first, from 2200-2000 BC, is poorly represented but significant. The evidence suggests an initial contemporary occupation in the transition from the Bronze Age to neighbouring Iberia. 

The second phase, 1300-900 BC, is a vibrant period in the history of the settlement. A stable agricultural community was established at Kach Kouch and is the first definitive evidence of sedentary life before the Phoenician presence in the Maghreb. Wooden mud-brick buildings, rock-cut silos and grinding stones reveal a thriving agricultural economy based on crops such as barley and wheat, supplemented by sheep, goats and cattle. 

A third phase, extending from 800 to 600 BC, demonstrates the flexibility and adaptability of the inhabitants of Kach Kouch. During this period, several cultural innovations from the eastern Mediterranean were introduced, such as wheel-thrown pottery, iron tools and new architectural traditions using stone. This mix of local and foreign practices illustrates how the community actively participated in Mediterranean exchange networks.

“Kach Kouch is one of the first well-documented examples of continuous settlement in the Maghreb and tells a very different story from the one that has existed for a long time: it shows the history of dynamic local communities that were far from isolated”, says Benattia. “The excavations at this site are another step towards correcting these historical biases and reveal that the Maghreb was an active participant in the social, cultural and economic networks of the Mediterranean”, says the UB researcher. 

 

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Journal

Antiquity

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2025.10 

A a reduction in the population size of our ancestors from about 100,000 to about 1000 individuals

 Today, there are more than 8 billion human beings on the planet. We dominate Earth’s landscapes, and our activities are driving large numbers of other species to extinction. Had a researcher looked at the world sometime between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, however, the picture would have been quite different. Hu et al. used a newly developed coalescent model to predict past human population sizes from more than 3000 present-day human genomes (see the Perspective by Ashton and Stringer). The model detected a reduction in the population size of our ancestors from about 100,000 to about 1000 individuals, which persisted for about 100,000 years. The decline appears to have coincided with both major climate change and subsequent speciation events.

Article

Archaeology: Vesuvian ash cloud turned brain to glass

 

A unique dark-coloured organic glass, found inside the skull of an individual who died in Herculaneum during the 79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption, likely formed when they were killed by a very hot but short-lived ash cloud. The conclusion, from research published in Scientific Reports, is based on an analysis of the physical properties of the glass, thought to comprise the fossilised brain of the individual.

Glass rarely occurs naturally due to the specific conditions required for formation. For a substance to become glass, its liquid form must cool fast enough to not crystallise when becoming solid — requiring a large temperature difference between the substance and its surroundings — and the substance must become solid at a temperature well above that of its surroundings. As a result, it is extremely difficult for an organic glass to form, as ambient temperatures are rarely low enough for water — a key component of organic matter — to solidify. The only suspected natural organic glass was identified in 2020 in Herculaneum, Italy, but it was not clear how this glass formed.

Guido Giordano and colleagues analysed fragments of glass sampled from inside the skull and spinal cord of a deceased individual from Herculaneum, found lying in their bed in the Collegium Augustalium. The results of the analysis — which included imaging using X-rays and electron microscopy — indicated that, for the brain to become glass, it must have been heated above at least 510 degrees Celsius before cooling rapidly.

The authors note that this could not have occurred if the individual was heated solely by the pyroclastic flows which buried Herculaneum, as the temperatures of these flows did not reach higher than 465 degrees Celsius and would have cooled slowly. The authors therefore conclude, based on modern volcanic eruption observations, that a super-heated ash cloud which dissipated quickly was the first deadly event during Vesuvius’s eruption. They theorise that such an event would have raised the individual’s temperature above 510 degrees Celsius, before it rapidly cooled to ambient temperatures as the cloud dissipated. The bones of the individual’s skull and spine likely protected the brain from complete thermal breakdown, allowing fragments to form this unique organic glass.

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Journal

Scientific Reports

Earliest evidence for humans in rainforests

 

Rainforests are a major world biome which humans are not thought to have inhabited until relatively recently. New evidence now shows that humans lived in rainforests by at least 150 thousand years ago in Africa, the home of our species.

Our species originated in Africa around 300 thousand years ago, but the ecological and environmental contexts of our evolution are still little understood. In the search for answers, rainforests have often been overlooked, generally thought of as natural barriers to human habitation. 

Now, in a new study published in Nature, an international team of researchers challenge this view with the discovery that humans were living in rainforests within the present-day Côte d'Ivoire much earlier than previously thought. The article reveals that human groups were living in rainforests by 150 thousand years ago and argues that human evolution occurred across a variety of regions and habitats. 

The story of this discovery begins in the 1980s, when the site was first investigated by co-author Professor Yodé Guédé of l'Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny on a joint Ivorian-Soviet mission. Results from this initial study revealed a deeply stratified site containing stone tools in an area of present-day rainforest. But the age of the tools – and the ecology of the site when they were deposited there – could not be determined.

“Several recent climate models suggested the area could have been a rainforest refuge in the past as well, even during dry periods of forest fragmentation,” explains Professor Eleanor Scerri, leader of the Human Palaeosystems research group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and senior author of the study. “We knew the site presented the best possible chance for us to find out how far back into the past rainforest habitation extended.”

The Human Palaeosystems team therefore mounted a mission to re-investigate the site. “With Professor Guédé’s help, we relocated the original trench and were able to re-investigate it using state of the art methods that were not available thirty to forty years ago,” says Dr. James Blinkhorn, researcher at the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. The renewed study took place just in time, as the site has since been destroyed by mining activity.

“Before our study, the oldest secure evidence for habitation in African rainforests was around 18 thousand years ago and the oldest evidence of rainforest habitation anywhere came from southeast Asia at about 70 thousand years ago,” explains Dr. Eslem Ben Arous, researcher at the National Centre for Human Evolution Research (CENIEH), the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and lead author of the study. “This pushes back the oldest known evidence of humans in rainforests by more than double the previously known estimate.”

The researchers used several dating techniques, including Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Electron-Spin Resonance, to arrive at a date roughly 150 thousand years ago. 

At the same time, sediment samples were separately investigated for pollen, silicified plant remains called phytoliths, and leaf wax isotopes. Analyses indicated the region was heavily wooded, with pollen and leaf waxes typical for humid West African rainforests.  Low levels of grass pollen showed that the site wasn’t in a narrow strip of forest, but in a dense woodland. 

“This exciting discovery is the first of a long list as there are other Ivorian sites waiting to be investigated to study the human presence associated with rainforest,” says Professor Guédé joyfully. 

“Convergent evidence shows beyond doubt that ecological diversity sits at the heart of our species,” says Professor Scerri. “This reflects a complex history of population subdivision, in which different populations lived in different regions and habitat types. We now need to ask how these early human niche expansions impacted the plants and animals that shared the same niche-space with humans. In other words, how far back does human alteration of pristine natural habitats go?”

The research was funded by the Max Planck Society and the Leakey Foundation. 

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08613-y