Neanderthals and sapiens had a profound interaction during the Middle Paleolithic in the Middle East
The first published study of the Tinshemet cave (in present-day Israel) reveals that its Neanderthals and Sapiens lived together during the Middle Paleolithic period, sharing technology, lifestyles and burial habits. These interactions encouraged cultural exchange, social complexity, and social innovations such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre to decorate.
The study, published openly in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, suggests that human connections were a key driver of technological and cultural advances, and that the Near East was a significant place in the evolution of sapiens.
The researchers launched the excavation in 2017 with the intention of knowing what the relationship between the Neanderthals and the Sapiens of the Middle Paleolithic was like, if they fought against each other to obtain resources, or if they were neighbors or even if they worked together.
Tools, hunting, ochre and burials
They have focused on four key aspects: the production of stone tools, hunting strategies, symbolic behavior and social complexity. From the analysis of the data obtained from all of them, it is concluded that the different human groups (pre-Neanderthal, Neanderthal and Sapiens) had a strong interaction. Thanks to this, the transmission of knowledge was facilitated and the populations were homogenized culturally: the technique of making stone tools, hunting large ungulates, the use of ochre... In fact, in the cave they have found a large number of ochres that were used, somewhere, to decorate the bodies to show their collective identity. All these aspects are consistent with the evidence found in other sites of this period in the Middle East.
Formal burials are also notable evidence of innovation and complexity, where such burials began for the first time around the world around 110,000 years ago. The study showed that, as in the Tinshemet cave, in the nearby caves of Qafzeh and Skhul, the bodies were buried in a right-sided position and in the form of foetuses, with no differences in age or sex. Since there are also objects in the pits, researchers have even come to suggest that they might believe in life after death.
In any case, research in the Tinshemet cave has provided valuable evidence of the interaction between different human groups.
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