Anthropology

BY MEGHAN BARTELS ON 2/6/18 AT 11:41 AM

Archaeologists have discovered a cache of 58 wooden tools used by Neanderthals living in Northern Italy. Although the tools aren’t the first of their kind to be discovered, it’s a very important find given how difficult it is for wooden remains to survive for more than 170,000 years, as these have. The discovery is announced in a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The artifacts were boxwood sticks, ranging from less than six inches long to about three feet. They had each been peeled of their bark and stripped of branches, and about a fifth of them had been carefully charred in fire along all but the tip. The team of archaeologists who found them believe that these were used by Neanderthals the same way modern humans in certain indigenous groups use a tool called the digging stick to collect edible plants.

The archaeologists behind the new paper weren’t content only to find the tools; they also decided to try to make their own. That isn’t just a craft project—lead author Biancamaria Aranguren, an archaeologist at the ministry for cultural heritage in Florence, explained that this “experimental archaeology” helps archaeologists understand how Neanderthals made and used the artifacts.

The team behind the new paper also believes that means female Neanderthals were present and working at the site. “The discovery of the digging sticks at Poggetti Vecchi offers the opportunity to distinguish probably the active presence of women, something that rarely happens in prehistoric sites,” Aranguren wrote in an email to Newsweek. “This finding indicates that the area was frequented by the whole human group of early Neanderthals, both men and women, because it offered rich plant and animal resources, favored by the hot springs, in a period [that was] getting colder.”

More:
http://www.newsweek.com/neanderthal-tools-discovered-italy-charred-fire-stunning-condition-800238?piano_t=1