September 19, 2012
The Rock of Gibraltar: Neanderthals’ Last Refuge
In 1848, an officer in the British Royal Navy found the first Gibraltar Neanderthal fossil, the skull of an adult female. Image: AquilaGib/Wikicommons
I was intrigued when I saw this headline over at NPR’s 13.7 blog earlier this week: “A Neanderthal-Themed Park for Gibraltar?“ As it turns out, no one’s planning a human evolution Disney World along Gibraltar’s cliffs. Instead, government officials are hoping one of the area’s caves will become a Unesco World Heritage site. Gibraltar certainly deserves that distinction. The southwestern tip of Europe’s Iberian Peninsula, Gibraltar was home to the last-surviving Neanderthals. And then tens of thousands of years later, it became the site of one of the first Neanderthal fossil discoveries.
That discovery occurred at Forbes’ Quarry in 1848. During mining operations, an officer in the British Royal Navy, Captain Edmund Flint, uncovered an adult female skull (called Gibraltar 1). At the time, Neanderthals were not yet known to science, and the skull was given to the Gibraltar Scientific Society. Although Neanderthals were recognized by the 1860s, it wasn’t until the the first decade of the 20th century that anatomists realized Gibraltar 1 was indeed a Neanderthal. Additional Neanderthal discoveries came in the 1910s and 1920s at the Devil’s Tower rock shelter, which appeared to be a Neanderthal occupation site. In 1926, archaeologist Dorothy Garrod unearthed the skull of a Neanderthal child near flaked stone tools from the Mousterian industry. In all, archaeologists have found eight Neanderthal sites at Gibraltar.
The north face of the Rock of Gibraltar. Image: Keith Roper/Wikicommons
Today, excavations continue at Gorham’s Cave and Vanguard Cave, where scientists have learned about the life and times of the most recent populations of Neanderthals. In 2006, researchers radiocarbon dated charcoal to estimate that the youngest Neanderthal populations lived at Gibraltar as recently as 24,000 to 28,000 years before the present. Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum’s Heritage Division, has suggested that Neanderthals persisted so late at Gibraltar because the region stayed a warm Mediterranean refuge while glacial conditions set in across more northern Europe. Ancient pollen data and animal remains recovered from Gibraltar indicate Neanderthals had access to a variety of habitats—woodlands, savannah, salt marshes and scrub land—that provided a wealth of food options. In addition to hunting deer, rabbits and birds, these Neanderthals enjoyed eating monk seals, fish, mussels and even dolphins on a seasonal basis.
As with most things in paleoanthropology, the Neanderthal history at Gibraltar is not settled. Some anthropologists have questioned the validity of the very young radiocarbon dates. Why the Neanderthals eventually died out is also a matter of debate. Further climate change in Europe, competition with modern humans or some mix of both are all possible explanations.
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cool!
I finally found a site of a British uncovering. Thank you, Wayman, you saved my grade.
Didn’t the Neanderthal feather studies have extensive evidence from Gibraltar, or am I remembering things wrong?
@Tim-Yes, you’re right! A study just came out this week that discussed Neanderthals’ use of feathers. In case you’re interested: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045927
What was the paleogeography like at the mouth of the Mediterranean allowed Neanderthal access to the island of Gibraltar? When was the last time that Neandrethals could walk to Gibraltar? Might not the fact that it is the last refuge for them a function of the inability of any other hominids to get to Gibraltar?
@Dan, that’s a good question. I’m not an expert on geology. But if the Neanderthals really were living at Gibraltar 24,000 or 28,000 years ago, that’s pretty close to the last glacial maximum, when ice sheets were covering more of the Northern Hemisphere than they are today. That means sea level would have been lower because more water was locked up in the ice. Since Gibraltar is a peninsula today, I imagine it would have been a peninsula back then too since sea level was even lower. So I’m not sure there would have been a water barrier keeping other hominids out, although maybe there was some kind of other geographic barrier at the time.
Hi, Erin,
About those feathers that Clive Finlayson and this co-authors were touting at Gibraltar last weekend… I hope you’ll forgive me using an expletive. Poppycock! Aside from the ‘data’ that are inherently insignificant, statistically speaking, the whole idea that a large mammal like a Neanderthal would need a sharp rock to a) pluck and b) eat small-to-medium sized birds is itself preposterous. As for the claimed preference for black or dark-plumed birds, I’d ask how the authors’ imagined any other outcome. How many members of the crow family are anything but black, or of the raptor guild anything but dark fledged? The ‘journal’ that published the article, and the (some might say) asleep-at-the-switch referees may well be seen eating crow on this one as opposed to soaring with the eagles. Best regards, Rob