Three-step trail of an adult Neanderthal found in Matalascañas (Huelva) on the same surface as a set of tracks of straight-tusked elephants, some newborns.JOSÉ MARÍA GALÁN
Doñana 106,000 years ago. The sun begins to illuminate an immense beach (it was up to six kilometers wide) and a small group of Neanderthals take advantage of the first hours of light to follow the trail of a herd of straight-
tusked
elephants (
Palaeoloxodon antiquus
), the last species of these large pachyderms that inhabited southern continental Europe. The path has been traversed by wolves, deer, wild boar (
Sus scrofa scrofa)
weighing up to 300 kilos and aurochs (
Bos primigenius primigenius),
the wild ancestor of domestic bovines that came to measure
two meters high to the withers in the case of males.
Herbivores seek water and grasses in the lagoon areas between the dunes, which have not yet been formed as the current cliffs in the area, known as Asperillo.
Neanderthals and wolves look for prey, carrion and also water.
There are no caves in the area.
There never have been.
They all survive in the open.
A series of studies on the fossilized footprints discovered in Matalascañas (Almonte-Huelva), next to Doñana, allows us to reconstruct the life of Neanderthals and of various species of European megafauna.
The latest, published this Thursday in
Scientific Reports
, from the Nature group, unveils the first sequence of tracks from an adult Neanderthal and other isolated tracks that are contemporary with the tracks of female and elephant calf with straight tusks in the area.
More information
The trail of the last gigantic European elephants found in Huelva
Fernando Muñiz, ichnologist (who studies the traces or signs of activity left in sediments or rocks by living organisms), professor at the University of Seville and co-author of the series of investigations, details the most relevant findings of the latest study: “They are the clear three-step track of an adult Neanderthal and a set of isolated tracks on the same surface where the tracks of elephants, some hatchlings, appear.
This relationship is very important ”.
Elephant footprints with straight tusks from 106,000 years ago found in Matalascañas (Huelva) .Paula Gómez
These Neanderthals were neither the first (some studies date the oldest remains in Eurasia 400,000 years ago) nor the last, since the most recent footprint of this species, belonging to an adolescent approximately 1.30 meters tall and found in a quarry in Gibraltar, it is 28,300 years old.
However, the association of their footprints with the fauna of the area is key to understanding the life of a unique coastal colony.
According to the study, "the reconstruction of the paleoecology of hominids is essential to understand diets, social organizations and interactions with other animals."
The Matalascañas Neanderthal tracks are contemporaneous with 34 others of different tracks of straight-tusked elephants.
Some reflect the passage of two females who walked together after a slower calf
These Matalascañas Neanderthal tracks are contemporaneous with 34 others of different tracks of straight-tusked elephants. Some reflect the passage of two females who walked together after a slower brood. Of the youngest specimens, footprints and successions of these have been found that correspond to neonates and young infants, weighing between 70 and 200 kilos, and others of adolescents between eight and 15 years old. There are also isolated tracks of males up to 50 centimeters in length that indicate the presence of giant specimens that weighed up to seven tons.
The presence of these tracks shows that the grass and freshwater reserves in the area were conducive to breeding grounds for elephants, whose calves are less able to travel long distances in search of resources.
And this, according to Muñiz and Carlos Neto de Carvalho, Portuguese geologist, paleontologist and researcher, could be fundamental for the presence of Neanderthals, as there are references that they found easier prey in the youngest elephants and weakened prey females and " a very rich source of protein ”, without ruling out the resource of carrion from dead specimens at birth or from mothers who died in childbirth.
This is a site in a coastal area where they had no choice but to live outdoors
Joaquín Rodríguez Vidal, researcher at the University of Huelva
This abundance of resources and the benign climate, similar to the current one while the rest of Europe survived in icy environments, caused the Neanderthals to settle in the area, despite the absence of rocky shelters. Joaquín Rodríguez Vidal, professor of Geodynamics and Geomorphology at the University of Huelva, also co-author of the studies in the area, explains: “It is important to highlight that this is a site in a coastal area where they had no choice but to live outdoors. . It is and was an open landscape because, geologically, in the surroundings of Doñana there have never been rocky outcrops or nearby formations with caves, as in Guadalete (Cádiz) or Gibraltar.where many remains of Mousterian industry have been found [a term related to the rocky shelter of Le Moustier (France) and which gives its name to the manufacture of tools in the Middle Palaeolithic] ”.
Footprint of a newborn elephant calf with straight tusks showing nail marks.Paula Gómez
In any case, the existence of Neanderthal footprints confirmed by this team of researchers and the associated fauna show a stable presence of hominids in this coastal environment.
The Huelva professor considers that the set of different tracks shows the passage of several individuals, although he does not believe that it was a large group.
“They were not like the sapiens, who lived in larger communities.
Neanderthals used to form family groups and, possibly, that was one of the causes of their extinction, since they had to mix with each other: inbreeding and living in a small group gave them fewer advantages. "
Neanderthals used to form family groups and, possibly, that was one of the causes of their extinction, since they had to mix with each other: inbreeding and living in a small group gave them fewer advantages
Juan Manuel Jiménez Arenas, researcher from the Department of Prehistory and Archeology of the University of Granada and director of ProyectORCE, supports him in an investigation published in
Quaternary Science Reviews
and disseminated by the academic institution: “We are [
Homo sapiens
] a very gregarious species that we must have lived in relatively large groups, possibly of more than 30 individuals. This gave us an important evolutionary advantage to face, on the one hand, inbreeding (probably one of the triggers for the disappearance of Neanderthals) and, on the other, the presence of predators. Likewise, social cohesion would contribute to survival in a complex and conflictive environment ”.
Neto de Carvalho: "The last horizons seen by Neanderthals before their disappearance were in the extreme south of the Iberian Peninsula"
Research on the Matalascañas site has been led, together with Spanish scientists, by Carlos Neto de Carvalho, geologist, paleontologist and researcher at the Dom Luiz Institute (University of Lisbon) and the UNESCO Naturtejo World Geopark (Portugal).
This scientist, born in Lisbon 46 years ago, will participate from the 23rd to the 25th of this month in the annual Calpe Conference, an annual meeting that brings together the main specialists in Prehistory and Neanderthals.
𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐚.
What is the importance of research in Huelva?
𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚. Sites with signs of animal activity are a unique opportunity to glimpse past life moments and ecological interactions between groups of organisms that may even be extinct long ago. The Matalascañas deposit has been revealing great surprises to the international scientific community since its discovery in late spring 2020. Occasionally, the exposure of a vast rocky surface due to current coastal dynamics has allowed the identification of thousands of fossilized footprints of mammals and birds. in what would be a seasonal lagoon environment between dunes, similar to others that currently exist in Doñana. It turns out that these tracks are more than 106,000 years old, are very well preserved and reveal the presence of large mammals, such as deer,the wild boar of abnormal proportions if compared to the current Iberians, the aurochs (a giant bull extinct a few centuries ago) and the European elephant 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘦𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘹𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘶𝘴. The work now published in 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘴 highlights the discovery of an abnormal number of tracks from these elephants. The age of any species of elephant can be determined through its footprints and what we found in Matalascañas is that there is a predominance of newborn footprints, in some cases accompanied by adult footprints that presumably have been produced by their mothers. Therefore, and taking into account paleoenvironmental interpretations, we recognize Matalascañas as a maternity habitat for these elephants, something that has never been described in the fossil record.Simultaneously with these footprints, human footprints belonging to Neanderthals were found, making Matalascañas a site with unique characteristics to study ecological interactions of these humans with possible prey.
𝐏. What does the presence of coastal Neanderthals mean?
𝐑. There are hundreds of sites with lithic industries of Neanderthal production along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, especially in southern latitudes, such as the Iberian, Italian and Balkan peninsulas. Caves and open-air sites that reveal subsistence strategies and interaction between predator and prey are more rare. But, above all, the evidence of the presence of Neanderthals by the registration of their footprints is extraordinarily rare. This record gives us precise indications about the population size and demographic distribution of Neanderthal groups. They allow you to recreate Neanderthals by moving in their habitat. In a coastal context, the first footprint attributed to Neanderthals was studied by our group in Gibraltar, although the best known site is Le Rozel, in Brittany,due to the hundreds of footprints discovered on a single level. The Neanderthal tracks in Matalascañas have a special meaning, since they occur together with thousands of tracks of large herbivores, mostly species that were part of their diet, either by direct confrontation or through the selection of dead animals. With these tracks we find artifacts that were used in Matalascañas for meat processing.With these tracks we find artifacts that were used in Matalascañas for meat processing.With these tracks we find artifacts that were used in Matalascañas for meat processing.
𝐏. Elephants, aurochs, wolves, wild boars, deer ... Did you suppose the fauna that allowed the Neanderthal to develop in better conditions than in other enclaves?
𝐑. Neanderthals were primarily carnivores. The basis of their diet, proven by isotopic studies of the composition of bone remains, would be large mammals, such as aurochs and goats, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia. And elephants, like the mammoth and the European elephant, were part of the Neanderthal diet. In some studies conducted at archaeological sites in central Europe, Neanderthals were found to have a preference for newborn or juvenile elephants, either because of the quality of their fat and meat or because they would be easier to hunt, process and transport to the camp. This is the hypothesis we propose for Matalascañas: so many newborn elephant tracks and some Neanderthal tracks lead us to think about a possible relationship,without forgetting that this would be an extraordinary hunting territory in general, given the large number of tracks of large herbivores, in an area where they could reach water and new grasses as the summer progressed. But the Neanderthal diet was not exclusively carnivorous. In certain habitats and during periods of strong climatic fluctuations, Neanderthals have diversified their diet, including small game, vegetables, algae, shellfish, fish, and even marine mammals. There is no evidence of shellfish harvesting practices preserved in the Matalascañas sedimentary record, but accumulations of shells and marine mammal remains are known in Gibraltar in the Gorham and Vanguard caves, described by the team of Clive Finlayson, from the National Museum of Gibraltar.They show that we were not the only human beings who appreciated the pleasures of the sea.
𝐏. Is there a relationship between the Huelva community and others that are known in Portugal and Gibraltar?
𝐑. Certainly, the lithic industries attributed to Neanderthals and found throughout the coastal region, from the Cantabrian Atlantic strip to the Andalusian coast, are indicators of the recurrent presence and persistence of Neanderthals for at least 120,000 years in coastal habitats. The accumulations of shells in the caves occupied by Neanderthals show that their diet would diversify, at least in certain seasons of the year, by collecting shellfish and other marine resources. New finds of Neanderthal footprints and megafauna in southwestern Portugal, Matalascañas and Gibraltar, corresponding to a time period of almost 100,000 years, although rare,reinforce that coastal habitats were a well-known world of opportunities and were decisive for their persistence in the southern refuge of the Iberian Peninsula during the climatic crises of the last ice age. As for the Neanderthals, the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula would have been the last territory occupied by this species in Europe. These were also the last horizons seen by Neanderthals before they disappeared from the face of the Earth.
You can follow MATERIA on
,
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.