Excavations at Abric Romaní in Spain have revealed 597 wooden remains and imprints dating from 62,000 to 40,000 years ago, providing comprehensive evidence that Neanderthals regularly shaped wood into weapons, tools, containers, and structural elements.
Prehistoric archaeology has long suffered from a preservation bias. Because stone artifacts outlast organic materials by millennia, generations of researchers relied on flint tools to construct an image of Neanderthals as crude, brute-force survivors. For over a century, scientists branded them as pebble-pushers lost in an endlessly harsh Ice Age because stone outlasts virtually everything else. A comprehensive analysis published in Science Advances by researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) upends that view, shedding light on the perishable side of Pleistocene life.
Travertine Geology and Calcium Carbonate Molds at Abric Romaní
Organic objects ordinarily decay quickly, leaving behind only the most durable remnants, while organic materials perish and leave scientists to analyze a small fraction of ancient life. At Abric Romaní, a rock shelter located in Capellades, Spain, about 50 kilometers west of Barcelona, a rare combination of geology intervened. Situated along a travertine cliff face—a porous geological formation created when water minerals harden similarly to limescale buildup inside a kettle—the shelter spans approximately 300 square meters. As the site experienced periodic slow flooding, mineral-rich water deposited calcium carbonate from the surrounding travertine limestone.
In 1995, researchers noticed these cavities and filled them with resin, creating casts of the objects. Systematic excavations at the site began in 1983, and the ongoing work involves researchers such as Palmira Saladié of IPHES-CERCA and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, along with co-authors Gema Chacón, Josep Vallverdú, and other team members. Since 1983, archaeologists have uncovered sandy layers containing finds across 16 archaeological levels.
Weapons, Tools, and Structural Elements Found Across 16 Levels
The collection added up to 597 wooden remains and imprints, demonstrating remarkable technological versatility and the diversified exploitation of wood as a raw material.
“Wood was probably a much more important part of Neanderthal life than we normally see in the archaeological record.”
Josep Vallverdú, study co-author and archaeologist at IPHES-CERCA, via Gizmodo
The study notes how stone tools shaped our picture of Neanderthal technology for decades simply because stone survives extremely well while wood usually disappears. Yet wood is an active material that is much easier to shape than stone or metal, allowing ancient humans to make weapons, tools, containers, and items related to the organization of living spaces.
- Thrusting Spears: One of the spears measured roughly 8 feet in length, whereas another retained the mold of a pointed artifact spanning nearly 6.5 feet. A broken wooden spear in the rock shelter lay near a pile of sticks, branches, and a pinecone, and a second spear lay near three red deer skulls with their antlers still attached, suggesting the animals were killed in autumn or winter.
- The Wooden Mace: Uncovered within Level P, this unusual artifact was fashioned from a single timber piece featuring a distinct grip and an expanded, pointed terminal, resembling a mace complete with intentional shaping marks. Researchers note it has no known parallel in the prehistoric record, though only one other possible wooden club is known from the Old Stone Age, a find from Zambia about 400,000 years old.
- Containers and Architecture: Four charred bark trays lay near old campfires and may have carried food or scooped up embers. A defoliated pole exceeding 16 feet in length recovered near several hearths may have functioned as part of a windbreak, whereas intersecting poles positioned above another hearth could have constituted a tripod or served as a framework for sleeping and resting areas.
Woodworking Technology Spanned Millennia at Abric Romaní
The longevity of the woodworking tradition at Abric Romaní rules out an accidental or sporadic skill set. The truly distinctive aspect of Abric Romaní is the continuous presence of woodwork across multiple strata spanning millennia, utilized for vastly distinct purposes.
Using wood required an astonishing depth of environmental foresight—understanding grain, seasonal sap, flexibility, drying times, and carving physics.
“This suggests that woodworking was not occasional or exceptional. It was simply part of their technology.”
Gema Chacón, study co-author at IPHES-CERCA, via Gizmodo
As excavations persist at Abric Romaní, archaeologists consistently unearth fresh impressions that recover a dimension of Neanderthal civilization lost at the vast majority of locations, showing that the Neanderthal intellect represented a fully developed, highly inventive lineage of humanity that successfully manipulated its environment utilizing perishable resources.
Archaeologists also described a 30-centimeter object resembling a short stick, which may have been used for hunting, breaking bones, or working stone, carrying an unnatural shape and traces of scraping on its surface. Near hearths and refuse pits, researchers identified objects resembling meter-long digging sticks, further detailing the daily life of the site’s inhabitants.
Publication details for the work include authors Palmira Saladié, M. Gema Chacón, A. Solé, E. Allué, J. Marín-Hernando, B. Gómez de Soler, and Josep Vallverdú in Science Advances, detailing insights into the role of wood in a Middle Palaeolithic domestic context.
