General view of El Salt site, with the travertine wall on the right.Credit: Herrejón-Lagunilla et al., Nature (2024)
Posted on 06/11/2024 10:29:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A team of archaeologists in Spain has applied a new dating technique to more precisely determine the intervals between hearth fires from the Paleolithic Age.
This research, published in the journal Nature, reveals that the hearths at El Salt, a Paleolithic site, were used over 200 years with intervals of decades between uses. This suggests that Neanderthals returned to this site over multiple generations, challenging previous assumptions about their mobility and settlement patterns...
a novel combination of archaeomagnetic and archaeostratigraphic analyses... leverages the magnetic properties of minerals in the fire pits to record the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at the time they were last used. These magnetic signatures, combined with the stratigraphic analysis of the hearths' positions in the ground layers, allowed the researchers to establish a timeline with remarkable precision.
The team discovered that the six hearths at El Salt were created over a period of 200 to 240 years, with gaps of decades or even a century between their uses. This suggests that Neanderthals were not just wandering nomads but had specific sites they revisited regularly, possibly for seasonal activities or specific resources...
The controlled use of fire, a fundamental human skill dating back at least 790,000 years, is a critical aspect of this study. The presence of stone tools, animal bones, and other artifacts alongside the hearths provided additional context for interpreting the Neanderthals' lifestyle.
The research underscores that Neanderthals, who went extinct around 40,000 years ago, had complex social behaviors and were not as primitive as often depicted. The regular use of specific sites over centuries indicates a level of planning and social structure previously underestimated.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeologymag.com ...
General view of El Salt site, with the travertine wall on the right.Credit: Herrejón-Lagunilla et al., Nature (2024)
research results inconclusive.
This pattern suggests to me that wandering bands of Neandertals rediscovered the site and put it back into use, from time to time.
Gaps of "decades or even a century" over about 220 years indicate it wasn't used very often.
What a misleading title! I was expecting some new Paleo dating techniques.
Meat eating dinosaurs shouldn't date and marry vegan ones.
I once went on a dinner date, a friend’s wife wanted me to meet her friend. My friend picked a steakhouse to his wife’s dismay as her friend was a vegan. Awkward.
I simply couldn't court a woman who disses God's Genesis 1:29-30 plan for eating.
In the comics, the paleolithic dating technique was to hit women on the head with a stone club and drag them back to your cave by the hair. I’m not sure if this still works, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.
What a misleading post. They did use a new techique.
Nonsense.
the techniques were pretty simple- male takes club- knocks out female, drags to home cave- keeps hostage till she accepts the man
then, on reverse Tuesdays, the women get to club men for no apparent reason
What, dating techniques or dating techniques?
Your post.
It was posted as nonsense, but on reflection, I think it’s satire.
When the headline said “New dating technique”, I was expecting something a little less paleolithic...
;-)
Ketolithic?
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