RESEARCH ARTICLE SUMMARY
◥ARCHAEOLOGYLast Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as
fisher-hunter-gatherers
J. Zilhão*,D. E. Angelucci, M. Araújo Igreja, L. J. Arnold, E. Badal, P. Callapez, J. L. Cardoso,
F. d’Errico, J. Daura, M. Demuro, M. Deschamps, C. Dupont, S. Gabriel, D. L. Hoffmann, P. Legoinha,
H. Matias, A. M. Monge Soares, M. Nabais, P. Portela, A. Queffelec, F. Rodrigues, P. SoutoINTRODUCTION:A record of the regular ex-
ploitation of aquatic foods has been lacking
in Neandertal Europe. By contrast, marine re-
sources feature prominently—alongside personal
ornaments, body painting, and linear-geometric
drawings—in the archeology of Last Interglacial
Africa. A competitive advantage scenario of
human origins is that the habitual consump-
tion of aquatic foods and the fatty acids they con-
tain, which favor brain development, underpins
the acquisition of modernity in cognition and
behavior. The resulting innovations in tech-
nology, demographic growth, and enhanced
prosociality would therefore explain modern
humans’out-of-Africa expansion with regardto both dispersal process (along coastal routes
and to southern Asia first) and outcome (the
demise of coeval non-modern Eurasians). A
corollary of this view is that the paucity of
marine foods at Neandertal coastal sites is a
genuine reflection of their subsistence behavior.RATIONALE:Europe’s Atlantic façade boasts
resource-rich coastal waters comparable to
those of South Africa. From Scandinavia to
France, however, any evidence for the Last
Interglacial exploitation of marine resources
would have been lost to subsequent icecap
advances and postglacial submersion of the
wide continental platform. Conversely, the verysteep shelf off Arrábida, a littoral mountain
range 30 km south of Lisbon, Portugal, has
enabled extant and submerged shorelines
to be preserved short distances apart. Gruta
da Figueira Brava, one of Arrábida’s erosion-
protected, seaside cave sites, provides a singular
opportunity to investigate whether any con-
siderable Last Interglacial accumulations of
marine food debris ever existed in Europe.RESULTS:The Figueira Brava archeological
sequence dates to ~86 to 106 thousand years
ago (kya). Throughout, there is evidence of
a settlement-subsistence
system based on regular
exploitation of all animal
resources offered by the
coastal environment: large
crabs, marine mollusks,
fish, marine birds and
mammals, tortoise, water-
fowl, and hoofed game. The composition of the
food basket and the structure of the deposit
vary as a function of the following: (i) sea-
level oscillation, with implications for the eco-
systems that were preferentially targeted;
(ii) frequency of human occupation; (iii) site-
formation process; and (iv) position of the
archeological trenches relative to the changing
configuration of the inhabited space. The ini-
tial occupations (phases FB1 and FB2), when
the sea was closer to the cave (~750 m), include
shell-supported accumulations. These occupa-
tions were followed by a period of infrequent
use (phase FB3) and a final phase (FB4), when
the shoreline was ~2000 m away but shellfish
were again discarded at the site in substantial
amounts. The density of marine food remains
compares well to that seen in the regional
Mesolithic and the Last Interglacial of South
Africa and the Maghreb and exceeds the latter
two in the case of crabs and fish. Figueira
Brava also documents a stone pine economy
featuring seasonal harvesting and on-site storage
of the cones for deferred consumption of the
nuts. The stability of this subsistence system
suggests successful long-term adaptation.CONCLUSION:Figueira Brava provides the first
record of significant marine resource consump-
tion among Europe’s Neandertals. Taphonomic
and site-preservation biases explain why this
kind of record has not been previously found in
Europe on the scale seen among coeval African
populations. Consistent with rapidly accumu-
lating evidence that Neandertals possessed a
fully symbolic material culture, the subsistence
evidence reported here further questions the
behavioral gap once thought to separate them
from modern humans.
▪RESEARCH27 MARCH 2020•VOL 367 ISSUE 6485 1443The list of author affiliations is available in the full article online.
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Cite this article as J. Zilhãoet al.,Science 367 , eaaz7943
(2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz7943Gruta da Figueira Brava, Arrábida, Portugal. Note the Mediterranean vegetation, like at the time of the
Last Interglacial occupation, the MIS 5e marine abrasion terrace, and, under the overhang, the brecciated
remnant dated to ~86 to 106 kya. Neandertal use of this cave space, which is currently unroofed due to
Holocene erosion, has left an archeological record rich in fish, shellfish, and other coastal resources.SCIENCEPHOTOS: PEDRO SOUTO/JOÃO ZILHÃO.
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science.aaz7943
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